I have uploaded two more accounts:

Account Extracts for the Farmor Children

which contain clothing purchases made for Children Mary and Richard by their father’s Executor after his death; and

Clothing Extracts from the Sandwich Book of Orphans

Recording expenditures made by wardens for the orphans under their care.

The children in the Farmor account were fairly well off; they had clothing of taffeta as well as wool. Mary Farmor, for instance, received the following clothing in 1581:

a pair of shoes
a pair of knit hose
a petticoat of mockado, decorated with parchment lace, murrey sarcenet and fastened with hooks and eyes
a gown with yellow taffeta sleeves
another workaday gown of mockado
smocks
sleeves, partlets and coifs of holland
three cauls, two of silver and gilt, as well as a shadow

The other years are sparser in clothing references, but a couple of items caught my eye: Young Richard, at age 8, was given “a string to his myttens”, which immediately brought to mind images of my youth, with my mittens run on a string up one sleeve and down the other so that they wouldn’t get lost. He was also given wooden-soled pattens. I can just see an eight-year-old boy clattering down the halls of his house in them, making an unholy racket, scolded by the cook for wearing them inside.

Richard also had a doublet and venetians of popinjay green taffeta and yellow sarcenet made for him in 1586, when he was 11 years old. How adorable is that? He also received a shooting glove that year–for archery? This entry made me envision Richard’s first day at the archery butt, proudly and self-consciously wearing his new glove as he worked to pull a bow back and land an arrow in the target.

The most interesting orphan in the Sandwich Book of Orphans is Thomasine Walters, an heiress in a small way with an income of 10 £ a year in rentals. She lodged with a couple of people as well as going to a boarding school in Canterbury, and the account sheds some light on her wardrobe and other textile-related activities.

In 1591 she had a gown of 2 yards of violet broadcloth made for her, interlined and lined with 2 yards of bays and a yard of cotton, for her to wear at boarding school in Canturbury.

In 1592 she had a waistcoat made for her out of 7/8 of a yard of Devonshire Kersey, and a petticoate of one and a half yards of stamell cloth made for her as well. The next year she had another waistcoat of Devonshire Kersey made, this one of 1 1/4 yards; one can imagine she had grown quite a bit that year.

in 1593 she had another gown, more elaborate, made for her out of 10 yards of “lyle grosgrain”. The gown was stiffened with buckram and bent, lined with bays and had a pair of whalebone-stiffened sleeves. It was decorated with tawny bobbin lace. A petticoat of peach-colored broadcloth was made for her as well, bound with 3 yards of lace, decorated with 6 1/4 yards of black and red billiment lace (two rows of trim around the bottom?) and with statute fringe. Her smocks this year were, interestingly, made of buckram; a coarser cloth than one would expect with a gown and petticoat of this quality. However, in the same year that the gown was made, there’s a mention that she married a man named Harker; perhaps the gown and petticoat were for the wedding.

The account also illuminates Thomasine’s experience with needlework. Yarn is purchased for her on several occasions so that she might knit stockings. A sampler is also bought for her, as well as several purchases of “sylke”–presumably embroidery floss, given the cheap price. She is given two shillings to buy some silk to work a coif, and a “seame of French worke for a koyf” is bought at near the same time. in 1593, she also purchases “a cushen to make lace uppon” AND “36 stickes to make lace”. Possibly the ” fine Wight thrid to woork withall” that she purchased was intended for the same purpose.

There’s another tidbit of information in Thomasine’s accounts that interested me: one of her renters was a tailor of modest means, a dutchman named John Martin. The book records income for her renters, and I was able to discovered that Martin paid 20 shillings a year for rental of his house. Useful information in my ongoing quest to find out just how much an average tailor made in profit a year.

A beggar woman, symbolizing poverty. Trevilian Miscellaney, 1602

Fortunately, there are some sources available. I’ve just put one of them online:

Excerpts from the account books of the Tooley Foundation: Poor Relief in Ipswitch, 1580s-1590s

Ipswitch was lucky to have a generous and civic minded merchant, Henry Tooley, donate his substantial estate to helping the poor of the town when he died. The Tooley foundation maintained hospitals and poorhouses, worked to employ the poor, housed, fed and clothed those with nowhere else to go, and–most admirably of all–kept precisely detailed accounts of what they spent all of their money on.

The records date from the 1580s and 1590s. A variety of clothing items were bought and made for men, women and children at the various houses and hospitals.

Peasants harvesting grain. Trevilian Miscellaney, 1602

Women received the following items, paid for by the Tooley foundation: petticoats, waistcoats, frocks (aka gowns), smocks, shoes, knit hose, aprons, coifs, kerchiefs,leather shoes and neckerchiefs. Men received shirts, doublets and hose, jerkins, ruff bands, knit hose, long coats and leather shoes.

A woman would receive either a “peticote and a wastcote” or “one frocke”, but not both; and for the men, they almost always received “one jerkine and i payre of bryches”, or “one cote”, with doublets mentioned only once. Which raises the interesting possibility that, in this case, a jerkin was either a) a synonym for doublet, or b) worn directly over the shirt.

The fabrics used for these items were cheap and practical. The doublets, hose, coats, petticoats, waistcoats and frocks were made of wool in the entries where a fabric was specified: either russet (the cheap woolen “greaye russett” fabric in this case, a homespun fabric in natural grey or red-brown, rather than the color russet), frieze ( a heavy coat-weight wool),
kersey, plunket or unspecified woolen cloth. Cotton (cheap napped wool) was used for lining hose and jerkins in one entry; linen cloth was specified for lining the “pore chilldrens cottes” in another entry. The bodies of frocks, petticoats and waistcoats were frequently described as stiffened or lined with canvas.

Detail of a servant bringing wood for the fire. Trevilian Miscellaney, 1602

The amounts of fabric used for these garments are also illuminating. 3/4 yard of frieze was used for a pair of hose. 3 1/2 yards of russett were enough to make a coat for Clement Slokam. 3 yards of kersey made a pair of breeches and a jerkin. A smock for Alice Punder took 2 yards of canvas, and smocks for “the grettest wenches” also used only 2 yards of Rhone canvas. Shirts of the same canvas required only 1.45 yards to make, and one ell of coarse oxenbridge linen was enough to line two bodices.

Depiction of the virtue “Mercy”–a man helping a leper. Trevilian Miscellany, 1602

The entries for coifs reference lining coifs with “hamborow” (a cheap linen fabric). A coif took, on average, 1/6 of a yard to make. Coifs were made of lockram and of some sort of checked fabric (“coifs of chekes”), and–somewhat puzzlingly–there’s an entry for inkle (linen tape) for coifs that allocates three yards of inkle per coif…an indication that it was used for more than gathering the coif at the base of the neck.

As for fastenings, a couple of interesting items emerge from the accounts: points and laces were used for the boys clothing, and hooks and eyes mentioned for fastening both petticoat bodies and waistcoats. However, tin buttons were used on the boys coats, and they were attached with leather laces: “for lether lacis to sett on the buttones of the boys’ cotes”.

Also, I find it interesting that knit hose are so prevalent. I’d always assumed that the poorest of the poor wore cloth hose through the end of the 16th century; but, though cloth hose does show up in the accounts, there are more references to knit hose, for both women and men, then for cloth hose.

It’s possible, however, that the women supported by the Tooley Foundation–several of whom were listed as knitters–may have been hired to produce the knit stockings by the foundation as an additional method of poor relief.

A shepherd shearing sheep. Trevilian Miscellaney, 1602

Given this, is it possible to determine how long an item took to make? The daily wages of the head tailor in Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe made a shilling per day in the 1590s; the other tailors made twelve pence a day. Interestingly, poor tailors in the Account books of Ipswitch were also described as making 12 pence a day; but account books from Cambridge during the late 16th and early 17th centuries state that tailors could make sixpence, eightpence or twelvepence a day, without specifying what caused the difference in rates.

A peasant woman hectoring her husband. Trevilian Miscellaney, 1602

A lord and a poor man, from the Trevilian Miscellaney, 1602

Read Mr. Orme’s Bills from Tailors, Haberdashers and Other Merchants

I found this collection of bills at the Public Records office. They were a bunch of loose-leaved single and double sheets of paper in a porfolio. Some looked like they’d been written yesterday; others were waterstained, torn, burned on the edges, or had holes eaten into the paper. Some were written in beautiful, flowing secretary; others appeared to be written by Dr, Jekyll’s alter ego.

It got me thinking about what a miracle it is that these things survive. I mean, think about what your cable and phone bills go through: If you’re like me they hit the trashcan fairly quickly. Or you may be one of those souls, beloved of historians, who files them away just in case. It might stay there for years; and one day long hence, after your funeral, when all of your papers are packed up, they just might end up in an attic instead of down at the dump.

But what, really, are the chances of your cable bill hanging around for 500 years? Pretty miraculous, isn’t it? It’s one reason I love going through ephemera like renaissance bills and receipts. It’s a bit like having won the lottery.

That, and the occasional Item of Interest(tm) that pops up. There is a lot of good stuff in Orme’s bills, including an eye-popping reference to popinjay-green stockings, but one line in particular made me pause: It was in a tailor’s bill for a french kirtle and gown, one of the most damaged bills in the collection. The last line of it reads:

“a Buske for the gowne.”

For the gown. Not for the kirtle. Not for a pair of french bodies or petticoat underbodies (which were purchased in a separate bill). No–for the gown itself.

I’ve always assumed that busks went into corsets and boned under-bodices. But was this really how it worked at the time?

I looked around DressDB, and sure enough, found something quite interesting in a Tailor’s Bill for Lady Townshend. It includes a reference to a french bodies and a busk:

For a paire of French bodis viiis
For a buske xiiid

but I noticed, for the first time, an additional reference:

For makange yor lady shipps gowne xvis
For buckram to stuffun the bodis & canvas for y iiis
For Fustion to border the gowne xiid
For tape and ii buskes to yt iiiid

Interesting! A pair of french bodies with a busk, and a gown with a pair of busks–which, for a front-opening gown in the 1590s, makes total sense. The effigy bodies from 1602 have a pair of busks sewn in, one running down either side of the front opening.

I did some more busk-hunting, and re-read the Excerpt from the French Garden where a woman is getting dressed for the day. Sure enough, near the beginning of the process she puts on her smock, petticoat and boned bodies:

bring my petty-coate bodies: I meane my damask quilt bodies with whale bones…Give me my peticoate of wrought Crimson velvet with silver fringe…showe me my Carnation silk stockins…give me my velvet pantofles;

And then, after some converation and general abuse of her serving maid for being neither psychic nor capable of moving at the speed of light, she continues:

call my Taylor to bring my gowne, not the close one, but my open gowne of white Sattin…Shall I have no vardingale? doe you not see that I want my buske?

Yes, a busk worn with a gown, with boned bodies under it. I’ve been thinking of doing a late period walking-birthday-cake 1590s elizabethan lately…I’ll have to incorporate this into my plans.

A probate inventory usually progresses methodically through the person’s house, listing the worth of their furniture, kitchen equipment, farming equipment, etc., etc. In some cases, the clothing for a person is summed up in a succinct “His Apparell: 1L”. Sometimes we’re  luckier, and the inventory contains a more detailed listing of the person’s clothing, with a value given for each item.

Even so, probate inventories are rarely an accurate glimpse into a person’s possessions or belongings. Items always disappeared between a person’s death and an inventory-taking, and clothing was a notoriously portable form of wealth.

In the book Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham, Probate Inventories for a number of merchants are listed–including fabric merchants. Drapers, Mercers, and Haberdashers. The contents of their shops are given in detail, with prices for all of the fabrics and small wares they contained. This is a valuable snapshot into the life of tailors and others working with cloth–what fabrics did they buy, of what colors, and how much did these fabrics cost?

I loaded a number of probate inventories into DressDB from Durham Wills and Inventories today. Some were for merchants, others for people with particularly detailed wardrobes. All are of interest and use to the textile and clothing historian.

• Inventory of George Walton of Durham, Draper (1587)
• Inventory of Isabel Rood, widow, (1582)
• Inventory of John Farbeck of Durham, Mercer (1597)
• Inventory of John Hudson of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Merchant (1582)
• Inventory of John Sotheren, of Newcastle-upon-tine, Merchant (1582)
• Inventory of Robert Atkynson, merchant (1596)
• Inventory of Robert Lambe of Newcastle, Merchant (1586)
• Inventory of Sir Henry Woodrington of Barwick-upon-Tweed (1593)
• Inventory of Thomas Bowes of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Merchant (1593)
• Inventory of Thomas Craw of Morpethe, Merchant (1583)
• Inventory of Thomas Philipson of Newcastle-upon-tyne, Cordwainer (1593)
• Probate Inventory of John Johnson of Darlington, Merchant (1562)

One of the questions responsible for beginning my research into tailors’ bills and accounts was a simple one: what did a tailor or cloth-seller make? To answer this, I had to find out how much his materials cost and how much they sold for. This opened up a whole nest of additional questions: what sort of profit did a tailor make? What about the people he bought things from? How often did a draper buy from his suppliers? Did a cloth merchant have the concept of wholesale vs retail rates? Did he sell things to different people for different amounts?

This account book has answers, or at least suggested possibilities, for several of these questions. It lists the purchases that Wray made from cloth suppliers–how many yards of what fabrics, for how much–and also records who he sold things to, and for how much. It covers the years 1588 to 1597, and contains several hundred entries.

A thorough investigation and data-crunching session will be needed to suck these accounts dry of all that they have to offer (yeah, I know, it’s on my list of things to do) but here are some of the interesting things I noticed during the transcription.

Wray bought things from a lot of people, but he bought  a surprisingly narrow range of goods. The fabrics he bought–buffin, sackcloth, rash, jean fustian and milan fustian, durance–were modestly priced, affordable by the merchants and well-to-do yeomen of the town. Black and purple were the fabrics he had the most of; after that it was green, orange tawny and straw-color.

He bought from each of his regular suppliers between three to six times a year, supplementing these with the occasional purchase from others. Those one-off purchases appeared, on the whole, to cost slightly more than supplies from his regulars.

He sold lots of silk embroidery floss, fringe (black, and black-and-crimson fringe), and ribbon–everything from silk satin ribbon to lowly linen inkle tape. He also had a store of soap, starch, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, sugar candy and other small whatnots. He sold cheap narrow taffata (levant taffeta), gartering, and buttons of hair, silk and thread.

He bought a lot of his stock on October 11 of every year, which puzzled me until I realized that this was Michelmas day in the Elizabethan era. There must have been a festival or fair in Rippon, where various venders of fabric and small wares gathered.

He sold goods on to petty chapmen, men who traveled the roads with their wares on their back or on a wagon. He sold to the wives and men of the community, and even to a local knight, Sir Mallory.

And he made a profit of approximately 40% on the goods he bought and sold. (The buffin fabric, at least). Interestingly, Sir Mallory, Esquire, paid a third again as much for a yard of purple buffin as did another, less exalted townsman.

There’s a lot to be discovered in these accounts yet…I’ll post more conclusions as I find them.

Read Wray’s Account Book