Part Three: Servants’ Dress

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Welcome or welcome back, dear reader,

This week’s edition will be a little shorter than the others, and once more focused on mens dress. I’ve decided to separate out a category for servants’ dress, which is higher class than peasant dress, but not quite at the level of noble dress. Keep in mind, however, that many servants in royal courts were of noble blood themselves, especially those in direct contact with the royal family. If you’re interested in servants’ dress at court, I highly recommend looking at The King’s Servants and The Queen’s Servants by the Tudor Tailor team, both of which look at livery from the reign of Henry VII and early reign of Henry VIII.

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Doublets and Hose

Folio 4v, April; servant accompanying hunting party, wearing hose pointed to square-necked doublet with long sleeves, strapped square-toed shoes and cap with upturned brim.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making	Folio 4v, April; servant accompanying hunting party, weainrg hose pointed to doublet with split undersleeves revealing larger shirt underneath.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making	Folio 1v, January; servant wearing low square-necked doublet, showing square neck of shirt beneath, with wider or puffer sleeves, pointed to hose.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making

See above three examples where we can clealy see the ties pointing the (very) tight hose to the doublet on all three examples. The doublet finishes at the natural waist, meaning that the hose come up higher on the torso than most modern mens trousers. The doublets on the left and right have a fashionable square neckline and also a distinct lack of seams in the illustration, suggesting a side-shoulder or back closure.

Gowns

Folio 5r, May; musician, sporting a gown with slit hanging sleeves and full, pleated skirts. Note the low square neckline.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making	Folio 5r, May; musician, sporting a gown with slightly puffed sleeves and full, pleated skirts.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making	Folio 1r, January: servant, wearing gown with slit hanging sleeves and full, pleated skirts. Note the low, squared neckline.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making

Here are three examples of the layer above the doublet and hose; the gown. The left and right examples are very similar, with hanging sleeves slit partway down, whilst the central example has slightly puffed sleeves gathered in towards the cuff. All three examples have the fashionable square neckline and full, pleated skirts finishing about the knee.

Folio 5r, May; musician wearing open-fronted gown with split sleeves, showing fur lining.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making	Folio 5r, May; back view of the same or very similar gown style, showing hanging collar of fur at the back and pleats in bodice held in place with a belt.Via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making

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That is all for this week, I’ve kept it short and sweet as I’m fighting off a nasty cold. Next week we’ll be finishing up the FitzWilliam Hours with elite dress, before moving on to one of my personal favourite Books of Hours, the Hennessy Hours.

The FitzWilliam Hours is currently housed in the FitzWilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, under the registration MS 1058-1975, and was originally produced as the result of collaboration between multiple masters in Bruges around 1510-1520.  The images used in this post are just a small selection of those available, and I recommend you have a look at the digitised edition yourself.

The contents of the book can all be found via the FitzWilliam Museum’s online collection, with higher quality digitisations of some folios via ILLUMINATED: Manuscripts in the making, located here https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/illuminated/ (link accurate as of 5 March, 2025). 

I commend the FitzMuseum for allowing the free use of content and images on this website for research and educational purposes.

Digitised edition, with some pages: https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/illuminated/manuscript/discover/book-of-hours (link accurate as of 5 March, 2025)

Online collection edition, with all pages: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/images/id/170636 (link accurate as of 5 March, 2025)

Until next time

Kate