Volume 2

A cyclopaedia of costume or dictionary of dress, including notices of contemporaneous fashions on the continent : a general chronological history of the costumes of the principal countries of Europe, from the commencement of the Christian era to the accession of George the Third / by James Robinson Planché.

  • Planché, J. R. (James Robinson), 1796-1880.
Date:
1876-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A cyclopaedia of costume or dictionary of dress, including notices of contemporaneous fashions on the continent : a general chronological history of the costumes of the principal countries of Europe, from the commencement of the Christian era to the accession of George the Third / by James Robinson Planché. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nations occupying the old provinces of Rome, were assuming more and more the dress and habits of the former Empire of the West. Montfaucon has collected and had engraved for his ‘Antiquites’ before mentioned, many subjects from statues, illuminated MSS., and other sources, representing the kings of France of the second race, from Pepin to Louis V., “ dit le Faineant,” A.D. 986 ; but no reliance is to be placed on the earlier figures, which have evidently been the work of later times. That of Clotaire or Lothaire, whichever of that name, or at what pre- cise date executed, is at all events interesting as illustrating not only the regal but also the military costume of the Anglo- Saxons. I give it, therefore, under reservation (page 29), calling attention to the square helmets of the two soldiers, a form of headpiece described by Anuerin, a writer who flourished in the sixth century in Britain, and fought, he says, in person against the Saxon invaders at the battle of Cattraeth; at which, he tells us, there were present “ three hundred warriors arrayed in gilded armour,” “ three loricated bands with three com- manders distinguished by golden torques,” armed with “ white sheathed piercers” (daggers?) and wearing “ four -pointed helmets.” Their principal leader had a projecting shield, was harnessed in “scaly mail,” armed with a slaughtering pike, and wore (as a mantle?) the skin of a beast. His long hair flowed down his shoulders, and was adorned when he was unarmed with a wreath of amber beads ; round his neck he also wore a golden torque. It is also deserving our notice that the same square helmets must have continued in use amongst the Franks for two hundred years, as they are seen in the undoubtedly contemporaneous illuminations of the Bible of Charles le Chauve, or the Bald, 840 (see chromolithograph, also woodcut above, in which the four-pointed helmet, the scaly mail, the slaughtering pike, the projecting shield, and the long hair flowing down the back, are all remarkable). Annexed are examples of the costume of ladies of the time of Charles the Bald, which will be Frankish Chief, 9th century. From Louandre, 'Arts somptuaires.’ Frankish Ladies. From the Bible of Charles le Chauve.