#the real article is 35 pages long so i cut/edited it down so y'all can read about medieval fur babies

[beardofkamenev]

Medieval Fashion... for Pets!

From John Block Friedman, ‘Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period’ (2016)

Illumination from Livre de la chasse by Gaston de Foix (c. 1406–1407)

Prosperous social groups owned a variety of pets in the Middle Ages: dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, rabbits, hares, deer, badgers, smaller monkeys, marmots, and even bears. Keeping pets was largely due to ostentation, signifying that the owner had room, food, and staff to care for them. Small pet accessories such as ornate protective bed coverings, cushions, jewelled dog collars, monkey harnesses and mobility-restricting blocks, gilt chains and embroidered muzzles for bears, and birdcages and cage coverings symbolised the plenitude of material assets and luxurious household goods, thus emphasising the pet owners’ elevated social status. 

Though simple ostentation of this sort undoubtedly was a factor in medieval pet ownership, the proliferation of costly animal accessories also played a significant important role in the material culture of vivre noblement: the continual display of wealth through conspicuous consumption. 15th century Northern Europeans’ love of texture, rich colours, metal-fabric-jewel mixtures, furs, and identity-expressing badges were used as insigniae to identify the wearer’s social status or role as part of a noble retinue. 

The keeping and display of pets and their accessories therefore constituted a distinct form of medieval material culture, whereby fashion for animals was an additional means to extend and assert the pet owner’s identity in society.

Accessorising the Medieval Dog:

Detail from Le Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (c. 1416)

Late medieval dogs were just as “doggy” as they are today. Fashion for dogs was frequently depicted in art and noted in royal expense accounts through payments for collars. Household dogs usually wore daily leather or fabric collars supporting small bells, or wider textile or fabric-covered leather collars ornamented with the owner’s heraldic arms, insigniae, and personal mottoes through metal mounts or embroidery. By contrast, purely decorative fabric collars for special occasions were often constructed of jewelled velvet, and reflected the prevailing taste for silk, gold and silver thread, rich colours, and solid metal and jewel ornamentation characteristic of late medieval Northern Europe. The use of velvet, in particular, was confined by medieval sumptuary laws to certain classes of people defined by their socioeconomic level and noble status as nobility by birth. 

The nobility thus paid great attention to such textile and metal collars for their dogs — and at great expense. In 1420, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, ordered a crimson velvet greyhound collar with two gold escutcheons bearing his arms. Embroidered in letters composed of tiny pearls was his motto “moult me tarde” (“much delays me”). In 1463, King Louis XI of France ordered from the goldsmith Jacques de Chefdeville a lavish gold collar for his greyhound, Chier (’Dearie’), comprised of:

“ten segments hinged with crimped gold wire, a buckle and its tongue, a tab, four other [protective] spikes set in downward curving leaves, fifty bosses, fifty rivets, three studs and three rivets. … And in copper settings ten large spinels, twenty pearls, one ruby, one jacinthe, and one crystal panel the said king has provided. And also foil placed beneath the said spinels, ruby and jacinthe to give them better colour.”

This cost 246 livres, 12 sous, and 8 deniers, in addition to 55 sous, 1d for “a quarter-yard of crimson velvet for a lining, doubled under the collar” as the first one was not rich enough to please the king. For comparison, the noted bibliophile Louise de Savoie, Countess of Angoulême, paid her court manuscript illuminator 35 livres tournois in 1496 for his wages for a year; thus, Chier the greyhound’s collar cost almost seven years’ wages for a highly skilled artist. The mixture of precious metals, gems, pearls, and textiles in these canine collars was perfectly in keeping with the fabrics and colours most sought-after by medieval nobles and courtiers. With respect to their collars, then, Philip’s and Louis’ greyhounds looked like favoured human members of their entourages. 

That such dog collars were open assertions of noble identity is clear from written and pictorial sources. Louise de Savoie’s expense accounts in 1454 show a payment of 34s, 4d for eight copper collar escutcheons bearing her arms, intended for her hunting greyhounds. This suggests that Louise felt the need to extend her identity into the animal realm, ensuring that her name touched every aspect of nature as her dogs pursued her deer through her woods. Ornate dog collars were also depicted in Flemish tapestries, where owners’ initials and mottoes were woven into the art. For example, the famous La Chasse à la licorne tapestries show the letters “AE” (the monogram of the person who commissioned them) embroidered on the collars of the hunting dogs.

Detail showing monogram on dog collar, from the third tapestry in the La Chasse à la licorne tapestry series (c. 1495-1500)

Dressing the Animal Body:

The evidence for late medieval animal livery is fairly considerable. Such garments appear for dogs, monkeys, bears, and even a marmot. In some cases, the garments were intended to provide warmth. In 1455, Marie de Cleves, Duchess of Orléans ordered five such jackets (“habil-lements”) for her greyhounds. The accounts of King Charles VIII of France — a noted pet owner — also mention a payment during the winter for a quarter-aune of bright green (“gay vert”) wool to make a warming jacket for a very small lapdog.

In other cases, the garments were intended to assert the owner’s identity. The giving and wearing of livery was a distinctively medieval phenomenon and a major component of the vivre noblement ethos; in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the custom was quickly adapted to putting animals in the livery of their owners, as was the case with horse trappings. The wearing of livery was closely tied to identity assertion and affirmation: “Lords took to clothing their followers in similar colours or styles of dress to impress those outside their households and to emphasise their authority” (Benjamin Wild). Animal livery was intended to express the power of the lord and his “civilising” force over the animal world, as well as his continuing and magnificent consumption of commodities.

Detail of a greyhound wearing a cape emblazoned with the French fleur de lis, from the illumination ‘Isabella arrives in Paris’ in Jean Froissart’s Chroniques (15th century)

Garments ordered by nobles for their pets are often itemised in the expense accounts of the royal households of France. Perhaps the most extreme example of pet livery occurs in the 1492 wardrobe expenses of Charles VIII’s queen, Anne de Bretagne, whose twenty-four dogs — including nine greyhounds — each had a personal servant. The dogs all wore matching black velvet collars, with four dangling ermine paws reflecting the Duchy of Brittany’s coat of arms. By this period in Europe, a deep black had become so stylish a colour that black velvet was Genoa’s single biggest export in the 16th century; “because plain black velvet enjoyed the advantage of displaying wealth without ostentation, it was deemed equally appropriate for a ruler or his smartly liveried servants” (Lisa Monnas). Thus, Anne ensured that her twenty-four dogs, being important members of her household, were fashionably garbed in the new colour — just as her courtiers were. Even as mundane a pet as the hare could wear this fabric: the accounts of King Charles VII of France show that Queen Marie d’Anjou paid “for a quarter aune of black velvet with [deluxe] triple pile to cover two leather collars that the said lady had had made, to put on the necks of two hares that she had raised for her pleasure.”

Detail of insects and two hares from the Cocharelli codex (c. 1330-1340)

Source: John Block Friedman, ‘Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period’ in Medieval Clothing and Textiles 12 (2016)