#historian: c. m. woolgar

[une-sanz-pluis]

As noted when discussing smell, there was a significant change to the trade in cosmetics in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with increasing numbers of finished products reaching the market in England. Among these were sweet powders, such as citrinade, a confection made of sugar and citron, the precursor of the lemon, that was applied to the face as a whitener. They were expensive: witness a group of purchases of sweet powders - two pots each of succade, coinade (made with quince), citrinade and pomade for 37s. 8d. - shipped out of London to Rouen for the use of either Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, or her husband, in 1420-1.

C. M. Woolgar, The Senses in Late Medieval England

[une-sanz-pluis]

Embroidery was a common way of adding mottoes or badges to costume. In 1406, Princess Philippa had blue flowers embroidered on her gowns, probably forget-me-nots, a badge used by Henry IV. The green and red livery that was given to the household that accompanied her to Denmark had additions in both embroidery and pieces of cloth: crowns were applied in white cloth, the design varying according to rank in the establishment, as well as the motto Soveraigne. The opulence of this wedding party culminated in Philippa's wedding dress, a tunic and mantle with a long train of white satin, worked with velvet and furred with miniver, the sleeves of the tunic furred with ermine. The messages conveyed by Philippa's dress are still apparent to us and the interpretation of the clothing of the widowed Queen Joan of Navarre is equally clear. Accounts dating from her imprisonment at Leeds Castle and subsequently show her dressed in black. This is most unlikely to have been the popular black of late medieval fashion, but long-term mourning, for she acquired few clothes for herself in any other colour, although her attendants had coloured cloth - and one of the Bretons among them may have owned the 'night cappe for a woman, rede after the gise of Bretaigne inventoried among her goods in August 1419. In 1420-1, Joan had a black gown, black petticoats, as well as a black gown for night attire and black hose, while her socks (garments like slippers, but coming a short way up the leg) were made from a white cloth; in 1427-8, she had made for her seven gowns, ten kirtles, sixteen pairs of hose, all from black cloths, both wool and silk, and her socks this year were also made from black cloth. In the latter year, garnishes of fur, of miniver, ermine and sable, served to mark out her rank.

C. M. Woolgar, The Senses in Late Medieval England

[une-sanz-pluis]

The inventory of the goods of Henry V prepared for his executors is the first for a king of England to include significant evidence for the use of cosmetics and perfumes. Among the plate and jewels is a group of items listed in a way which suggests that together they may have been the contents of the King's dressing table: three mirrors, one with jewels valued at £13 10s., the other two much less significant affairs, valued at 7s. 9d. and 15s. 6d.; and a series of pots, two of glass, one garnished with gold and valued at 70s., the other with silver and worth a mere 6s. 8d., and three of beryl, one of which was quite small, and one with a knop like a hawthorn, possibly a link to its contents.

C. M. Woolgar, The Senses in Late Medieval England