Birth, marriage and funeral costumes and customs

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 38183, 24 March 1973, Page 10

Birth, marriage and funeral costumes and customs

Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths. By Phillis Cunnington and Catherine Lucas. A. and C. Black. 331 pp. In this most useful book, die authors set out to describe in detail distinctive articles of attire used at births, christenings, weddings and funerals between the medieval period and 1900. Not unexpectedly, perhaps, the book is rather thin on the period prior to the reign of Elizabeth, and gets progressively fuller in its treatment as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are reached This is no reflection upon the abilities or industry of the editors, of course, but rather an expression of the fact that during the medieval

period not a great deal was written about dress in sufficient detail to be useful, and that good illustrations are equally scarce. As there is an unavoidable imbalance between periods, so there is also an unavoidable disparity between the coverage of the three main ages of man. Of the roughly three hundred and thirty pages, only fifty-nine are devoted to birth, babywear and christening, and another sixty-three to marriage. The remainder is given over to the extensive, complex and varied costumes and customs associated with death, mourning, and widowhood. In each case, however, the utmost has been extracted from an impressively wide range of printed and manuscript F*

sources, and a remarkable range of illustrations is included. A history of costume is equally a history of social customs. In describing the changes and developments in specialised areas of English costume history therefore, the authors have also undertaken a limited commentary on the social attitudes and beliefs relating to them. Because they have culled their material from such a range of sources, they present in this respect something akin to a history of English birth, marriage and funeral customs. For this as much as for the details of costume, which is the book’s principal purpose. “Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths” is well worth the reading.