Above all other periods in our history, that of the weak Richard II was remarkable for the variety and gaiety of its fashions. The satirists and reformers of the day were zealous and loud in their outcries against the extravagance of the higher classes. Chaucer, who wrote at this period, in declaiming against the:

“superfluitee of clothing” which prevailed around him, blames “the coste of the enbrouding, the disguising, endenting, or barring, ounding, paling, winding, or bending, and semblable wast of cloth in vanitee; but ther is also the costlewe furring in hir gounes, so moche pounsoning of chesel to maken holes, so moche dagging of sheres, with the superfluitee in length of the foresaide gounes, trailing in the dong and in the myre, on hors and eke a foot, as wel of man as of woman, that all thilke trailing is veraily (as in effect) wasted, consumed, thred-bare, and rotten with dong, rather than it is yeven to the poure, to gret damage of the foresayd poure folk, and that in sondry wise.”

The “gowns” alluded to in this passage of Chaucer, as worn both by men and by women, are exhibited in the figures given, in the accompanying plate, from two MSS. of the period (MS. Reg. 15 D. Ill, and MS. Harl. No. 1319). The rich gown of the knight at the lower part of the plate, as well as that of the person who is making obeisance to him, will explain what Chaucer means by pounsoning and lagging. The edges of the sleeves, hoods, &c. were punched and dagged (or cut in shreds) into the form of leaves, &c, and sometimes gave the dress a very grotesque appearance. Among the nobility, the gown was often enriched with a profusion of jewellery. The man above has, apparently, a collar of small bells about his neck.

Source: Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, Volume 1 by Henry Shaw F.S.A. (1843)

Marco Polo (September 15, 1254 – January 8, 1324), the Venetian merchant, was one of the most famous explorers of the middle ages, whose writings about his journey through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295, are still read and admired to this day. The Travels of Marco Polo (or Book of the Marvels of the World or Il Milione in Italian) published around the start of the 14th century, described to Europeans the then exotic and rather mysterious culture and political workings of the Mongol Empire in the royal court of Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty of China, not to mention his observations about other Asian countries: Persia, India, and Japan.

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Marco Polo Among the Tartars

Before Marco had lived in the khan's palace a year, he had become quite used to his novel surroundings; and felt as much at home as he could anywhere outside of his native Italy. As soon as he learned the language so as to talk readily, he learned a great deal that was very curious about Cathay. He was never tired of asking questions, and he found many learned men about the court who were very willing to satisfy his curiosity.
He had now thrown aside his Venetian attire, and, like his father and uncle, wore the costume which was imposed upon him by Tartar custom; and very oddly he looked, in loose tunic, small turban, and turned-up shoes, his complexion being many shades lighter than that of the dusky faces around him. He had adopted, also, the Tartar ways of living; and instead of keeping himself apart, made himself one among the courtiers.

From Marco Polo; his travels and adventures by George M. Towle, (George Makepeace), 1841-1893

The dress of the men of Geilthal, in former times of an extremely peculiar fashion, is even at the present day unique and original.

They keep the hair cut short. The high crowned sugar-loaf hat, of a green or black color, is daily becoming more rare among them; the hat is now more commonly worn with a low crown; it is made of felt in winter, and in summer of straw. The neck is encircled with a plaited frill, sewed to the shirt. The waistcoat is red, and is fastened to the trousers by green braces; the doublet is brown; the trousers are brown or green, and reach no lower than the middle of the calf; the stockings are of white worsted; the sandals or slippers are made of bark.

It is from the Illyrian peasantry, and in particular those of the Geilthal, that the Italian theatre has borrowed the dress of some of its buffoons. That of the men, as described above, bears some resemblance to the costume of various burlesque characters in the ancient shows.

The women of the Geilthal let their hair hang in long twists, which the unmarried females intertwine with ribbons of silk or red worsted. The head-dress of the married women consists of a kind of round cap, which is sometimes fastened above with a black ribbon. They wear also a necklace of glass beads, made to imitate coral, and a broad muslin ruff or frill, with very small plaits.

Their short-sleeved jacket is usually red; the petticoat and apron blue, with borders of a strongly-contrasted color; wide ruffles hang down at the elbow; and in winter a brown cloak covers the whole. Their petticoats seldom reach much lower than the knee. This dress is extremely light, and well suited to the mode of life of these mountaineers. Their stockings are of white or colored worsted; their sandals are tied with ribbons or thongs. The waist is encircled with a girdle of black fur, adorned with small plates of copper; upon it hangs a closed knife. They seldom wear their hats, unless obliged to do so by rain or the heat of the sun; in general they carry them hanging by a ribbon to the arm.

Source: Select Historical Costumes Compiled from the Most Reliable Sources by Henry L. Hinton - 1868

While costume and the arts of life had remained uniform among the Anglo-Saxons, they had on the contrary undergone a great change on the Continent. Numerous and great political revolutions, and an extensive intercourse with the Arabs and other foreign nations, had brought many modifications even into the dress of the people, particularly of the higher classes. The Normans, when they had settled in Neustria, adopted the costume and language of the Franks.

The costume of the Anglo-Normans and Anglo-Saxons differed most widely (at the time of the Conquest) in the military dress. The Anglo-Norman soldiers were covered with the haubere or halberc, a tunic of mail, either ringed, or net-work, or quilted. This article of dress was probably borrowed from the Arabs. It appears in our plate of Spanish Warriors of the eleventh century, who (with the exception of the round shield) are dressed exactly like the Normans in the Bayeux Tapestry. To the neck of this tunic was attached a cowl, which covered the head, and over which was placed the conical helm, with the long nasal guard descending in front.

The shield of the Normans was long and kite-shaped, and often bore the figure of a dragon, lion, or some other device. The Norman lance had a flag attached to it, and was called a gonfanon. The bow and the sling were also formidable instruments in the hands of the Norman soldiers. Before the end of the eleventh century, several changes had been made in the form and construction of defensive armour, and it sustained continual alterations during the twelfth century. The cowl of mail was preserved, but the helmet underwent a series of changes; the nasal defence was thrown away at the beginning of the twelfth century, and a pointed iron cap was adopted; and towards the latter part of the same century the helmet took first the form of a high cone, which afterwards subsided into a flat-topped cap of steel, fastened under the chin with an iron hoop.

A long tunic was frequently worn under the hauberc, and the latter was partly covered with a surcoat, an article of dress supposed to have been borrowed from the Saracens during the crusades. The kite-shaped shield continued in use till after the middle of the twelfth century, after which it became shortened in form till it took nearly the form of a triangle, being semicylindrical instead of flat, as the kite-shaped shield had been. Under Richard I the shield was charged with the armorial bearings of its owner. To offensive weapons, was added, in the latter half of the twelfth century, the arbaleste or cross-bow.

Source: Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, Volume 1 by Henry Shaw F.S.A. (1843)

In the houses of great lords, musicians occupied the first place among the class of domestics. In early Saxon times, the common people had their bards, who received their support from the contributions of the many, while the kings had their minstrels as part of their household.

Among the Celtic races musicians held a still more important place in domestic life, and even in our own day it can hardly be said that, among the Gallic and Scotch peoples, the class of itinerant performers upon the harp and the flute is entirely extinct as a recognized element of society.

The plate which we give represents a group of simple musicians of the time of Edward III, and the singularity of their costume proves that a taste for the grotesque in dress had already made sensible progress at this period.

Source: Select Historical Costumes Compiled from the Most Reliable Sources by Henry L. Hinton - 1868

From Nosferatu to Count Dracula, Angel to Edward Cullen, vampires have entertained us in horror books, films and TV shows for well over a century, whilst folklore tales and legends of vampirism have been told for thousands of years in many cultures.

When Bram Stoker wrote his Gothic horror novel Dracula in 1897, however, he actually based his character on a cruel and bloody 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince - Vlad III the Impaler.

Not surprisingly, with the success of the Twilight books and movies, as well as the HBO show True Blood, not to mention all those Vampire offerings on Netflix, such as The Vampire Diaries, V-Wars, Vampires and yet another twist on Dracula, Vampire Costumes are still hugely popular at Halloween!

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Queen Guinevere was the wife of King Arthur and is best known for her romantic affair with Sir Lancelot. Eventually, their love was discovered and as Queen Guinevere was on the point of being tried for treason, Sir Lancelot rallied numerous other knights and helped her escape.

Queen Guinevere was a very skilled archer and was also an excellent swordswoman. Her great beauty is also often mentioned in accounts, with particular interest on the specifics of her costume and accessories, making Queen Guinevere a big hit at fancy dress parties to this very day!

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Dan Chaucer, as he is termed by some of our older writers, is the popular representative of the earlier period of English poetry; indeed he may be considered The Poet, par excellence, of the English Middle Ages. In spite of the antiquated character of his language, the Canterbury Tales will never cease to be generally read. Yet, as has been the case with many other great literary characters in ages when society was but half formed, in spite of his great fame, which was already established during his life time, many of the most important parts of his life are covered with mystery. We have no memorials left of his birth or of his parents, and the rank or condition of the latter has been a subject almost as much disputed as the celebrated question of the birthplace of Homer. The date of Chaucer's birth has been placed in the year 1328; we have his own authority for stating that it took place in London.

The place of his education has also been a matter of controversy, but from some expressions in his works it seems probable that he studied in Cambridge. It is said that he afterwards entered at the Temple; and his old biographer and editor Speght, informs us that there was there a record of his having been “fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan frier in Fleet Street.” In the records of the reigns of Edward III and Richard II, we find evidences of his having held various employments under the government, and entries of many payments to him from the exchequer. In the forty-eighth year of the reign of the first of these monarchs, he had a grant of a pitcher of wine daily during his life. Two years before this he had been sent by the king as envoy to Genoa. He returned to England imbued with a taste for the beauties of the Italian poets—for poetry then flourished in Italy. He died on the twenty-fifth of October, 1400.

There are preserved several different portraits of Chaucer. His disciple Occleve caused a picture of him to be painted at the beginning of a manuscript of his book De Regimine Principis, which he presented to Henry V. Under the drawing he inscribed the following stanza:

Although his life be queint, the resemblance
Of him that hath in me so fresh liyelines,
That to put other men in remembraunce
Of his person, I have here the likenes
Doe make, to the end, in soothe fastnes,
That they that of him have lost thought and mind
By this peiuture may againe him find.

Copies of this portrait are found in one or two MSS. of Occleve's book; and one of them was engraved to illustrate Tyrwhitt's edition of the Canterbury Tales. A different picture, representing the poet on horseback, is given in Todd's Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer, from a MS. now in the library of Lord Francis Egerton. In this portrait, the face is good, but the body is remarkably ill proportioned. The one we now give is preserved on a single leaf of vellum in the British Museum, MS. Additional No.

The resemblance which these different portraits bear to each other leaves no room to doubt that the likeness is correct.

Source for text and first illustration: Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages, Volume 1 by Henry Shaw F.S.A. (1843)

Featured image: British Library, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Anne Boleyn is the most famous and controversial of King Henry VIII's six wives. As his consort she was Queen of England briefly from 1533 to 1536 and gave birth to the future Elizabeth I.

Seen as both a sinner and a saint by different religious factions over the centuries, she was certainly an intelligent and spirited young woman, whose life and death by execution in the Tower of London continue to fascinate people to this very day.

Reports of her ghost haunting the Tower abound making an Anne Boleyn gown the perfect Halloween costume!

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Game of Thrones, the award-winning and critically acclaimed television series created for HBO by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, brings George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire to the small screen. Hugely popular – the show is HBO's third most-watched series ever – it has a passionate fan base, and its full cast of charismatic characters provide plenty of great Medieval-inspired costume ideas for Cosplay at Game of Thrones fan conventions.

Who are you? Khal Drogo of the Dothraki, his Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen, Viserys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Rob or Ned Stark, Tyrion Lannister, or Cersei Baratheon!?

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Image source: Benjamin Skinstad, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons