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. Please see:

• Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire du mobilier français, Vol. 3, pg. 104ff
• Enlart (Camille). — Manuel d’Archéologie française depuis les temps mérovingiens jusqu’à la renaissance, vol. III, Le costume (Paris, 1916), pg. 273ff
• Schultz (Alwin).— Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger. 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1879), (Vol. I, Cap. III)., I, 204ff
• Weinhold (K). — Die deutschen Frauen in dem Mittelalter, 2 vols. 2d ed. (Wien, 1882), (Vol. 2, neunter Abschnitt, Die Tracht), Vol. II, pg 281

Materials & Ornamentation

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From the [period] texts we have further evidence as to the materials, which were of silk, or similar fabrics embroidered in gold, and of orfrois :

From: Li biaus descouneüs, (written before 1200) line 5147:

… une çainture de soie,
A or broudée tot entor ;
Si s’en estoit çainte a .i. tor… 

 …a belt of silk,
embroidered all over in gold
was girded once around

[a un tour = in one turn]

… a silken girdle,
richly embroidered with golden thread
and tied around her waist to elegant effect.  ~ CPD’s translation

From:  Athis et Prophilias, (written before 1200) line 14468:

Un ceinturel qu’ele avoit ceint
D’or et de soie trop bien fet…

A belt [little belt?] which she wore on her flanks [ceint = surrounding the body],
too well made of gold and silk…

Compare with the German version of Athis (Athis und Prophilias, early 13^th century), line 67:

Mit guotin gurtlin langin
beslagin mit goltspangin… 

With a good long girdle
studded with gold metal decorations

From: Guillaume de Dole, (written in 1199),  line 4335^[68]:

… une ceinturete
Broudés d’or a escutiaus…. 

…a little belt
embroidered in gold with devices [escutiaus]…

^[68]For the reading escuciaus cf. the glossary of Guillaume de Dole : Roman de la Rose, ed. G. Servois, S. A. T. F. (1893). s. v. escucel, blason, armoiries.

… and line 4810:

Savez-vos de quele feture
Cele ceinture estoit ouvrée?
El estoit de fin or broudée
A poissonez et a oisiaus. 

Do you know of what device
this belt was worked?
It was embroidered with fine gold
in fishes and birds

This embroidery might take the form of a portrait:

From Escoufle (written before 1204), line 2060 :

Mout lor sot en une chainture
Portraire l’ami et 1’amie… 

Well they knew on a belt
How to portray a lover and his mistress

In connection with portraits embroidered on materials, cf. Söhring, p. 611, p. 622.

The ornamentation is of silver :

From Guillaume de Dole (written 1199) line 1833:

Sa ceinture d’argent ferrée… 

His/Her belt fashioned from silver

Compare also:

Fierabras, line 2019 (cited by Godefroy, s.v. singladoire);

Ivain, 1891 ;

Athis, 14626 ;

Perc., 21440,

and boucle, examples (1), (3), and (4).

 

Distinctions between kinds of belts

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The illustrations show that the man’s belt was often made of leather, but the woman’s costume shows as a rule the twisted and knotted belt of silk (fig. 8b, Enlart, fig. 20-22). Since there are two specific words to denote a leather belt, coroie and baudré, q. v., it is possible that ceinture was not used for a leather belt. There is one case in which a distinction is made between a ceinture (of cloth ?) and a corroiete :

(1199), G. de D., 252 :

Et si li change sa ceinture
A une corroiete blanche… 

And [so] he changes his belt
To a little white strap*

(*  “corroiete”, var. of “coreie” and diminutive)

 

Wearing a Ceinture

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The illustrations show that the lady’s belt was often wound twice around the waist and then tied in a loose knot, cf. Viollet-le-Duc, III, 107 ; Enlart, fig. 20-23 ; sometimes only once (1) above, and

(c 1164), Erec, 1649 :

Puis vest le bliaut, si se çaint,
D’un orfrois a un tor s’estraint… 

Then she put on the bliaut, and belted herself
With a gold embroidered cloth/fringe she girded [sense of squeezing tight] herself once around [a un tor]…

In the case of the tight fitting dresses, in which the belt was not needed to hold in the material at the waist, a sozceinte is mentioned as loosely tied :

(c 1160), Enéas, 4021 :

Vestue fu estreitement,
Desus fu ceinte laschement
D’un sozceinte a or brosdée… 

She was dressed very tightly [or maybe closely-fitted?]
Overall she was loosely belted
with a [sozceinte] embroidered with gold.

[In discussion with my fellow 12th century enthusiast Roselyne about this passage, she wrote:

“Okay, I am a bit puzzled as to that word. I have not yet been able to find it in the above form, nor does my usual bag o’tricks give me much except this: breaking it down, it looks like “sous” [under] + “ceinte” [girded]. One scholar appears to have gone another way: “overbelt”–almost the opposite, as if it were “sor/sur” + “ceinte”. Without seeing the actual page to examine the letters, and comparing it to variants in other versions of the text, I am not sure where that reading comes from.
Here is a link: file:///C:/Users/SusanE/Downloads/weaving-narrative.pdf Just Ctrl-F search for “sozceinte”}”  ]

 

Porceint (???)

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I have not noted porceint except in the passage mentioned by Godefroy, s. v.

 

Possible Visual examples

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Figure 2. Bibl. Nat., ms. Lat. 12117, fol, 132. Date c 1050. This figure, illustrating the constellation Virgo, is from a treatise on astronomy. It is the same type as fig. I, but as it is not a working dress it is cut on more elaborate and graceful lines. It may be considered either the cote of the upper classes, or the forerunner of the bliaut of the twelfth century.

The monuments show us that a belt was not always worn, or that if it was, it was often concealed by a fold of the dress. This is especially true of the eleventh century and the first part of the twelfth, cf. fig. 2

and Tapestry of Bayeux, reproduction by Montfaucon, II, p. 24, (1023). Ms. de Montecassin, Tav. XXXVI, XXXVIII, CXI, (a simple fold of cloth worn as a belt is shown Tav. XCVI, CIII) ; (c 1132)

Figure 6. Cathedral of Vézelay, Capitol of the Narthex. Date : 1130-50? Cf. Mâle, op. cit., p. 168, note. In this illustration of David and Bathsheba the dress worn by Bathsheba is the pleated chainse made of linen or similar material. For further description cf. s. v. chainse. A small mantel is thrown over her shoulders. The method of parting the hair from the forehead to the nape of the neck and braiding it on the sides so that the braids fell over the shoulders is clearly illustrated here, cf. s. v. grève. The dress worn by David is probably the man’s bliaut with the chemise showing at the hem

Vézelay, fig. 6 and the statues of Judith and Mary Magdalen. Later in the century, it is occasionally lacking, cf. fig. 10b, l1b, 12 ; Herrad v. Landsberg, pl. LIV, LVI ; Demay, fig. 31, but toward the middle of the century it is often worn in a very elaborate and costly form, cf. fig. 8a, Enlart fig. 20-23, 291, 292 ; Quicherat, 162 ; Viollet-le-Duc, III, 107.

It is of interest to make the following comparison between the statues and the texts : the belt does not appear on the statues of women on the capitals (c 1132) at Vézelay nor is it mentioned in the Roman de Troie, one of the earliest romances to describe a lady’s costume in detail, 13325-13392 ; it is shown on the statues of the Portail Royal (c 1150) at Chartres^[69] in the style which corresponds to the description in (cll60) Enéas, cf.(10) above. This may be an argument for the priority of Troie to Enéas, the possibility of which has been under discussion^[70]. For the appearance of the leather belt in the illustrations cf. s. v. coroie.

Notes

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^[69]For date of the Portail Royal cf. Enlart, Manuel d’archéologie, I, 452, note. The Eglise de la Madeleine at Vézelay is dated c1132 by A. Michel, La Sculpture en France, in Hist. de l’Art I, 2, p. 639 ; but the capitals may have been later, cf. Mâle, L’Art religieux du XII^e siècle en France, (Paris, 1922), p. 168.

^[70]Cf. Bibliography, p. 227, s. v. Enéas. I have, however, followed the authority of Gaston Paris and Faral in the dates given for the citations of Enéas and Troie in this study.