Jewelers Of Renaissance

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

6. Girdles And Their Pendants

Very useful as well as ornamental in a period of clothes with few if any pockets was the Renaissance girdle and its pendants.

For everyday-wear the housewife’s girdle was usually a long flexible strip of leather or some textile which was worn diagonally from the waistline at the right side, crossing to the left thigh, where the outer skirt was pulled over it in a loop, thus making a graceful arrangement of drapery. Hanging suspended from her girdle where they were handy were the housewife’s keys. In a day when dwellings of the upper classes were spacious and attendants many, locks and keys were very necessary. Also attached to the girdle was her purse and perhaps a knife or whatever small implement she might have occasion to use.

Sometimes instead of being made of leather or stuff the girdle was a flat chain of silver-gilt or bronze silvered or gilded. Whatever its material, the girdle was ornamented, more often than not, with metal. For formal occasions it generally encircled the body firmly and was sumptuously decorated with enamels and gems and fastened by elaborate clasps. The attached collections of such dangling nicknacks as were favored by the wearer included mirrors, fans, miniatures, knives, tiny books and—most universally worn—a pomander containing perfume and perhaps cosmetics. All these appendages were made or embellished by the jeweler.

The books, usually devotional in character, were jewels in themselves. One, supposed to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth, measured two and half by two inches; its cover of gold was decorated with variously colored enamels and set with a shell cameo. Another of Elizabeth’s girdle pendants was a ‘rounde clock fullie garnished with dyamonds hanging thereat,’ although portable ‘clockes’ or watches were not in general use until a century later.

It is interesting to note during our own times a return of the fashion of wearing pendants attached to the belt. The approach of a belle of the nineties was heralded by the rustle of her silk petticoat (specially advertised for its ability to rustle) and the musical tinkle of her chatelaine. From her belt dangled not only her purse but a heterogeneous collection of elaborate silver nicknacks, more or less useful and generally audible. Sound was an accessory to fashionable costume.

Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)