RE: More queries

[Stephanie Malone Thorson <smt2@st-andrews.ac.uk>]

> Greetings from Rodrigo Ramirez de Valencia, soon to join the throngs of
> Atlantia from far-off An Tir...
> 
> On Mon, 29 Apr 1996, Kevin of Thornbury wrote:
> 
> > Well, the cotehardie is easy - pick up a princess seam dress pattern
> 
> Although I'm NOT one of the authenticity police, a note should be made
> here -- if you're new and starting out, or if you aren't concerned with
> period garb, this isn't too bad of advice -- from what I understand, the
> princess seam dress isn't too hard to make.  But you should know when you
> make it that it isn't even close to period, and more important, doesn't
> LOOK period.  I'm not saying that people who choose to use it are damned
> forever or anything, just that before you use it, you should know...  

Well, more specifically, a basic princess-seamed dress isn't a *fourteenth
century* style, which is when cotehardies were high fashion.  Both the
cotehardie and the surcote ouverte (sideless surcote) remained in use as
_robe royale_ in the fifteenth century, and by then princess-seaming had
been developed.  One would not, however, be wearing a cotehardie and
surcote in the fifteenth century unless one were a queen or came from a
family with pretensions.  There is an intriguing painting of the Madonna
which is reputed to be a portrait of Agnes Sorel, the notorious mistress
of Charles VI, in which the lady wears a princess-seamed cotehardie, and
is probably meant to be a signal that she is Queen of Heaven as well as
the mother of Christ.  The painting is usually dated as sometime shortly
after Agnes Sorel's death in 1450.  There is a reproduction of the
painting in question in the _Late Gothic Europe_ volume of the History of
Dress series, as well as some discussion about the nature of the dress and
what it might mean.

--Alianora
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Stephanie M. Thorson			*  SCA: Lady Alianora Munro
University of St Andrews		*  
St Andrews, Scotland			*  Clan White Wing
email smt2@st-andrews.ac.uk		*  Tarkhan, Khanate Red Lion
*****************************************************************************

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