What people wore in medieval England

Whenever medieval clothing appears on the T.V, it seems to have been given a glamorous (at least by today's standards) glow-up. Ladies wear beautiful tight fitting gowns and dirt and grime is non-existent. Chivalry is well and truly alive in knights who prance around in armour. But this is far from the truth. Fashion in the medieval period went through a lot of changes, especially regarding men.

Let's rewind back to the year 1300. At this point in time, clothing was basically shapeless. There was no tailoring to give a sense of the shape of people's bodies. Social class was shown in the colours and quality of the fabric instead of how it was tailored. Only in 1330 did tailored sleeves change the game and suddenly people's bodies were actually defined.

But don't worry. Medieval society still had strict moral rules and clothing was used to uphold social class (to keep people in their lane). Women were never allowed to show their arms or legs outside the bedroom and the more undesireable members of society were forced to make themselves known via clothing. For example, prostitutes had to wear yellow hoods and lepers had to wear cloaks and bells. Servants wore their lord's livery, which most of the time kept them safe (or got them into a fight).

Royalty tended to set the fashion. The nobility aped whatever the king or queen wore and this trickled down to the lower classes. For example, Edward III wore 'an outfit of green velvet embroidered all over with pearls' in 1333. The queens, who tended to hale from other countries like France, brought new styles and fashions to England. In a sense, it was a job of the royal to set fashions and drape themselves in jewels. They were the face of the entire country.

Noble men and women wore expensive clothing like ermine and outfits adorned with precious stones. The men's fashion could get wild, with points on men's shoes getting longer by 1350 and culminating in a ridiculous shoe, the Crackow, which had a point of twenty inches. Men could barely walk! Women began to show off their necks (with low necklines) and bare shoulders. They tried to show off their bodies by wearing tight fitting tunics or wearing a corset. Dresses tended to be in bright colours like purple and red (by 1400) and were trimmed with gold brocade and precious stones.

As for the normal people (who weren't draped in jewels or wearing terrifying pointed shoes) there were different rules. Sumptuary laws were introduced in 1337 and were extended in 1363, due to the fact that merchants wives were wearing the ermine of the nobility (the audacity!). The lowest of the low, which defined by these laws were carters, ploughmen, dairymaids and anyone working on the land, could only wear blanket and russet cloth and linen belts. This was capped at a certain price (12d per ell), even though they probably couldn't afford anything more expensive anyway.

Then came the servants and their families, who were banned from wearing gold and silver or silk. Yeomen were also banned from wearing silk or expensive furs and were capped at 2 pounds for the whole cloth. Some of these restrictions only lifted when you earned more than 200 pounds per year (silk was finally allowed). Even well off knights couldn't wear ermine.

Women, who didn't hale from the nobility, tended to make their own clothes. Most spun their own wool and wove fabrics. This covered spinning, weaving and even dyeing the clothing, on top of everything else she needed to do (thank goodness we have H&M).

Richer people liked to wear jewellery, which could come in the form of gold rings or necklaces. Gemstones were seen as something magical (much like today) that could heal people. Rubies and sapphires were the most precious, then it was diamonds and emeralds. Rubies apparently protected from poison and diamonds stopped bad dreams (I wish I had the money to see if the diamond one works).

All in all, medieval clothing was varied and always changing. Fashion and style intensified after tailoring in the 1330s, especially among the nobility. It enforced class lines even more than clothing does today, with laws to keep people in their lane. But I do think that quality of clothes is still used to make a statement and always will be used in that way. I'm sure we'd all be walking around in Louis Vuitton and Balenciaga if we could afford it. I hope you enjoyed this article, I just thought it was an interesting subject.

(All facts come from 'The Time Traveller's guide to Medieval England' by Ian Mortimer which you should definitely read! He's a great historian and brings it to life)