Question about royalty in Tudor and Elizabetian times?

Question

What were the dressing "rules"? I know that purple was only for the highest of royalty, but were there any other rules regarding colors, fabric, jewels,....?

Thatnk you so much!

Answer 1

As always in history, the rich were able to wear luscious fabrics and jewels while the poor made do with, generally, woollen clothing.  Rules seemed to have lightened since medieval times when nobles were allowed longer pointed toes, longer trains and brighter colours than the lower classes.  The upper classes never did want the lower classes aping them, but the lower classes hardly ever listened!

Here are some sites which you may find interesting:

http://www.nehelenia-designs.com/Ye_Olde...

http://www.chatham-nj.org/coin/English9/...

There is a lot of information given here re your question, but I was unable to access the site, the Drea Leed pages about halfway down:

http://www.twingroves.district96.k12.il....

I quote here from Liza Picard's "Elizabeth's London":

Only social inferiors went out without a cloak.  Elizabeth forbade by proclamation exaggerated breeches, which were felt in high places to be very well for a courtier with good legs, but not for the average working man.

You might choose a particular gown because it suited you, or because its colour would send a signal that you may not have wanted to put into words.  The messages conveyed by goose-t**d green or puke brown seem clear.  Lusty-gallant red sounds more cheerful.  Yellow and orange were always popular.  "Tawny", an orange/brown, was used for mourning.  "Sad" colours were dark.  "Scarlet" did not mean red, but a particular kind of very fine worsted cloth.  Queen Elizabeth was fond of wearing black with white, which suited her fair complexion and auburn hair.

Few textile dyes were colour-fast:

Your mistresses dare never come in rain

For far their colours should be washed away.

(Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost")

One of Elizabeth's very first decrees was in 1559, about apparel, and equally unregarded orders were issued at intervals throughout her reign.  In 1562 she forbade "great ruffs and great breeches".

In 1584 even the threat to tax a citizen on his apparent wealth as evidenced by the way his wife dressed, did not work.

From a decree issued in 1597:

For men's apparel, Her Majesty doth straightly charge and command

That none shall wear in his apparel,

Cloth of gold or silver tissued

Silk of colour purple

under the degree of an Earl, except Knights of the Garter in their purple robes only.

[None shall wear] cloth of gold or silver

Woollen cloth made out of the realm [i.e. imported]

under the degree of a baron, except Knights of the Garter, Privy Counsellors to the Queen's Majesty

and so on, down the dizzy ranks of nobility and gentry, forbidding velvet in gowns, cloaks, coats "or any uppermost garments", and "netherstocks of silk" to anyone under the degree of a knight, except "gentlemen ... attending on her Majesty in her house or chamber", and a knight's eldest son, and "such as have been employed in embassies to foreign princes", and anyne who had a disposable income of at least £200 a year.  Anyone of or above the rank of a knight's eldest son - but not his brothers - and anyone else with a mere £100 a year could wear velvet hose and doublets as well, and satin cloaks.

"Only countesses could wear cloth of gold or silver tissued, or purple silk, except viscountesses who could go so far as cloth of gold or silver tissued 'in their kirtles only'".  Lowlier ladies were fobidden cloth of gold and silver, plus tinselled satin, "satins branched with silver or gold, satins striped with silver or gold, taffetas branched with branched with silver or gold, satins striped with silver or gold grounds" and "any other silk or cloth mixed or embroidered with pearl, gold or silver".

And so the list goes on and on.  

The only textile fibres then were silk, linen, cotton, wool and hemp.  The poor wore what they could get, but they could usually manage wadmol, a coarse woollen, or rug, a warm tough shaggy fabric, even if the garment had been worn by many previous wearers.

Interestingly, few outer garments could be washed, but body odour may not have been quite as bad as you might think, because the garment next to the skin - a smock or shirt - was linen, which was certainly washed frequently, and bodices were often lined with linen, which was taken out and washed.

Elizabeth I was known to have boxed the ears of a lady-in-waiting when she appeared in a dress too rich and more suited to the Queen!

There are so many resources; try particular eras (Tudor, Elizabethan), and specifications (colour, poor people, daily life, etc).