Beginners’ Guides:
English Folk Costume

Where

Initially in rich or royal households, later moving out into rural locations.

Context

It is likely that Medieval morris was part of a wider European dance trend. Morris appears to have been created as a medieval form of courtly entertainment relating in some way to the Moors. In medieval-English, this meant ‘Muslim’, but by the Renaissance ‘Moor’ was being used to mean people of North-African descent. Many of the early morris performances would have been part of masques, an elaborate courtly entertainment with outlandish costumes and special effects. The performance and choreography would have been very different to the styles of morris done today. It was possibly performed as part of a drama containing characters such as the Fool (section 12) and female characters such as Beauty and Venus. This early type of morris eventually evolved into several different forms including Cotswold, border, northwest, and carnival.

What

The earliest reference to costume comes from the account books of a wealthy family from Lanherne in Cornwall in 1466. The account book of the family notes that they brought 48 bells and a large amount of paper and glue with which to perform a disguising and a morris. Disguisings were the forerunner to elaborate masques, involving costly costumes and elaborate scenery. Paper in its old form was thick, like parchment, and would have been imported and very expensive. What they did with all that paper and glue we can only imagine!

One account from 1511 describes a performance in the court of Henry VIII and mentions costumes of fine silk cloth in red and white. Each of the four dancers had 200 glittering ‘baubles’ on their costumes and 108 bells attached to their arms and legs – they would have made quite an impression. Over the course of the next two hundred years morris moved out of the court and into the countryside where it was learnt and danced by tradesmen as a form of additional income. With this came a change in the costume from garments costing hundreds of pounds, to everyday clothes adorned with additional items (particularly bells) which were used to symbolise morris. These symbolic items included, feathers, sashes and bell-pads. Bell pads which are still worn by many morris sides today, are pieces of cloth or leather, tied just below the knee which have many rows of bells attached to them. These additional symbolic items could have been worn over regular clothing, or special shirts and breeches made for dancing in.

Why Bells?

It is likely that medieval morris dancers wore bells because in masques bells were used to represent Moorish people. Because of the sheer volume of bells used, it is possible that the earliest dancers had bells all over their body. By the 17th century bells had largely became confined to a special bell-pad worn on the shin.

Why Handkerchiefs’?

Only in the 1700s do dancers start to use handkerchiefs as a dance prop. People started to use handkerchiefs for morris when the dance was done without the special coats with long-hanging sleeves which were worn in the Medieval and Renaissance period. Later dancers did not have access to these special coats which would have added colour and movement to the dance. As a substitute they pinned fabric pieces to their clothing and eventually these became the large handkerchiefs, held in the hands, which are used by dancers today.