Ceinwen ferch Llewelyn ab Owain's Embellishment for a 14^th Century Hood

This piece measures 3.5 inches tall and is made of 2.5mm rice pearls and 5mm potato pearls on wool. Since it’s a sample, I used poly-cotton thread to attach the pearls to the wool.

During the 14^th Century, pearls were the height of fashion, featuring heavily in manuscripts and wardrobe inventories. Hoods are also depicted embellished with gold bands along the lower hem, such as in the Romance of Alexander or the Statuts de l’Ordre du Saint Espirit.

The project began after taking a class on hoods and tippets with Mistress Muriel de Chimay. Inspired at the idea of combining costuming and embroidery, I discussed this further with her via e-mail, including hood designs, length and materials. Also, in Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, Newton states:

In France, there seems to have been a particular linking for embroidered hoods, made for members of both sexes. Three quarters of a whole cloth of fine ____, and the same quantity of escarlatte of paonasse colour, were supplied to the Daupin’s armourer and embroider, Thevenin Castel, a lined hood to be embroidered in pearls for the Dauphin.

In the extant records, Newton finds another hood for the Dauphin:

Was embroidered in a design which included forty-four trees with large tufts of leaves, their branches worked in gold thread. A lapwing (piment) was perched on each branch. Round the edge of the hood was a band divided into sections of embroidery, each of the sections enclosing a wild man mounted on a beast. In the front, on the chest (presumably of the short cape to which the hood was attached), once again worked in pearls, was a castle from which emerged maidens also mounted on wild beast who jousted with the men.

While my project isn’t quite so intricate, it’s still going to involve lots of pearls, embroidery and gold with a lining.

~ Ceinwen

• 15th C. Italian Dress (gamurra)