Can anyone give me a good explanation why medieval garments are referred to in some circles as "cottes"? I don't buy the explanation "because that's what they were called in the middle ages". This ain't the middle ages folks, and they were called lots of other things as well.

We don't call arming doublets "dublettes of fense", we call them arming doublets. We refer to doublets as "doublets" and not "dublettes". Harness limbs are vambrace, cuisse and greave, not "jambes". We mix ingredients when we cook, we don't "medle" or "allay" them.

It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I see "cotte" because the term seems silly and very pretentious. Is this just another "recreationist affectation" that I just need to ignore. like wearing coifs under hats, or is there some legitimate reason for the use of the word?

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The word cotte is simply the term in french for kirtle.

This is some sentences in old french of the 12th and 13th centuries where you have this term:

"Vestuz d'une cote de pers"

"N'i laissa soller ne chauce, braies ne cote ne chemise."

"Ele ira por voir querre la cote et la chemise"

This word can be write cote, cotte, cotel, cottelle or cotiele.

So saying "cotte" is the equivalent of using "braies" instead of breeches, "chausses" instead of leggings" or "pourpoint" instead of doublet?

In that context using "cote" instead of "kirtle" seems a whole lot more reasonable.

What I still don't understand is why men's jackety type things are referred to as "cotes"?

Is the first line "I put on a gown of pers"? If so, is pers a colour or a fabric? I have found pers referred to as a deep, luminous blue dye.

Yes, saying cotte is like saying braies or chausses!

Yes, in Middle Ages "pers" is a blue colour, sometime dark sometime pale. But, today in french someone who have "des yeux pers" have eyes in a changing colour between green and blue.

About the jackety type things, what they really identify like a "cotte"?

Because we can find some adjective added to the cotte, like "cotte d'arme" (a armoried garment worn over the armour), "cotte gamboisée" (a stuffed garment worn under the armour), etc. It's possible that those people use a simplified term, just "cotte" without the adjective. Does it have a sense?

I think using terms,which were not even a little bit fixed in the middle ages depends on your personal taste.
Cotte, which is the Middle-French term for "kirtle", as others have already pointed out, is just one term for the general kirtle-like garment worn in about 800-1500, Middle Italien would be "cotta", Mittelhochdeutsch and dialects "Kittel" oder "Tunika", englisch "tunique", also "tunicella" etc.

This is the same with "gambeson"; most terms reenactors today prefer are either middle french or old englisch.

"Doublet" can for instance be the same as
-Jupon
-Jacket
-Schecke
-Schaube
-Scheuppe
-Schappa
-Jack
-Jacket

(ethymological all of the same origin, as one can see, there the german word "Jacke" and englisch "Jacket" comes from. "Kirtle", "Cotte", "Cotta" and "coat" also share the same base)

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We use terms because they are 'understood' today to mean something specific. That this may, or may not, be historically accurate to any period term is almost irelevant .... UNTIL ... people start believing it is period and there's the rub ... all too often we do.

Part of the problem is that we just don't understand enough about their terminology to be definitive ... so we generalise, simplify and thus corrupt and recreate words ... and that is the glory that is English ... or is that American ... ???

So I'd disagree with Jens that we, and more importantly our medieval forbears, could not differentiate between a doublet and a Jacket and a Jack (whatever the etymology) ... but what that meaning/garment was could vary both by date and by locale and to a frighteningly rapid degree. But that is no different to today.

We like to see things in tightly defined boxes but they aren't. For example I have a jacket which I could happily refer to as a coat, but the Jacket that is part of my suit couldn't be described as a coat.

Most terms used in re-enactment are a testament to the history of re-enactment rather than of the history being re-enaacted ...

Things can change ... be hard nosed ... I got hate mail (not maille which I feel is equally pretentious BTW ;-) ) for insisting on smock not chemise (or shift), breeches not braies, doublets not pourpoints ... but now they're pretty much accepted and no-one even considers how things changed.

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Originally posted by Dave Key:
In many ways Flonzy has hit the nail on the head.

For example I have a jacket which I could happily refer to as a coat, but the Jacket that is part of my suit couldn't be described as a coat.

Cheers
Dave

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Actually suit coat is a common term. This same coat could be refered to as an odd jacket if worn with a differant pair of pants/trousers/slacks. You might look very dapper if you also wore it with a vest/waistcoat.

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Seems more than a bit hypocritical for me to object to "cotte" if I'm using an equally incorrect. word. Hmmm, I guess I'll have to mull this over a bit more.

So what would be a more correct term for earlier period, single leg hosen? To me, "split hose" are the ones that come up to the hip and point to a doublet. What would be a better term for the separate legged hose that have a single attachment point?

Dave, we've had the "breeches" conversation before but I don't recall ever asking you at what point "breeches" become a term for outerwear rather than [under]pants? I resist "breeches" because to me "breeches" are Elizabethan (and later) trousers.

(It's an expansion of the article at Garments and Armor in The Canterbury Tales; lately, I've been interested in finding out exactly what's meant by various period clothing terms, which is frequently, of course, different from the terms we use to describe the historical garments today.)

In any case ... to answer Gwen's posting immediately above ... Chaucer, at least, uses cote to describe an outer garment for a man or a woman which seems to be a bit more fitted than a gown, but is worn over a shirt (sherte) for men or smock (smok) for women.

The term he uses for legwear is hose (sometimes hosen and sometimes hoses for plural forms, depending on the narrator). He doesn't make a distinction between "joined" or "separate" hose; the ones in the Parson's Tale seem to be joined, but the rest don't clarify whether they mean joined or separate hose.

Welcome back!

I wouldn't expect to find separate terms in Chaucer for separate legand/or joined hose, as the joined variety probably had not been invented yet. I should look in some fo the 15th C. clothing inventories to see what terms were used in the period I tend to do most. Upper class people who left clothing inventories doubtless wore the joined variety, but tax records for lower class people might yield clues to the name for the split hose they were more likely to have been wearing.

This is looking more and more like a decision to use a French term (braies, chausses) vs. an English term (breeches, hose) vs. an obsolete term (cotte/cote).

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In terms of what a man uses to cover up his bottom and naughty bits, Chaucer calls that a breech.[/B]

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Would that be why cannon loaded from the back were breech loaded?

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I should look in some fo the 15th C. clothing inventories to see what terms were used in the period I tend to do most.

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Have you seen http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/Wills/WillsIntro.htm ?

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This is looking more and more like a decision to use a French term (braies, chausses) vs. an English term (breeches, hose) vs. an obsolete term (cotte/cote).

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Though, in the latter example ... Chaucer calls what we commonly refer to as a "pourpoint" a kirtle.

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Would that be why cannon loaded from the back were breech loaded?

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(I think, in linguistics, this concept is known as "metonymy." Whoooooo!)

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Except that Newton seems to think houppeland and goun are the same garment [in the same language] "It is indeed not impossible that the goun and the houpellande were two names for the identical or almost identical garments..." (Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, p. 58).

Pourpoint seems to be a different can of beans whatsoever. Newton says a "paltock' is the garment the hose are pointed to; "their hose are particoloured or striped and tied up to these paltocks of theirs" (ibid, p.54). The English term for this seems to be pourpoint- c1450 Pilgr.LM (Cmb Ff.5.30)   59:  The doublet is maad with poynynges, For whi it is cleped a purpoynt." which is a different garment than the doublet. Maybe.

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Except that Newton seems to think houppeland and goun are the same garment [in the same language] "It is indeed not impossible that the goun and the houpellande were two names for the identical or almost identical garments..." (Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, p. 58).

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Pourpoint seems to be a different can of beans whatsoever. Newton says a "paltock' is the garment the hose are pointed to; "their hose are particoloured or striped and tied up to these paltocks of theirs" (ibid, p.54). The English term for this seems to be pourpoint- c1450 Pilgr.LM (Cmb Ff.5.30) 59: The doublet is maad with poynynges, For whi it is cleped a purpoynt." which is a different garment than the doublet. Maybe.

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In these Dutch accounts the terms used for clothing are (as far as I can make out):

underpants = broek (broek nowadays is the exact word we use for pants)
shirt = hemd (still the same today)
hosen/chausses = kousen (which is our modern word for stockings still)
kirtle/cotte = rock
doublet/pourpoint = wambeuse and once also dobblette
guardecorps = waerdecors
houppelande/gown = hoplande
jacket/jupon = scoepe
hose/chausses laces = hoesnestels
metal tags attached to these laces = rinaelden

According to my MiddelDutch dictionary ri comes from the word riën which equals the modern dutch word 'rijgen' (to thread) so rinaeld would literally mean: 'threading needle'

What I found interesting was that the word kousen was used, which seems to indicate French influence, but that the word hoesnestels, indicating german/english influence, was used instead of the word (more logical) 'kousnestels'.

So, anyway, while babbling about, French, English and German words, don't you forget the Dutch in the geographic middle of it, under influence from all three sides !

Bertus

[ 01-15-2006: Message edited by: Bertus ]

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Curiouser and curiouser!

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Oh, and I'll add this- a guy in our old reenactment group has a Phd in linguistics, and he said if Holland wasn't a separate entity from Germany that Dutch would be German dialect, not a separate language. Apparently Dutch and German are very close.

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Yes, in those days the low countries were, except for Flanders, part of the Holy Roman Empire. The languages barriers weren't that definite yet but quite vague I think and there were more dialects about I suppose.
For example: Lately I've been browsing through some early 15th c. letters from two German merchant brothers; one who was settled in Cologne and the other in Brugge. They wrote to each other and their language seems to me to be more like a mishmash between Dutch and German and not at all very much unlike the language in the Jan van Blois accounts.
Still, the counties and duchies of the low countries being on the outer western rim of the Empire quite near France and with England across the North Sea must account for them having some heavy influence from across the nearby language borders.

Some colourful details about language and how to aqcuire it in those days:

In the 1361-1362 account of Blois a messenger is send to the lord of Boussieres (FR, near Hainault) with a letter which states that his son, who was to live with the Dutch lord of Haerler, an acquaintance of Jan v. Blois, to learn German, was to be send to nearby Le Quesnoy (FR. near Hainault).
Also when Jan van Blois & co. rode to Soysson (Picardie, north of Ile-de-France) to see his brother, the count of Blois, a certain Tonus, son of William, rode with him to stop underway in Beaumont (Hainault) to learn 'Walloon' there.
And I, getting off track here, I also read, IIRC, in the letters from those German merchants, that the one in Cologne send his son to his brother in Brugge so that he could be taught some manners but also learn Italian (!).

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I was interested to see "rock" in the list. I believe "roc" is an older form for gown (brain is clanging Anglo-Saxon but I don't have anything to hand to prove that) but certainly by the 16th C. in Germany we see the military waffenroc, or "sword [weapon]-gown" and the civilian faultenroc .

Curiouser and curiouser!

Gwen

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Well, Jan van Blois orders some wapenrocken as well. So thát word was already around in the 1360s at least.

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Originally posted by Ginevra:
I have stong adverse reaction to the term "cote"

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For me it's the opposite, especialy when it comes to women's garment. The hair literaly creeps straight on my head when I read "medieval gown" or "medieval dress", it makes it sound like cheap Halloween costumes. When I read cotte, cottehardie, kirtle or such, in my head it sounds a lot more as though the person's reffering to a period garment.

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Originally posted by Ginevra:
Dave, we've had the "breeches" conversation before but I don't recall ever asking you at what point "breeches" become a term for outerwear rather than [under]pants? I resist "breeches" because to me "breeches" are Elizabethan (and later) trousers.
Gwen

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Gwen,
I'll be honest and say, I don't know. I've always had enough trouble getting C15th terminology separated from C15th (medieval) costumier-/re-enactor-/living historian-speak to start worrying about what they did with the words after that.

However your point is relevant to the debate in general, and to your question about separate vs join hose. Unfortunately my immediate answer is that when each style was most common then they were simply "hose" (or as linguistically appropriate ... most references are actually bad latin anyway!). This doesn't help you as a modern costumier trying to get modern people to understand that the same thing can have different names not only because of the nationality of the wearer but also the date at which they were wearing the item.

However, I can offer a glimmer of help ... I haven't got it to hand but my copy of the Howard's Household books does make reference to at least two different types of hose ... I think in the 1480's section there are specific references to "separate hose" or some-such .. I'll try and dig the precise term out for you.

I'd love to be able to simply and easily categorise each item by time and locale ... fact is we can't ... there is not sufficient evidence nor the ability to definitively associate a specific description with a specific depiction. Where originals do exist (and were lucky enough to have a citation as well) there is still not enough to be able to be definitive. So like all historians we simplify and categorise to make OUR lives easier ... armourers, swordsmiths they all do the same ... and dismiss what doesn't fit as 'alegorical' or (to use the classic archaeologist term) 'ritual'.

My advice is simply to try to stick to simple common terms as appropriate to the date and locale ... where we have multiple words in use because of language e.g. Doublet (Eng.) Pourpoint (Fra.) etc.

But to return to your original point about 'cotes' ...

a) If the term is being used to sound 'medievalesque' then it should be burned. It is a corruption of the meaning and tantamount to misleading advertising as it imples an authenticity it does not posess. In contrast as soon as 'medieval' appears that's a fairly good hint it is not authentic.

b) If the term is being used to describe what was described at the time as a 'cote' then I don't have a problem with it.

I like the fact that you put an indicator on your web-site as to your confinence in the authenticity of an item ... I'd like more people to be as honest.

If it's a 'cote' say why that term is being used and give citations ... that would be good history ... but then generally this isn't history were talking about is it ... ?

We've talked before about my views on 'bad history for fun' (it's fine, play the game and enjoy it) vs bad history pretending it's real history (e.g. in school visits) which is criminal.

So in my long and rambling way ... it's not the term 'cote', nor the use of it, that should be a problem ... it is the misuse of it that offends.

We all make mistakes ... but clinging to a term because "that's what the market understands" ( pourpoint being my favourite example) does indeed make "the hair on the back of my neck stand up" ;-)

Cheers and keep challenging the accepted (it may be right but proving it helps you to understand).

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Originally posted by Ginevra:
[rant]
We don't call arming doublets "dublettes of fense", we call them arming doublets. [/rant]

Gwen, taylor of fyne dublettes, shyrtes and dublettes of fense.

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BTW ... are you sure they are the same thing ?? I'm not. Variations on a theme maybe ...