For a number of costume historians, the first significant signs of Western fashion occur in the late eleventh century, notably as reported by the anglo-norman cleric orderic vitalis in his Ecclesiastical History. A radical change in men’s dress took place towards the year 1100, a movement from the short robes of the previous six centuries to long tunics.129 Art historian Jennifer Harris correspondingly concluded that during the period from the Norman invasion of England (1066) to the Third Crusade to the Holy Land (1189-92), clothing in Western Europe underwent a profound transformation, first among the aristocracy but ultimately extending to the dress of the merchant and laboring classes.130
Orderic Vitalis is often mentioned but rarely properly examined. It is worth looking at some of the actual wording describing the changes he had seen in his day. He mentions the change in manners twice, both with regard to the young men surrounding William II of England (1087-1100). These men wore long pointed shoes with stuped “pulley toes,” and
Longos crines ueluti mulieres nutriebant, et summopere comebant, prolixisque nimiumque strictis camisiis indui tunicisque gaudebant.
[grew long and luxurious locks like women, and loved to deck themselves in long, over-tight shirts and tunics].131
Moreover, they used curling irons, covered their locks with caps, and carefully groomed “lustful” beards instead of being shaggy, like their forefathers. Further on, Orderic speaks more generally of the era:
Eo tempore multa malicia in terris orta est, et uehementer augmentata est. Militares uiri mores paternos in uestitu et capillorum tonsura derelinquerunt, quos paulo post burgenses et rustici et pene totum uulgus imitati sunt.
[At that time great evils appeared and increased rapidly all over the world. Men of knightly rank abandoned the customs of their fathers in style of dress and cut of hair; in a little while townsmen and peasants and all the lower ranks followed their example].132
These passages are striking for the number of remarks that match the criteria for the existence of fashion. The chronicler shows anxiety that the reverence for the past was being overturned in favor of new styles. The new style is not isolated, but spreads to all social groups, bringing male appearance to a new level of social equilibrium rather than sharply demarcating one class or another. his feeling that these conditions appeared and then “increased rapidly all over the world” suggests that this was not an isolated change in style but a new attitude he sensed emerging to alter the whole demeanor of his society. The presence of his criticism shows an element of fashion in itself.
While a single author’s criticism is not enough evidence to prove that these conditions had become constant and institutionalized, Henri Platelle has studied two waves of vestimentary scandal concerning men from the Loire to the Rhine, and in Norman England.133 In chronicles and church councils from the first part of the eleventh century, first Raoul Glaber (1002), then Guillaume de Volpiano (1017) and Siegfried de Gorze (1043) anathematize the unbridled luxury of clothing and arms, immodest short tunics, and indecent haircuts and shaved faces which first arrived from Aquitaine, quickly adopted by French and Burgundian knights. Orderic Vitalis can be placed among a second group of clerics at the end of the eleventh century who were shocked by the long trailing robes, short beards, and curled hair of the new generation. Platelle analyzes these scandals in terms of violation of codes of appearance understood by the clerics to correspond to God-given social orders. When knights could be confused with priests or penitents, or men with women, this excited insecurity. This interpretation coincides to some degree with Vinken’s contention that before “modern fashion,” there were only dress codes, intended to convey class information at a glance, which were constantly violated and so required the invention of new codes. Ironically, given that Vinken considers fashion “postfeudal,” the repeated complaints of male effeminacy coincide with her rather eccentric definition of fashion as transvestism, which is to say a phenomenon manipulating gender codes more than class codes.134
The difficulty with identifying fashion in the eleventh century is the relative paucity of surviving evidence. For every subsequent century the extant traces multiply, often exponentially. However, with the arrival of the twelfth century, there is enough information coming from multiple sources to begin to argue more conclusively for fashion’s continuous, systematic presence.135
The first widespread trend Mane and Piponnier label “fashion” was the new eleventh-century configuration in men’s clothing. The first chronological “fashions” they speak of are those described at Charlemagne’s court, but they emphasize that the chronicler’s descriptions of rich styles are “probably simply poetic license,” that miniatures from the period are highly stylized, and that it was only queens who adorned themselves with ribbons, fancy girdles and pointed shoes.136 The appearance of the long bliaut and chainse137 in the eleventh century contrasts with carolingian styles in that they eventually spread beyond the court to become common dress for all men. according to the second criterion for a fashion system, the trends of the carolingian courts could not be described as the result of a fashion system because they did not produce constant cycles of change-seeking, but were eclipsed for a few centuries. since the eleventh-century style spread and became generalized, it better meets certain criteria for fashion.
World History
