Peasant Renaissance Clothing for Men, Flanders, 1500s

This post describes Renaissance clothing for peasants during the 1500s in Flanders. The clothing descriptions are drawn from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting, The Wedding Dance.

In general, key components of peasant costumes for men during this time in Flanders are:

1. Clean shaven, bowl hair-cut
   
2. Shirt – long, white undershirt, worn next to skin
   
3. Doublet – worn over shirt, tight across upper body from neck to waist, sleeves are wrist-length and loose with a closer-fitting cuff around the wrist
   
4. Jerkin – optional wear, over the doublet, pleated at waist, knee-length, mutton-sleeves
   
5. Hose – snug, two legs sewn together, covering the feet, held up by tying to the bottom of the doublet, front opening covered by codpiece
   
6. Codpiece – tied across front opening in the hose
   
7. Shoes – loose cloth coverings, tied on top, worn over hose

Example of Flemish Peasant Renaissance Clothing for Men, 1500s.

Colors of Peasant Clothing
The peasants in Bruegel’s painting are wearing brightly colored, festive clothing. Generally, brightly colored clothing is associated only with wealthy persons during the Renaissance period. However, Amy Greenfield, in her book A Perfect Red, notes that “More prosperous peasants, craftsmen, and other middling folk dressed in muted clothing colored with cheap, domestic dyes. Although such dyes could sometimes yield strong blues, yellows, oranges, and greens, the fabrics tended to fade quickly, especially if the wearer worked outdoors.”(1)

Also, some artistic license may be at work here. Greenfield continues, “Peasants sometimes appear brightly dressed in medieval and Renaissance works of art . . . This is less a reflection of peasant wardrobes than of the fact that wealthy patrons could afford precious pigments and expected their artists to use them. Although some people in the lower ranks may have worn colorful clothes from time to time, particularly for special occasions, most of the vivid hues commonly worn by the wealthy were beyond their reach.”(1) Since this is a wedding dance, the clothing worn may be more colorful than normal, everyday wear.

Hats for Peasants
The above peasant is wearing a brown hat with a brim. The crown of the hat is shaped like an upside-down bowl. It appears to be made with cloth, like linen or wool. Possibly it is felted wool.(2) It does not appear to be straw. The hatband consists of a simple, white cord or string tied around the base of the crown. All of the men in the picture are wearing hats; if not this style then another.

Various Renaissance hats for peasants, from The Wedding Dance, 1566 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.(3) The two men on the right are musicians.

Hair and Beard Styles for Peasants
None of the men in the painting have mustaches or beards. Clean shaven is clearly in style. Hair is worn short, in a bowl-cut. It reaches to the nape of the neck, covers the top half of the ears and is short in front with bangs coming half-way down the forehead at most.

Shirts for Peasants
Next to the skin is a long, linen undershirt. It is white in color and has a high neckline that is just barely visible above the top of the doublet. The shirt is also visible between the doublet ties across the chest, and around the waist between the doublet and hose. It is at least mid-thigh length; long enough to go past the groin.

Doublets for Peasants
Over the shirt is worn a doublet. It is form-fitting across the upper body and goes from the neck to the waist. The sleeves of the doublet are likely wrist-length and of medium tightness. The doublet is secured across the front of the chest with ties. It consists of two or more layers of material, wool or linen. Possibly made with sheepskin.(4) Colors are red, pinkish-red, blue and brown. Not all peasants are wearing the same style. Some of the doublets are seamless across the front.

Examples of doublets from The Wedding Dance, 1566 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.(3)

Jerkins for Peasants
The jerkin is worn over the doublet. It is pleated at the waist, roughly knee-length, sometimes with a red inner lining. Jerkins are not worn by all the men in the painting. Perhaps this was a matter of choice, with those people who were hot taking off their jerkins. Possibly wool, the waist is set at belly button and small of back level. Probably, since these are peasants, the inner lining is dyed with madder plant dye, rather than the more expensive cochineal insect dye. Though “Deep, rich reds were also popular among peasants and small farmers . . . both legal strictures and the prohibitive cost ensured that they rarely had a chance to wear them. At best, peasants could afford only the cheaper orange-red and russet dyes.”(1) Outer layer of the jerkin is brown, black, pinkish-red and grey. On some jerkins it looks like the inner layer is separate from the outer layer. The ‘mutton-sleeves’ are wide around the upper arm and tighter around the lower arm.

Hose for Peasants
Snug hose cover both legs from toe to hip or waist.. Made with wool or linen.(5) Colors of hose included tan, brown, white, red, blue and dark brown. The hose legs are sewn together over the buttocks with a gap left along front. The gap in front allowed the hose to be pulled on over hips. Hose was tied to bottom of doublet through eyelets in order to keep it from falling down. In fact, one of the purposes of doublets was to keep up the hose.(6) A back view of one peasant shows a seam going up the back of each leg.

Codpiece
The codpiece was a pouch of fabric used to cover the genitals and was tied over the gap in the front of the hose. It was made with the same material as the hose. Its primary purpose was for modesty. However, padded and stylized, codpieces “. . . became a way to advertise one’s masculinity. . . Some [fashionable men] even used them as a sort of pocket, hiding small weapons or valuables there.”(7)

Shoes for Peasants
The shoes appear to be made with cloth. Probably linen and wool. They are tied across the top and gather loosely around the lower ankle. Nothing too complex. No arch support in these!

Examples of Renaissance shoes for men from The Wedding Dance, 1566 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.(3)

The Wedding Dance painted in 1566 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. [Public Domain] via Wikimedia.(3)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a talented painter of the Northern Renaissance. His paintings feature peasants and middle-class people during the late 1500s in Flanders. Flanders was a region in Northern Europe that included parts of what is today north France and Belgium and south Netherlands.(8)

Location of Flanders in 1500s.(9)

Sources

1. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), 27.
2. Joan Nunn, Fashion in Costume 1200 – 1980 (Lanham, MD: New Amsterdam Books, 1998), 50.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder
4. Francois Boucher, 20,000 Years of Fashion: The History of Costume and Personal Adornment (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1966), 246.
5. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, Fashion, Costume, and Culture, vol. 2 Early Cultures Across the Globe ed. Sarah Hermsen (New York: The Gale Group, 2004), 304.
6. Valerie Steele, Ed.-in-chief Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion vol. 1 (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 374.
7. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, Fashion, Costume, and Culture, vol. 3 European Culture from the Renaissance to the Modern Era ed. Sarah Hermsen (New York: The Gale Group, 2004), 474.
8. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., “Flanders,” 31 December 2010 [on-line article]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders; internet; accessed 18 January 2011.
9. Adapted from map of Europe by Google, 2011 [on-line map]; available from google.com; internet; accessed 12 February 2011.

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Using Bruegel Paintings to Research Renaissance Period Clothing

This post is about the Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525/1530 – 1569) and why his paintings are useful for researching Renaissance clothing. In summary:

1. Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted lower and middle class people, while many of his contemporaries focused on the wealthy and upper class people.
   
2. Bruegel painted accurate, detailed scenes of people going about everyday activities.
   
3. Bruegel painted people, even historical figures, dressed in the clothing of the 1500s.
   

The Peasant Wedding painted in 1568 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. [Public domain], via Wikimedia.(1)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a talented painter of the Northern Renaissance. His paintings feature peasants and middle-class people during the late 1500s in Flanders. Flanders was a region in Northern Europe that included parts of what is today north France and Belgium and south Netherlands.(2)

Location of Flanders in 1500s.(3)

Flanders was a major economic center of Europe and many trade goods passed through the region. It was the equal, in power and wealth, of the Italian city-states. As observed in The World of Bruegel, “The creation of a great age in art . . . seems to require vast supplies of manpower and money. The Flemish cities, through their flourishing trade, had accumulated enough of both to nourish a brilliant artist flowering.”(4) This wealth resulted in a Northern Renaissance separate from the Italian Renaissance, though occurring during the same time period.

In the 1400s, Northern painters were being commissioned by Italians to paint portraits and pictures. By the time Pieter Bruegel the Elder came along in the 1500s, foreign painters were being lured to Flanders in a manner similar to the visits foreign painters paid to Italy. One thing that foreign artists sought in Flanders was the technique of vibrant colour where “Depth was suggested not by a geometrical calculation of perspective (an Italian trick), but by the gradation of hues, achieved by the painstaking application of multiple layers of paint and gloss.”(5)

Northern Renaissance art was distinctly different from the art of the Italian Renaissance. While artists of the Italian Renaissance strove to portray the ideal human, Northern painters portrayed humanity in its rougher and less perfectly beautiful terms: “. . . the Northern masters painted as they did . . . from the insight that perceives that truth can sometimes be better conveyed by a pale, awkward figure than by a gloriously graceful one.”(6)

In many of his pictures, Pieter Bruegel the Elder portrays these grittier and more realistic details of life. This is one of the reasons why his artwork is so useful to the researcher of Renaissance period clothing. In addition, Bruegel focused on peasants and middle-class people, providing valuable details of their clothing. Reportedly, Bruegel “often attended village festivities and took pleasure “in observing the behavior of the peasants in eating, drinking, dancing, frolicking about, wooing and other droll carryings-on . . .”(7) His focus was unusual because most painters of his time, and certainly, most Italian painters focused instead on their wealthy patrons and the nobility in all their glorious and colorful fabrics. Bruegel did travel to Italy for a couple of years around 1552.(8)

Bruegel’s paintings, even paintings of Biblical scenes, were placed in his century in Flanders. This is not unusual for his time and place. As Foote notes, “That it seemed logical to Bruegel to dress Biblical characters in contemporary costumes reveals a 16th Century attitude toward the past that is not easily shared today. Unlike 20th Century man, Bruegel’s countrymen were not separated from preceding ages by an abyss of feeling or an acute awareness of intervening technological growth. For them, the past was a time, not very different from the present, when the common folk must have lived much as they were living in the 16th Century. They had only a vague knowledge of geography and a murky notion of whatever centuries-long changes in costume and custom had taken place.”(9)

Also, key to interpreting Northern Renaissance paintings for clothing details is the observation that “. . . Northern painters were growing more and more worldly in their ways of handling the Bible. In the first place, the Flemish fondness for realistic detail was being emphasized more and more, to the point where Biblical incidents were often subordinated to general scenes of everyday affairs. This was particularly true of Bruegel . . .”(10)

Below are more pictures by Bruegel:

The Peasant Dance painted in 1568 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. [Public domain], via Wikimedia.(1)

The Peasant and the Birdnester painted in 1568 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. [Public domain], via Wikimedia.(1)

The Land of Cockaigne painted in 1567 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. [Public domain], via Wikimedia.(ref)

Sources:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder
2. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., “Flanders,” 31 December 2010 [on-line article]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders; internet; accessed 18 January 2011.
3. Adapted from map of Europe by Google, 2011 [on-line map]; available from google.com; internet; accessed 12 February 2011.
4. Timothy Foote and eds., The World of Bruegel c. 1525 – 1569 (New York: Time-Life Books, 1975), 21.
5. Paul Arblaster, A History of the Low Countries (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 105.
6. Timothy Foote and eds., The World of Bruegel . . ., 18.
7. Herwig Guratzsch, Dutch and Flemish Painting (New York: Vilo, 1981), 116.
8. Herwig Guratzsch, Dutch and Flemish Painting . . ., 261.
9. Timothy Foote and eds., The World of Bruegel . . ., 94-95.
10. Timothy Foote and eds., The World of Bruegel . . ., 95.

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The Meaning of Renaissance and Medieval Clothing Colors

This post is designed to meet the needs of people looking for the symbolic meanings of Medieval and Renaissance clothing colors. It also describes the colors worn by certain members of society.

The meaning of colors is not a simple and exact body of knowledge. Even during the Renaissance and Medieval periods, the meanings of colors were debated (more about this below the list). So, consider yourself forewarned about the vagaries of color symbolism in clothing. The list below, while not comprehensive, does provide ideas from secondary sources about what different colors represented and how they were used.

• Reds - Renaissance
  
  • High social status, royalty, gentlemen, men of justice. (1)
    
  • Worn by judges and similar persons (Scotland, the Holy Roman Empire, England’s Court of Common Pleas, occasionally by peers in English Parliament); royal magistrates, king’s chancellor (France); high government posts (Venice and Florence). (2)
    
  • Cosmopolitan man with access to international trading centers. (3)
    
  • Power and prestige. (4)
    
  • In the Church, red was a symbol of authority, Pentecostal fire, the blood of Christ, martyrdom, crucifixion, Christian charity. Also, could symbolize the satanic and color of hellfire. (5)
    
  • At the universities of Padua and Bologna, red was symbolic of medicine. (6)
    
• Reds - Medieval
  
  • ’A lover wears vermilion, like blood’ (later Middle Ages). (7)
    
  • A sign of otherworldly power in European legends and folktales. Also, protection: red thread to ward off witches, red coral necklaces to guard against illness. (8)
    
  • Sometimes the color of the Virgin Mary’s robes. (5)
    
  • The color of kings, identified with kingly virtues of valor and success in war. Also, fire. (9)
    
  • A rich man. (10)
    
• Oranges - Renaissance
  
  • The peasants and middle ranked persons imitated upper class reds by dyeing their Renaissance clothes with cheaper orange-red and russet dyes. (11)
    
• Oranges - Medieval - nothing currently noted.
  
  
• Yellows - Renaissance
  
  • In almost all Italian cities, a prostitute was required to wear yellow. (6)
    
  • In Venice, Jews were required to sew a yellow circle onto clothing. (6)
    
• Yellows - Medieval
  
  • In later Middle Ages, a harmonious color expressing the balance between the red of justice and the white of compassion. (12)
    
  • Late 1300s in Venice, a prostitute is known by her yellow dress. (13)
    
• Greens - Renaissance
  
  • Youth, especially in May. (6)
    
  • In the secular sphere, chastity. (14)
    
  • Love and joy. (4)
    
• Greens - Medieval – nothing currently noted.
  
  
• Blues - Renaissance
  
  • Light blue represented a young marriageable woman. (6)
    
  • In England, blue was the traditional color of servitude. Servants or members of a City company were to wear bright blue or gray Renaissance clothing. (15)
    
  • Indigo or deep blue means chastity in the sacred sphere. (14)
    
  • “. . . turquoise was a sure sign of jealousy . . .” (4)
    
• Blues - Medieval
  
  • In the late Middle Ages, blue replaced royal purple in the mantle of the Virgin Mary and robes and heraldry (especially in France). (16)
    
  • A lover wears blue for fidelity (late Middle Ages). (7)
    
  • By the 1300s, peasants owned blue Medieval clothing due to woad dye being readily available. (17)
    
  • Early Middle Ages, blue was associated with darkness, evil. Later blue was associated with light. (18)
    
• Purples - Renaissance and Medieval
  
  • During the Renaissance, the Medici family in Florence, Italy wore purple. (6)
    
  • Since Antiquity, the color of kings and emperors, but mostly nonexistent in Renaissance and Medieval era due to near extinction of the snail used to make imperial purple. Imperial purple disappeared in 1453. (9)
    
• Browns - Renaissance
  
  • Modest and religious dress. (19)
    
  • Beige was the color of poverty. (20)
    
  • In England, dull browns were worn by lower classes. (15)
    
• Browns - Medieval - nothing currently noted.
  
  
• Grays - Renaissance
  
  • Modest and religious dress. (17)
    
  • The color of poverty. (20)
    
  • Female slaves in 1400s Florence were constrained to wear course woolens and no bright colors. (21)
    
  • In England, servants or members of a City company were to wear bright blue or gray. Grays for the lower classes. (15)
    
• Grays - Medieval
  
  • Color of peasant clothing (eighth century, by order of Charlemagne). (21)
    
• Blacks - Renaissance
  
  • Seriousness. (22)
    
  • Mourning. (6)
    
  • Color of clothing for nobility and wealthy, representing refinement and distinction. (23)
    
  • Worn by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgandy after 1419 as a symbol to the French that he did not forget the death of his father. “His black is at once dangerous, retributive . . .” (24)
    
    
    
    
    Painting of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy by Rogier van der Weyden, from a dedication page of the Chroniques de Hainault, 1400-1464. [Public domain], via Wikimedia.(25)
    
    
    
    
    
    
  • Worn by king’s ministers as a sign of their selves being submitted to the will of the king. Also, symbolizes defeat, humiliation and humility. (26)
    
  • In the 1400s, black began to suggest smartness, importance, sophistication, great dignity and state. Also, sad, melancholy, a humble color worn by mourners and monks. An expensive color to produce indicating social distinction and thus not worn by the lower classes. (26)
    
  • In the 1400s, merchants regularly wear black. (27)
    
  • Traditional color of Venice, and attributed to piety and virtue. Piety, to a Venetian, was that which increased the empire. (28)
    
  • A high fashion color in the mid-1500s. (29)
    
  • A Venetian senator wore black. (13)
    
  • In Genoa, Italy, the Doge and aristocracy wore black. (6)
    
  • In England, lower class women wore primarily black. (15)
    
• Blacks - Medieval
  
  • Black worn by a melancholy lover yearning with love. (7)
    
  • Color of peasant clothing (eighth century, by order of Charlemagne). Note that the quality of black may not be the same as the black referenced above for the Renaissance period, thus less expensive and accessible to peasants. (21)
    
  • According to Pope Innocent III about 1200, black is color of penance and mourning, used for Advent and Lent. (30)
    
  • The color of mourning in Brittany. (6)
    
• Whites - Renaissance
  
  • White is purity for women and chastity for men. (6)
    
  • At the universities of Padua and Bologna, white was symbolic of the humanities. (6)
    
• Whites - Medieval
  
  • A lover wears white for purity (later Middle Ages). (7)
    
  • According to Pope Innocent III about 1200, white is color of innocence and purity, and was used on the feasts of the Virgin. (30)
    
  • Compassion (later Middle Ages). (32)
    
  • In France, white was the color of mourning. (33)
    

Why Color Symbols are not Always in Agreement

Color symbolism during the Renaissance and Medieval periods has much in common with color symbolism today. Consider, for example, the current meanings of colors. In present-day U.S. culture, black is usually associated with mourning, unless it is in the form of a little, black cocktail dress in which case it signifies sophistication and elegance. White means purity in the form of a wedding dress, unless you are in China or Japan where it means mourning. Blue is for feeling sad unless you win a blue first prize ribbon. Green is for youth and it also means ‘go’ at a stoplight. (34) Stop at red and yet on Valentine’s Day send your loved one a red heart. (35)

In a similar manner, the symbolic meanings of color during the Renaissance and Medieval periods differed over time, and depended on local culture and geographic area. As John Gage points out in his book Color and Meaning, colour-perceptions are unstable, making it difficult to confidently name colour-meanings and preferences in cultures. (36)

The primary problem for students of the Renaissance and Medieval era is a lack of universally agreed-upon symbols. Not only was there more than one system of color symbols in place, but the different systems contradicted each other. For instance, “The regal purple of Christ’s robe may be the same as the scarlet of sin.”(37) Or another example, in the 1500s, writers in Venice, Italy “. . . began to compare the various opinions and to find that they had very little in common. In a series of dialogues on love, where, of course, the expressive force of colours was seen to play a vital role, Mario Equicola in 1525 admitted the dangers of talking of colours at all, because of the differences in ancient and modern terms and because different authorities gave different equivalents for the colours of the elements or the planets; worse, ‘the meanings of colours are somewhat different among the Italians, the Spanish and the French’. . . An assortment of colours according to their meaning, said Morato, might even have a very disagreeable aesthetic effect.”(38)

Nevertheless, it is possible to see that some colors were considered more valuable and had more significant meanings than others. Often these were the colors with high economic value, like red and purple. Since, the economic values tended to be the same for much of Europe, general conclusions can be drawn. However, if historical accuracy for clothing colors is important, then focusing a particular region and time period is recommended.

Sources


1. Jill Condra, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History, vol. 2, 1501-1800 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008), 17 -18. Available from http://books.google.com/. Internet. Accessed 4 June 2009.

2. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), 25.

3. Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 31.

4. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 19.

5. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 22.

6. Jill Condra, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History, vol. 2 . . ., 18.

7. John Harvey, Men in Black (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 51.

8. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 21.

9. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 23.

10. Georges Duby and Philippe Aries, eds., A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1988), 579.

11. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 27-28.

12. John Gage, Color and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Boston: Bulfinch Press Book, 1993), 63.

13. Georges Duby and Philippe Aries, eds., A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. . ., 569.

14. Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods . . , 15.

15. Paul F. Grendler, ed., Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, vol 2, Clothing, by Sarah Covington (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons in association with the Renaissance Society of America, 1999), 29.

16. John Gage, Color and Meaning: Art, Science, and Symbolism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 15.

17. Jill Condra, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History vol. 1, Prehistory to 1500 CE (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008), 202. Available from http://books.google.com/. Internet. Accessed 7 February 7, 2011.

18. John Gage, Color and Meaning . . ., 57.

19. Jill Condra, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History, vol. 2 . . ., 17.

20. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 9.

21. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red . . ., 10.

22. Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), 97.

23. John Gage, Color and Meaning . . ., 31.

24. John Harvey, Men in Black . . ., 52 - 54.

25. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Van_der_weyden_miniature.jpg

26. John Harvey, Men in Black . . ., 55.

27. John Harvey, Men in Black . . ., 63.

28. John Harvey, Men in Black . . ., 67-68.

29. John Gage, Color and Meaning . . ., 50.

30. John Gage, Color and Meaning . . ., 70.

32. John Gage, Color and Culture. . . ., 63.

33. Georges Duby and Philippe Aries, eds., A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World . . ., 580.

34. Pearson Education, Inc., “What Colors Mean,” Fact Monster, 2007 [on-line article]; available from http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0769383.html; Internet; accessed 18 June 2009.

35. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., “Color Symbolism,” 18 November 2010 [on-line article]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_symbolism; Internet; accessed 19 January 2011.

36. John Gage, Color and Meaning . . ., 33.

37. John Gage, Color and Culture . . ., 83.

38. John Gage, Color and Culture . . ., 120.

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