 |
|
A Cassock of Grey Wool with Red Wool Guards
The cassock was a short, cape-like garment often worn for by men on military campaign. (Waugh, p.16) However, as it increased in popularity it seems to begin to incorporate itself more into civilian life, being worn as a more everyday fashion by both men and women. There are several examples of cassocks given as gifts by Queen Elizabeth. One, given to William Shenton, a fool, as part of a complete outfit, was “a [c]assocke … of changeable mockeado striped with billement lase, sowed on with silke with buttons of silke fased with taphata and lyned with bayes and buckeram…”. (Arnold, p.105)
English terminology of this period may be confusing. Many translators seem to have used the term cassock to refer to many different kinds of garments. For example Minsheu uses the term cassock to refer to a number of different Spainish garments. “Randle Cotgrave gives the French terms ‘gippon’ and ‘jupon’ while ‘cassock’ is translated as ‘casaque, galleverdine, gippon, hoqueton, juppe’”. (Arnold, p.142)
Like the Dutch cloaks, which generally seem to have had sleeves (Arnold, p.136, 142), many cassocks also seem to have had sleeves, although this is not always true. There are examples of sleeveless cassocks being worn (see Figure 6). They were generally loose garments worn over ones regular clothing (ie doublet, jerkin, pants, ect). There does not seem to have been any set length as we can find examples of both very long and very short garments.
The pattern I used for my cassock came from Kate Maunsel. I chose to make my cassock out of grey coat-weight wool. I chose this fabric for its warmth and because wool would have been available during the time period. The sleeves are fitted and made out of the same grey wool. I lined the body of the garment with red linen to add color and to contrast with the grey of the outer shell and I lined the sleeves with red wool so that not only would the contrast with the grey outer layer and match the rest of the lining, but they would keep the wear’s arms very warm. The guards are made from red biased cut wool (coincidentally the same wool used to line the sleeves) so that they could be applied without treating the edges and the edges would not fray. Similarly the picadils on the collar were made from the same biased cut wool and then clipped perpendicularly to maintain the bias. The seams were topstitched to keep them lying flat and to prevent the edges from rolling. Topstitching was a finishing technique used in period to add strength to seams and to keep them looking flat and "pressed" in a world were garments were not laundered as ours are today. The fitted sleeves were finished and stitched into the armholes of the cassock. I opted not to use in fastenings for the front as quite a few of the examples did not seem to have them and I rather liked how it looked without them.
Figure 1: A young noble woman from Bruym’s ‘Omnium Poene Gentium Habitus’ 1581(Arnold, p.202)
