In the last post I mentioned the coats and jackets referred to in this indenture between Admiral Howard and the king in 1512:
Indenture between Henry VIII. and Sir Edward Howard, witnessing that the said Admiral shall command the fleet now ready for sea with 3,000 men of war, over and above the 700 soldiers, mariners, and gunners in The Regent. His wages to be 10s., and every captain's, 1s. 6d. per diem; every soldier's, mariner's, and gunner's, 5s. per month wages, and 5s. per month victuals. Coats of every captain and soldier 4s., of every mariner and gunner 20d. Is to return at the end of three months to Southampton to revictual. His fleet to consist of 18 ships (portage and deadshares of each given); sc. The Regent of 1,000 tons, The Mary Rose of 500 tons, The Peter Pomegranet of 400, John Hopton's ship 400, The Nicholas Reede 400, The Mary John 240, The Anne of Greenwich, 160, The Mary George 300, The Dragon 100, The Lyon 120, The Barbara 140, The George of Falmouth 140, The Peter of Fowey 120, The Nicholas of Hampton ten score tons, The Martenet 9 score tons, The Genet 70 tons, The Christopher Davy 160 tons, The Sabyen 120. To have 2 crayers for revictualling. Conduct money for soldiers, &c., to be 6d. per day, from their homes to the place of shipment, accounting 12 miles for a day's journey. Half the prizes, &c., to be reserved for the King. Dated 8 April 3 Hen. VIII. (Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1: 1509-1514, item. 3,117)
Astute readers will no doubt have noticed that this indenture doesn’t actually mention ‘jackets’ per se, but it does distinguish between coats for soldiers and coats for seamen. The only difference apparent from this document is that the mariners’ coats cost less than half the price of the soldiers’ coats. All other things being equal this suggests that the garments themselves were different, but it could mean only that cheaper materials were used for the mariners’ coats.
Other related documents, however, do use different terms for the garments. Sir Edward Howard’s accounts, for example, record ‘coats to soldiers at 4s’ and ‘jackets to mariners at 20d’.
So, what can we safely assume about mariners’ jackets?
• Virtually all of the livery issued to the fighting men of Henry VIII’s army at this date was green and white parti-coloured, so it seems reasonable, pending the discovery of contradictory evidence, to suppose that the mariners’ jackets were also green and white. A letter written by Venetian Antonio Bavarin, quoted in THIS POST describes the English mariners dressed in green and white, and is almost certainly a reference to the jackets mentioned in the indenture.
• It also seems reasonable to suppose that the mariners’ jackets were shorter than the soldiers’ coats for two reasons. A. the much reduced cost of the jackets is suggestive of less material and labour in their construction, and B. mariners in general throughout history have often adopted shorter jackets than their landsman counterparts because of the practical requirements of working at sea.
There are some good examples of short jackets being worn by seamen in this contemporary picture of the fight between the English ship Regent and Breton ship Cordeliere at the Battle of Saint-Mathieu in 1512.
And some more detailed views:
All of these fellows appear to be dressed in short red jackets, and particularly in the first and third pictures the shape – pinched waist, and short, flared skirts – is clearly discernible. It would be very tempting to suppose that the uniformity of the jackets in the painting was indicative of men in a red livery, were it not for the fact that every mariner in the picture is wearing red, regardless of whether he’s English or Breton. Clearly the artist just had his red paint out when he came to colouring in the people… Nevertheless, here’s a contemporary depiction of seamen in short jackets.
The next question, for me, is whether short jackets of this kind were ever issued in livery colours, effectively as shorter versions of the soldiers’ coats. The arrival of The King’s Servants (which, by the way, was delivered very promptly after I ordered it; positive feedback for The Tudor Tailor) fortuitously introduced me to some pictures from the Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511.
This first picture shows men wearing base coats in livery colours, similar to the soldiers’ coats of the period and, presumably, the soldiers’ coats mentioned in the Howard indenture.
These chaps here, though, are wearing much shorter garments, similar to those being worn by the seamen in the Battle of Saint-Mathieu picture above, and similar to what I suppose the mariners’ jackets in the Howard accounts looked like. Crucially, they are in the same parti-coloured livery as the longer base coats in the first picture: evidence that short jackets were issued in livery.
These pictures are quite detailed and give enough information to start thinking about a tentative reconstruction. Key points to note include:
• They are front-centre fastening.
• There is no sign of any fastening, so possibly they were closed with hooks and eyes.
• The skirts appear to be shaped rather than pleated. Although there are some marks which might be interpreted as pleating, they are not nearly so clear as the very obvious pleats in the skirts of the long coats in the first picture.
• They have a square neck-line front and back
• They appear to be fitted with elbow length ‘demi-sleeves’, and worn over a doublet, which is also in the livery colours. I thought at first that they might be puffed upper sleeves attached to fitted lower sleeves, but looking carefully at the point where the two sleeves meet, especially on the lower-left figure and the right arm of the upper-left figure, I think it’s clear that the upper half of the sleeve ends in a cuff.
Looks like I’ll have to add to my list of stuff to make…
I remain etc. etc.
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