Elite Elizabethan Fashion Fashion, Elite Elizabethan Author Kaitlin Zaugg Author Kate McPherson Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Unless otherwise noted, intellectual copyright in EMEE Anthology pages is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Kaitlin Zaugg and Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Clothing Fashion Social Order Gender Gendered Clothing Published file. Updated metadata proofed updated author respStmt. swapped the desc and figDescs to be correct. added image citations and two figures. Fixed capitalization in source titles. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Kaitlin Zaugg Kaitlin Zaugg

Kaitlin Zaugg was a student at Utah Valley University.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
An engraving by printmaker Pieter Nolpe showing a woman in twelve different stages of life. In the bottom left corner, she is depicted as an infant, and in the bottom right she is depicted at 100 years old. In between is a stepped brick wall, and on each step, she stands, representing a decade of her life, wearing clothes of the 17th century. Courtesy of Folger Digital Collections. Public Domain.
Overview

In the early modern period, as now, fashion offered people a visible way to communicate their status, wealth, and ideology, as well as stay modestly covered and comfortable. In England’s highly stratified society, a person’s clothing indicated many aspects of their identity. Sumptuary laws regulated what colors, fabrics, decoration, and even weapons a person was legally allowed to wear based on their rank. Only nobles were allowed to wear fabrics like silk and velvet.

Officials in the Church of England supported sumptuary laws. Starting in 1563, a sermon entitled Against Excess of Apparel was regularly preached around England, a rite that continued through the reign of King James I.

Common people were prohibited from wearing specific types of rich fabrics and particular colors. However, starting in the 1580s and again in 1604, the strictest of the sumptuary laws were loosened to allow for the increasing numbers wealthy commoners such as merchants to wear richly made or decorated clothing.

It is worth noting that actors wearing costumes in the theater were exempt from these laws, much to the irritation of some Puritans. Actors often impersonated rulers and nobles, so many theatrical costumes featured indicators of high status, which religious conservatives objected to as inherently untruthful and deceitful.

Fabrics and Colors

English sumptuary laws controlled who was allowed to wear what colors and fabrics based on social class. For example, purple was only for the royal family. Crimson, which was made with rare ingredients, indicated immense wealth and was reserved for royalty and high-ranking officials in the church. Indigo was similarly limited to the highest members of the nobility and royalty. Regular red fabrics, which were dyed with common madder root (producing a less brilliant color), was worn by people of all classes, but especially by soldiers. Anyone from any station could wear the following colors: black (but fine, darkly dyed black cloth was very expensive), pink, orange, brown, gray, green, and yellow. Blue was worn by both upper and lower classes, but it was mostly used by servants.

Expensive fabrics like velvet (from Italy), cotton and silks (from the Middle East), fine furs like sable, and lace were widely available, both domestically produced and imported from elsewhere in Europe. These fabrics were limited to the nobility and gentry. The lower classes most commonly wore clothing made from domestically produced materials such as wool, linen, leather, and sheepskin.

A gentleman wearing a black doublet, breeches, and hat from Royal, military and court costumes of the time of James I, a set of Italian watercolors, c. 1615. Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lord’s Clothing

Gentlemen wore many layers of clothing, although not as many as gentlewomen. The gentlemen likely wore gown (a long fabric robe, often trimmed with fur) or a doublet (a tight jacket of fabric or leather that buttoned up the front) separate detachable sleeves (tied to the doublet) cuffs (sometimes plain, sometimes made of lace or embroidered linen) breeches (knee-lengthh trousers) a belt a ruff (an elaborate piece of neckwear made of starched and pleated linen or lace) a cloak shoes a hat

For undergarments, men wore linen or lightweight woolen shirts, often quite long to tuck into outer clothing instead of underpants. Linen shirts were changed and washed frequently. Men also wore stockings or hose (one for each leg) of wool and occasionally silk. Some fashionable men chose to wear a codpiece (a prominent, often decorative, pouch to hold and highlight male genitalia).

Like women, men kept their heads covered a great deal. Gentlemen wore various types of headgear, which might include a coif or biggin (a fitted fabric cap often worn by older men, sometimes under a hat) tall-crowned hats with brims (almost like top hats today) of velvet or silk, usually decorated with feathers, jewels, brooches, or ribbons low-crowned hats with brims, decorated similarly to the tall-crowned ones

Women’s Clothing

Women’s clothing was complex and fit tightly to her figure. Elite women wore a dress with many separate parts placed over elaborate underclothing, while women of lower rank wore outfits that featured fewer complex pieces.

Elite women’s underclothes had as many as ten different items: smocks, shifts, or chemise (an underdress of linen or wool, usually changed daily) corset or inner bodice (to accentuate, narrow, or flatten aspects of a woman’s body) a roll (around the waist to accentuate the hips) stockings or hose (knee length socks) farthingale (hoop skirt)

For exterior layers, high-ranking ladies also wore stomacher (a stiffened triangle design along front of the skirt, below the bodice) a petticoat (an underskirt) a kirtle (a kind of overskirt) forepart (like an apron) bodice or corset (a stiff, vest-like garment covering the torso and shoulders) sleeves, inner and outer (tied onto the bodice) a partlet (often of sheer linen, covering the neckline area to keep the outfit modest) skirt or gown (often of heavily decorated fabric) Sometimes a ruff

Ladies also wore cloaks when outdoors, as well as shoes, and a hat or other head covering. Women were expected to cover their heads most of the time and so wore various kinds of hats or other headgear, which might include a white linen coif (a fitted cap hiding most of the hair) a French hood (a small hood with a curved border at the front and material falling to the shoulder at the back) the Mary Stuart hood (made of sheer cloth and edged with lace) a caul, or hairnet (made of gold mesh, silk thread, or even human hair, worn alone or under a hat)

Like men, elite women wore elaborate hats, such as the taffeta pipkin, a brimmed hat trimmed with ostrich feathers and jewels, and the court bonnet, a velvet pillbox adorned with the same.

Key Print Sources Huang, Helen Q., et al. Elizabethan Costume Design and Construction. Focal Press, 2015. Haywood, Maria. Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England. Ashgate Publishing Co. 2009.
Key Online Sources Alchin, Linda. Elizabethan Clothing. Elizabethan Era. https://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-clothing.htm. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018. Alchin, Linda. Meaning of Colors in the Elizabethan Era. Elizabethan Era, 7 Feb. 2017, https://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/meaning-colors.htm. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018. Alchin, Linda. Tudor Clothes for the Rich. The Tudors. 2014. https://www.sixwives.info/tudor-clothes-for-the-rich.htm. Accessed 15 Nov. 2018. Best, Michael. Court Fashions. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/court%20life/fashion.html. Accessed 13 Nov. 2018. Best, Michael. Elizabethan Fashions. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/stage/costumes/fashion.html. Accessed 4 Jun. 2023. Best, Michael. Fashion and Colour. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/stage/costumes/colour.html. Accessed 13 Nov. 2018.
Image Sources A Gentleman Wearing a Black Doublet, Breeches, and Hat. From Royal, military and court costumes of the time of James I. c. 1615. Folger Shakespeare Library. Nolpe, Pieter. Woman in Twelve Different Stages of Life. N.d. Engraving. Folger Digital Collections. ART Box A265 no. 2. https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img3150.