partlet

{{Short description|16th-century fashion accessory}}

File:1567 Aertsen Marktfrau am Gemuesestand anagoria (cropped).JPG

A partlet (or partlett) was a 16th-century fashion accessory. The partlet was a sleeveless garment worn over the neck and shoulders, either worn over a dress or worn to fill in a low neckline.{{Cite book| edition = Reissue| publisher = Bloomsbury Academic| isbn = 9781847885333| last1 = Cumming| first1 = Valerie| last2 = Cunnington| first2 = C. W.| last3 = Cunnington| first3 = P. E.| title = The Dictionary of Fashion History| location = Oxford; New York| date = 2010-11-23 | page =150}}{{Cite book| publisher = Fat Goose Press Ltd.| isbn = 9780956267412| last = Johnson| first = Caroline| editor = Jane Malcolm-Davies| editor2 = Ninya Mikhaila| title = The Queen's Servants: Gentlewomen's Dress at the Accession of Henry VIII| location = Lightwater, Surrey England| date = 2011-12-01|page=22}}

The earliest partlets appeared in European fashion late in the 15th century.

Compare:

{{cite book

|last1 = Cumming

|first1 = Valerie

|last2 = Cunnington

|first2 = C. W.

|author-link2 = Cecil Willett Cunnington

|last3 = Cunnington

|first3 = P. E.

|author-link3 = Phillis Emily Cunnington

|year = 2010

|orig-date = 1960

|chapter = Partlet

|title = The Dictionary of Fashion History

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e3evAwAAQBAJ

|edition = revised

|location = Oxford

|publisher = Berg

|page = 150

|isbn = 9780857851437

|access-date = 5 May 2023

|quote = Partlet [...] Period: 1500-1550. A sleeveless jacket or merely a covering for the upper part of the chest and neck left exposed by a low-cut doublet, then fashionable.

}}

Comments on a miniature dated to {{circa | 1485}} note a Flemish style of partlet in that period.

{{cite book

|last1 = Kren

|first1 = Thomas

|editor-last1 = Kren

|editor-first1 = Thomas

|date = 16 July 1992

|chapter = Some Illuminated Manuscripts of The Vision of Lazarus from the Time of Margaret of York

|title = Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and The Visions of Tondal: Papers Delivered at a Symposium Organized by the Department of Manuscripts of the J. Paul Getty Museum in collaboration with the Huntington Library and Art Collections, June 21–24, 1990

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=sbRDAgAAQBAJ

|series = Getty Publications virtual library

|location = Malibu, California

|publisher = Getty Publications

|page = 144

|isbn = 9780892362042

|access-date = 11 May 2023

|quote = [...] the style of costume, while generally found in France and Flemish Burgundy during the 1480s, has certain features, such as the woman's partlet in the miniature of Lust (fig. 96), which are most common to Flanders.

}}

The English word "partlet" dates from at least 1515.

{{oed | partlet}} - "Any pynchyd shyrt or pynchyd partlet of lynnyn cloth or playn shyrt garnysshyd or made wyth sylke or gold or sylver".

Partlet makers emerged,

{{cite web

| url = https://vanishedcomforts.org/2020/08/15/second-hand-clothes-in-sixteenth-century-edinburgh/

| title = Second-hand clothes in sixteenth-century Edinburgh

| year = 2019

| access-date = 5 May 2023

| quote = [...] a partlet maker, David Courtie owed money for pile and half pile black velvet at £12 the ell.

}}

putting out a product often made of silk or linen, and worn to fill in the low necklines of both men's and women's Burgundian dress. Men continued to wear partlets, usually of rich materials, with the low-cut doublets of the early 16th century.{{Cite book| publisher = Funk & Wagnalls| last = Picken| first = Mary Brooks| title = A Fashion Dictionary| date = 1957 |page = 244}}

Early in the 16th century, partlets worn by women were made using a variety of fabrics and colors, although black was most popular. Black partlets worn over the gown, usually of velvet or satin for the upper classes, are an earlier style.{{Cite book| publisher = Maney| isbn = 9781904350705 |last = Hayward| first= Maria| title = Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII| location = Leeds, UK| date = 2007 |pages = 166–7}}{{Cite book| edition = 1st| publisher = Costume and Fashion Press| isbn = 9780896762558| last1 = Mikhaila| first1 = Ninya| last2 = Malcolm-Davies| first2 = Jane| title = The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Dress| url = https://archive.org/details/tudortailorrecon00mikh| url-access = limited| location = Hollywood, Calif.| date = 2006-04-01|page=[https://archive.org/details/tudortailorrecon00mikh/page/n70 70]}} A wardrobe warrant of June 1538 ordered black velvet for a "French partlet" for Princess Mary.Hayward (2007), p. 166 Depictions which have been made by painters of such black partlets may be seen in a number of portraits of Tudor court ladies which were made by Hans Holbein the Younger

Compare:

{{cite book

|last1 = Wornum

|first1 = Ralph Nicholson

|author-link1 = Ralph Nicholson Wornum

|year = 1867

|title = Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein: Painter, of Augsburg, with Numerous Illustrations

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=UCMUAAAAYAAJ

|publication-place = London

|publisher = Chapman and Hall

|page = 296

|access-date = 16 June 2023

|quote = [Lady Butts] has on also a white partlet, with black embroidery on the collar, which is often seen in Holbein's portraits, very skilfully managed [...].

}}

(in England between 1526 and {{circa | 1540}}), as well as in the works showing market women which were produced by Dutch painters throughout the 16th century.

Fine partlets made of linen lawn, with small standing collars and ruffles, could be worn directly over a low-necked smock, or over the kirtle. The "Pelican Portrait" of Elizabeth I shows the Elizabethan fashion for matching partlet and sleeves worked with blackwork embroidery.{{Cite book| publisher = Maney| isbn = 0901286206| last = Arnold| first = Janet| title = Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe unlock'd: the inventories of the Wardrobe of Robes prepared in July 1600, edited from Stowe MS 557 in the British Library, MS LR 2/121 in the Public Record Office, London, and MS V.b.72 in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC| location = Leeds [England]| date = 1988|page=22}} Such sets of partlet and sleeves were common New Year's gifts to the queen. In 1562, Lady Cobham gifted the queen "a partelett and a peire of sleeves of sypers wrought with silver and black silke".{{cite web|url=http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Pub/ArchCant/Vol.011%20-%201877/011-18.pdf|title=Six Wills Relating to Cobham Hall|date=1877|access-date=5 March 2017}}

Elaborate lattice-work partlets such as that worn by Eleanor of Toledo (1522-1562) in one of her portraits by Bronzino could be decorated by goldsmiths

An inventory of possessions of a Queen of Scotland includes "one partlet of gold-fret set upon crammesy satin, with 12 diamonds, 14 rubies, 25 pearls; one [partlet] of cloth of gold; one partlet of white taffeta with three pearls; one partlet of taffeta goldsmith's work [...].{{cite book

|last1 = Strickland

|first1 = Agnes

|author-link1 = Agnes Strickland

|last2 = Strickland

|first2 = Elizabeth

|author-link2 = Elizabeth Strickland

|year = 1850

|chapter = Life of Margaret Tudor, Queen of James IV

|title = Lives of the queens of Scotland and English princesses connected with the royal succession of Great Britain. By A. Strickland

|volume = 1

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0YMBAAAAQAAJ

|publication-place = Edinburgh

|publisher = W. Blackwood & Sons

|page = 137

|access-date = 23 June 2023

}}

with gold, jewels and pearls. This was called "Caulle fashion" in England.Hayward (2007), p. 167 In 1563 Elizabeth's silkwoman Alice Montague employed a woman "altering and translating" the queen's partlets.Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), p. 224. 1568 Elizabeth I set her "Mistress Launder" to work to "translate" her partlets with 520 pearls costing a penny each.Elizabeth Goldring and others, eds, John Nichols’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I: A New Edition of the Early Modern Sources, vol. 5 (Oxford, 2014), Appendix 16, Account of the Queen’s Purse, 1559-1569, ed. by Jayne Elisabeth Archer and trans. by Sarah Knight, p. 252.

The origin of the term 'partlet' (attested from 1515) is uncertain, but it may derive from 'Dame Partlet', a traditional name for a hen, perhaps in reference to the ruffle of feathers on some hens' necks.{{Cite OED | partlet }}