Viollet-le-Duc on the Ceinture (Dress Belt)

In her thesis on Women’s Costume in French Texts of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, philologist Eunice Goddard often cited previous works about medieval clothing terms from various 19th century costumers.  Although more recent scholarship has often come to different conclusions than these earlier writers, understanding what they said is helpful in a drawing out a fuller picture of the topic.  This is especially important as Goddard continues to be held as a go-to source for re-enactors.

At the beginning of her entry on the “Ceinture“, or dress belt, she referred her readers to four such works, writing:

“The ceinture is a belt worn with the dress. The elaborate and costly belts worn at this period have been described at length in the histories of costume.  cf. Viollet-le-Duc, III, 104 ; Enlart, 273 ; Schultz, I, 204 ; Weinhold, II, 281.”

I intended to place each of these references in a separate blog post.   This is the first of the four.

 

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire du mobilier français

Vol. 3, pg. 104ff

L’influence des vêtements byzantins fut telle sur les modes françaises , pendant la première moitié du xIIe siècle, que les ceintures ne firent plus partie du vêtement civil des hommes nobles (voy. ROBE). Elles furent au contraire de mise pour les vêtements desfemmes et d’une extrême richesse.

During the first half of the twelfth century, Byzantine clothing had such influence on the French styles that that the belts were no longer part of the everyday clothing of noble men (see ROBE). In contrast, they were emphasized in women’s clothing, and with great richness.

Calontir’s “War of the Lilies”

Just an FYI to my readers that there will be no post next week (and probably not the following week either), as I will be travelling with my family to Lilies.  For those unfamiliar, it’s a week-long SCA camping event in the American Midwest.

Digging into information about 12th century belts will resume when I return.

Goddard on “Ceinture” – the Dress Belt

This is my third post expanding entries for words related to belts from Eunice Rathbone Goddard’s thesis on Women’s Costume in French Texts of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.  Please see the introductory post, “About Belts” from May 13th, as well as my previous entry on the “coroie” for a full explanation of my approach and colour-coding.

As with the previous entries, this one is also a work-in-progress.  It is also a much longer entry in Goddard’s original thesis than the other two, and I have not yet found all the “compare also” references which she included. However, I don’t want to leave a long time gap between posts on this topic. I’ll be coming back and updating as I find the quotes. Due to the length of this entry, I have added to sub-headings in an attempt to make it easier to navigate.

As always, I welcome feedback and discussion, especially regarding the translations of Goddard’s examples into English.
~ EMK ~

CEINTURE. s. f.

The ceinture is a belt worn with the dress. The elaborate and costly belts worn at this period have been described at length in the histories of costume.