#currently looking up what bishops wear in the 14th century

[ritz-writes]

google: oh, shes looking up a lot about churches. ooo, and bible verses too! i wonder if shes christian now

me: *is doing research for a good omens fanfic*

[scifigeneration]

How fashion adapted to climate change – in the Little Ice Age

by Lane Eagles

One could say the consequences of the planet’s warming climate can be seen on fashion week runways and the shelves of Anthropologie and H&M. Silhouettes shrink as midriffs and backs open. Sheer fabrics, breathable textiles and flowy draping are in. And in response to climate change’s rapid pace, some corners of the fashion industry are moving toward implementing sustainable business practices and incorporating more flexibility within their designs.

Today people may see global warming as a modern phenomenon, but fashion has a long history of responding to worldwide climate change.

The only difference is that while we sweat, early modern Europeans froze. The Little Ice Age was an interval of erratic cooling that ravaged the Northern Hemisphere roughly between the 14th and 19th centuries. And like today’s designers, Renaissance fashion designers were forced to contend with shifting temperatures and strange weather.

A menacing chill settles on Europe

Scientists have yet to determine the primary cause of the Little Ice Age, and historians are still pinning down its exact chronological parameters. But voices from the era describe a rapidly cooling climate.

“At this time there was such a great cold that we almost froze to death in our quarters,” a soldier wrote in his diary while traveling through Germany in 1640. “And,” he continued, “on the road, three people did freeze to death: a cavalry-man, a woman, and a boy.”

The entry was from August.

Scholars do agree that the Little Ice Age impacted our shared global history in myriad traceable ways. Its unpredictable temperature fluctuations and sudden freezes devastated harvests, escalated civil unrest and left thousands to starve. It may have inspired the menacingly chilly settings of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” Darkness and clouds haunt the skies of paintings created during the period.

And the Little Ice Age also altered the history of fashion. As the cold ramped up in the 16th century, fashion championed warmer styles: Heavy drapery, multiple layers and sleeves that trailed on the floor became more common across the visual and material record, while examples of the oldest surviving European gloves, hats, capes and coats from the era populate museum costume collections today.

“No one in Egypt used to know about wearing furs,” a Turkish man traveling through northern Africa wrote in 1670. “There was no winter. But now we have severe winters and we have started wearing furs because of the cold.”

Staying fashionably warm

This change can be observed by comparing medieval and Renaissance dress.

In one French medieval manuscript (illustrated between 1115 and 1125), the knight’s skirt is slit to the hip, and his squire’s hemline stops above the knee. There are no capes, fur or headgear; the garments are light and loose – especially compared to what men wore 400 years later, when the Little Ice Age was in full swing.

Take Hans Holbien’s iconic 1553 painting “The French Ambassadors,” which depicts two courtiers to King Henry VIII. The man on the left, wearing thick, dark velvets and a heavily fur-lined overcoat, is the French ambassador to England, Jean de Dinteville. Georges de Selve, the bishop of Lavaur, stands on the right.

Hans Holbein’s ‘The Ambassadors.’ Wikimedia Commons

The cleric has donned a floor-length coat befitting his godly station. But it would have also been very effective against cold. Both men sport fashionable caps and undergarments. The laced collar of De Selve’s undershirt peaks above his robes, and those white slashes in de Dinteville shiny pink shirt show off his hidden layers.

As with all portraits from the era, these men dressed to impress for the sitting – meaning their fanciest clothes were possibly their warmest.

A c. 1545 portrait of Catherine Parr. Wikimedia Commons

Women’s clothing also had to sustain temperature fluctuations that tended to range colder during the Little Ice Age. In a 16th-century portrait of Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, Parr wears a headdress and a multi-layered gown with billowing sleeves.

Several petticoats would have been required to sustain the bell shape of her skirts. If you look closely, you’ll see a thin, translucent layer of fabric that shields her exposed skin where the neckline ends. Meanwhile, a large fur mantle – at the time, an essential accessory – is draped over her arms.

A removed opulence

New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has a surviving collection of clothes from the late 16th century, some of which could point to the cold’s influence on Renaissance clothing.

For example, one Spanish dress is outfitted with a cape atop the thick fabrics that make up the bodice, skirt and stacked sleeves. Beneath this densely layered gown, the wearer would have also needed to don several tiers of skirts and undergarments.

A late 16th-century Spanish ensemble features thick fabrics. MoMA

A British lady’s jacket from around 1616 also may hint at cold weather. Tailored from linen, silk and metal, this tight bodice probably kept its wearer very warm. (Early modern clothing often featured cloth-of-gold thread, which was made from actual thin strips of gold metal and painstakingly wrapped around sewing thread.)

Portraits and preserved garments from the Little Ice Age tend to have one thing in common: They are all the pictures or products of elites who enjoyed the means to have a likeness made of themselves. Their wealth is evident in the very existence of these images and the expensive clothes they wear.

Knit wool caps are perfectly suitable for fending off freezing temperatures, but the wealthy women of the era instead opted for elaborate, pearl-lined headdresses that trailed yards of gauzy veils.

Their opulence ignores the various crises of the era. While countless peasants were displaced from their homes and died from starvation or rampant disease, the rich simply transitioned to sable-lined sleeves and mantels threaded with gold.

It’s dangerous to oversimplify historical narrative. But the parallels to our current situation are hard to ignore. Climate change is a looming threat, with deep social and political ramifications.

Yet for many, it remains a distant phenomenon, something that – beyond buying lighter, looser clothing – is easy to dismiss.

Lane Eagles is a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History at the University of Washington

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

[chriskarrtravelblog]

To be a pilgrim: Best British cathedrals

To mark 2020’s Year of Cathedrals, Year of Pilgrimage, here are some of the most awe-inspiring ecclesiastical buildings that have helped shape Britain

In the Middle Ages, right up to the English Reformation of the 16th century – in which King Henry VIII separated from Rome and the Catholic Church and set up a new Church of England of which he made himself head – the Church wielded more power than the king or queen.

Its leaders were consulted by monarchs of the day, and its cathedrals were places where power struggles were played out, loyalties tested, and enormous wealth put on ostentatious display. The bodies of saints were buried in the crypts, and people were encouraged to make pilgrimages to their shrines in the hope of being cleansed of illness or absolved of sins.

With this year heralding a number of important anniversaries – from the 800th anniversary of Salisbury Cathedral to the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket – we take an armchair tour around some of the most important cathedrals in Britain to reveal secret stories and proud (and not so proud) pasts.

Salisbury Cathedral

Credit: Adam Burton/Alamy

This year is the 800th anniversary of the laying of Salisbury Cathedral’s first foundation stone, after it moved from an earlier site called Old Sarum. Inside you will see the oldest set of quire stalls in Britain as well as what’s claimed to be the world’s oldest working clock. The cathedral also boasts Britain’s tallest spire, which rises an impressive 55m above the tower – a tower tour allows you to climb to the foot of the spire and look up it from the inside. The cathedral’s pride and joy, however, is the 1215 Magna Carta, the best preserved of the four surviving copies of this historic document, which is on permanent display in the 13th-century Chapter House. www.salisburycathedral.org.uk

Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester Cathedral. Credit: Shutterstock

In a tranquil corner of Southwest England, at the heart of pretty Gloucester, this atmospheric cathedral is too often overlooked by visitors. Wandering the cathedral is a lesson in architectural history. Though much of it dates from the Norman period, many of its more jaw-dropping details are Gothic in style, from Early English to Perpendicular. Its fan-vaulted cloisters are beautiful to walk beneath, while its Lady Chapel is home to some of the best-preserved Arts and Crafts stained glass in Britain.

For many, the primary reason for a visit is the shrine of the murdered King Edward II. His is not the only royal connection here – the stained glass in the south aisle depicts the coronation of Henry III, crowned here in 1216. www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk

Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral in the evening sunshine. Credit: Gannet77/Getty/istock

Peering down over the River Wear from its rocky perch, this cathedral forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the castle next door, from which the Prince-Bishops of Durham ruled much of Northern England. Built between the 11th and 12th centuries, it is widely considered to be the finest example of Norman architecture in the whole of Britain.

Thick columns in the nave reach towards a spectacular Romanesque rib-vaulted ceiling, and the monastic buildings are almost wholly intact. Durham Cathedral is home to both the shrine of St Cuthbert (the seventh-century Bishop of Lindisfarne) and the tomb of the Venerable Bede, making the city an important place of pilgrimage for centuries. Six new long-distance Northern Saints Trails leading to Durham Cathedral will help Northeast England reclaim its status as the ‘Christian Crossroads of the British Isles’. www.durhamcathedral.co.uk

Winchester Cathedral

The Quire in Winchester Cathedral. Credit: Ian Dagnall/Alamy

In 1,000 years, this cathedral has evolved from a small Saxon church into the magnificent building you see today. Like many of Britain’s great cathedrals, Winchester was built shortly after William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings, so it has many 11th-century features, but much of its current architectural grandeur dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Highlights include the soaring Perpendicular Gothic nave – at over 160 metres long it’s one of the biggest in the world – and the ornate stone Great Screen that stands behind the high altar, which dates from the mid-15th century.

The cathedral also forms part of The Pilgrims’ Way, which once saw medieval pilgrims arriving in their droves to pray at the shrine of St Swithun; their modern-day counterparts come to pay their respects to one of our most cherished writers, Jane Austen, who is buried here. www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk

Read the full feature in the July/August 2020 issue of BRITAIN.

The post To be a pilgrim: Best British cathedrals appeared first on Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture.

Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture https://www.britain-magazine.com/features/inspiration/best-british-cathedrals/

source https://coragemonik.wordpress.com/2020/06/22/to-be-a-pilgrim-best-british-cathedrals/