Download PDF | Byzantine Fashions By Tom Tierney
48 Pages
INTRODUCTION
The Byzantine Empire began in A.D. 330, when Emperor Constantine I moved the capital of the Roman Empire to a city that became known as Constantinople, or Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul). Constantine I was impressed by the city’s strategic location, notably its command of the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Black seas. The Byzantine Empire’s thriving commercial trade led to immense wealth, its trade routes extending from Scandinavia and Russia to Armenia and Ethiopia. In A.D. 364, Emperor Valentinian I divided the Roman Empire into two parts—east and west—with two emperors, to facilitate the management of the vast territory. East and west, however, differed greatly, the eastern portion having a larger population and greater wealth. After the fall of Rome in the fifth century at the hands of the Germanic Goths, the eastern Byzantine Empire ruled alone. This empire lasted for over 1,100 years—until 1453, the year of the death of Emperor Constantine XI and the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks.
During this era, costume attained a richness of color, fabric, and ornament that far exceeded the greatest days of Rome. The Byzantine culture was a complex blending of east and west. Included within Byzantine fashions are not only those styles worn in the city of Byzantium after it became the capital of the Roman Empire, but also clothing worn in regions that fell under its influence, such as Italy, Greece, and Russia. Until the sixth century, the Roman influence was still strong, with draped styles predominating the cut of dress.
The tunica (a universally worn loosely draped garment of undyed wool or linen), the dalmatic (a wide-sleeved over-robe of cotton, linen, or wool for the commoners, and silk for the wealthy), and the stola (a high-belted woman’s garment constructed from a folded rectangle) were the basic foundations of Byzantine style. The dalmatica evolved from kneelength in the early part of the empire (sixth to tenth centuries) to floor-length (tenth to thirteenth centuries), finally resembling a Turkish caftan in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. From the beginning, the fabrics and colors used were strongly influenced by Persian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and Arabian sources. As time passed, these eastern styles of costume began to assert themselves in the form of trousers, footwear, head coverings and, above all, decoration and jewelry.
Most of our knowledge of Byzantine fashions comes from surviving mosaics and sculptures. Clothing artifacts reveal remarkably intricate, elaborate brocaded fabrics with jeweled surfaces. These brocaded fabrics gave a new stiffness and luminosity to garments—a departure from the soft wool and linen that characterized Roman drapery.
The Emperor Justinian introduced the manufacture of silk to Constantinople in the sixth century. Silk fabric allowed for the use of brilliant colors—jewel-like reds, blues, yellows, greens, and gold (the privilege of wearing purple was limited to emperors and empresses by law). A uniquely Byzantine article worn at court was the tablion (sometimes called a clavus), an ornamental jewel-encrusted, rectangular piece of fabric inset on men’s and women’s cloaks. The tablion identified the wearer as a member of the royal house or court dignitary. Another unusual garment was the Persian-derived maniakis, a separate collar of goldembroidered, jewel-encrusted fabric.
Byzantine dress typically covered the arms and legs, sleeves extending to the wrists. After the eighth century, the lorum was introduced—a long scarf that was draped around the body, reminiscent of the Roman toga that it had replaced. The lorum was generally made of silk or gold cloth and was heavily jeweled, indicating the wearer’s status. Men of means draped themselves in a rich dalmatic with a tablion placed on the left front edge. Women wore a stola (palla) over their long tunicas, using one end of the garment as a head covering.
Both men and women fastened their mantles on the right shoulder with an ornate jeweled clasp called a fibula. The camisia, an undergarment made of linen or silk, was worn beneath the tunica, protecting the rich fabrics of the outer garments from body oils and perspiration. The long tunica evolved into the gunna (gown). In the latter centuries of Byzantine rule, a short shirt with long dolman-style sleeves, called a juppe, was worn over long tunicas.
Elaborately designed jewelry was a hallmark of the Byzantine era. Pearls were plentiful and used lavishly with diamonds and other precious gems; eventually, colored glass beads and tiny mirrors were added to decorative embroideries. Women enveloped their hair in a coif of silk or net worked with pearls. A favorite motif in jewelry and fabrics was pairs of birds (see pages 26 and 39). Sandals, standard footwear in Roman days, were still worn, but soft ankle-high boots—calcei—were the preferred footwear of the wealthy. The boots were generally made of soft, brightly colored leather, often embroidered and jeweled, and had long, pointed toes.
The Byzantine empire made two important contributions to western fashion. In the third century, its weavers began using shuttles to produce patterned fabrics. Later, in the sixth century, Emperor Justinian initiated the raising of silkworms from the cocoon. Under his aegis, silkworm eggs and seeds of the mulberry bush, concealed in hollow bamboo staffs, were brought into Byzantium by two Persian monks. The Byzantine mode of dressing became more and more sumptuous until the fall of the empire; its influence is evident throughout the Medieval and Renaissance periods of European fashion. In addition, it provided the foundation for the liturgical costume of both the eastern and western Christian churches, particularly those of Russia.
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق