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i
Clare Backhouse received her doctorate from the Courtauld Institute of

Art. She has taught at the Courtauld, New York University in London, the
University of Oxford, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is a contribu-
tor to Printed Images in Early Modern Britain (2010).
ii
‘This is the first serious study of English seventeenth-century illustrated bal-

lads and is an important book for anyone interested in the dynamics of pop-
ular culture and clothing in early modern England. Focusing on the ballad
as text and image, Backhouse places these most popular of print products in
their material, economic, social and artistic milieu and uses them to draw
out a new history of changing fashions and social attitudes towards fashion,
for both workers and wearers across the century.’
– Angela McShane, author of Political Broadside Ballads
of Seventeenth-Century England: A Critical Bibliography (2011)
‘Clare Backhouse’s Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England transforms the
way we think about fashion and popular culture in the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries. Single-sheet ballads, illustrated with woodcuts, offered
ordinary English men and women unmatched access to the output of the
new printing presses. A cheap price and accessible content ensured them
a wide audience. The words of the ballads remain familiar today as a key
source for English folk song, but Clare Backhouse shows that, for those who
bought, read and sung them, their illustrations were equally important. In an
era when the modern fashion system was emerging, the ballads’ woodcuts
disseminated clothing fashions to ordinary people. They did so by drawing
on the rapidly changing conventions of courtly portrait painting, in the pro-
cess transmitting fashion in art as well as fashion in dress. This is a pathbreak-
ing book. It bridges the gaps between high art and everyday life and between
image and text, while obliging us to rethink the origins of popular fashion.’
– John Styles, University of Hertfordshire and
Victoria and Albert Museum
‘This is interdisciplinarity at its best, connecting popular prints with the

complexities of early modern fashion. Clare Backhouse has taken blurred,
often badly printed ballads and pamphlets and used them to reconstruct the
changing economic, social and political worlds of pedlars, their packs of rib-
bons, fabrics and papers, and their clients and consumers.’
– Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies,
King’s College London
iii
Fashion and
Popular Print in
Early Modern
England
Depicting Dress in Black-Letter Ballads
Clare Backhouse
iv
Published in 2017 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
London • New York
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © 2017 Clare Backhouse
The right of Clare Backhouse to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any
part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission
of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in
this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.
References to websites were correct at the time of writing.
ISBN: 978 1 78453 837 8

eISBN: 978 1 78672 196 9
ePDF: 978 1 78673 196 8
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK), Croydon, CR0 4YY

v
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vi
Citations and Abbreviations x
Introduction 1
1 Commodities of Print and Dress 9
2 Ballad Comment on Dress 43
3 Ballad Pictures: Conventions of Clothes and the Body 84
4 Classical Ideals and Satirical Deviations, Part I: Masculinity,
Fashion and the Defence of the Nation 126
5 Classical Ideals and Satirical Deviations, Part II: Female Bodies,
Feminine Fashions and Economic Benefits 158
Epilogue 191
Notes 203
Select Bibliography 226
Acknowledgements 245
Index of Ballad Titles 248
Index 250
vi
ILLUSTRATIONS
0.1 The Country Lass, 1690?, PB 3.290. By permission of the Pepys

Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 1
1.1 Detail of a crimson velvet jerkin, showing collar and centre
front, c.1628–32. © Museum of London; author’s photograph. 15
1.2 Jan Steen, A Pedlar Selling Spectacles Outside a Cottage, c.1650–3, oil
on oak panel. © The National Gallery, London. 20
1.3 The Pedler Opening of His Packe, 1620, PB 1.238–9. By permission
of the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 24
1.4 Jolly Jack of All Trades, 1685–8, PB 4.263. By permission of the
Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 25
1.5 The Sorrowful Lamentation of the Pedlars, 1685–8, PB 4.298. By
permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 26
1.6 The Crafty Scotch Pedlar, c.1692–3, PB 4.326. By permission of the
1.7 A Mad Crue, 1625, PB 1.444–5. By permission of the Pepys
2.1 Thomas Deloney, A Most Excellent and Vertuous Ballad of the Patient
Grissell, 1624?, PB 1.34–5. By permission of the Pepys Library,
Magdalene College, Cambridge. 45
2.2 The Deserued Downfall of a Corrupted Conscience, 1621, PB 1.142–3. By
2.3 Richard Day’s A Booke of Christian Praiers, known as ‘Queen
Elizabeth’s Prayer Book’, 1578, pp. 95v, 98v. © The British
Library Board. 51
2.4 M[artin] P[arker], Times Alteration, 1630, PB 1.160–1. By
2.5 Anonymous, Cries of London, seventeenth century, etching. © The
Trustees of the British Museum. 62
vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii
2.6 Merry Tom of All Trades, 1658–64, Wood E 25(47). The Bodleian
Library, University of Oxford. 63
2.7 L[awrence] P[rice], Round Boyes Indeed, 1632, PB 1.442–3. By
2.8 The Coblers New Prophesie, 1678–80, PB 4.230. By permission of
the Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge. 67
2.9 The War-Like Taylor, 1681–4, PB 4.282. By permission of the
2.10 A Warning and Good Counsel to the Weavers, 1688, PB 4.356. By
2.11 The Weavers Request, 1685–8, PB 4.355. By permission of the
3.1a First page of the Book of Esdras from Miles Coverdale’s
translation of the Bible, Marburg?, 1535. © The British
Library Board. 90
3.1b The second part of The Historie of the Prophet Ionas, c.1620, PB
1.28–9. By permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene
College, Cambridge. 91
3.2a Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, ed. John Selden 1612; 1622, p. 4.
The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. 92
3.2b The second part of Robert Johnson, The Good Shepheards Sorrow
for the Death Ef [sic] His Beloued Sonne, 1612, PB 1.352–3. By
3.3a Frontispiece to Haec Vir, or the Womanish Man, 1620. © The British
Library Board. 96
3.3b The first part of A Most Delicate, Pleasant, Amorous, New Song, 1625,
PB 1.254–5. By permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene
3.4 Sir Walter Rauleigh His Lamentation, 1618, PB 1.110–11. By
permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene College,
Cambridge. 99
3.5 Any Thing for a Quiet Life, c.1620, PB 1.378–9. By permission of
3.6 A Batchelers Resolution, 1629, PB 1.232–3r. By permission of the
3.7 The Young-Womans Complaint, c.1655–60, Wood E 25(37). The
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. 102
3.8 The Famous Flower of Serving-Men, 1664, Douce 1(83b). The
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. 103
viii
viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
3.9 The Unbelieving Maiden, 1684–6, PB 3.111. By permission of the

3.10a The Lovers Invitation, 1684–6, PB 4.46. By permission of the
3.10b After Pieter Borsseler, Catherine of Braganza, 1662–85, engraving.
© National Portrait Gallery, London. 106
3.11 Engraved illustration by Thomas Cross in Francis Hawkins,
Youths Behaviour, 1652; 1661. The Bodleian Library, University
of Oxford. 110
3.12 Forsaken Lovers Resolution, 1678–80, PB 3.97. By permission of
3.13 John Hayls, Samuel Pepys, 1666, oil on canvas. © National
Portrait Gallery, London. 118
3.14 After Peter Lely, Princess Mary of Orange, published by Richard
Thomson, 1678–9, mezzotint. © National Portrait Gallery,
London. 121
4.1 Alexis Loyalty, 1685–8, PB 3.180. By permission of the Pepys
4.2a Studio of Willem Wissing, Mary of Modena, oil on canvas,
1676–85. © Museum of London. 130
4.2b Edward Cooper after Samuel Cooper, Mary of Modena, 1680–
1704, mezzotint. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 131
4.2c Robert White after Godfrey Kneller, James Duke of York, 1682,
engraving. © The Trustees of the British Museum. 132
4.3 The White-Chappel Maids Lamentation, 1685, PB 3.338. By
Cambridge. 136
4.4 Englands Happiness Reviv’d, 1689, PB 2.279. By permission of the
4.5 The Souldiers Prayers, 1690, PB 2.305. By permission of the Pepys
4.6 The Royal Farewel, 1690, PB 2.327. By permission of the Pepys
4.7 A Groats-Worth of Mirth for a Penny, 1686, PB 3.207. By permission
4.8 The Crafty Miss of London, 1672–96, Douce 1(39a). The Bodleian
Library, University of Oxford. 148
ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
4.9 A Looking-Glass for Lascivious Young Men, 1689–92, PB 2.72. By

Cambridge. 153
5.1 An Excellent Sonnet of the Unfortunate Loves of Hero & Leander, 1684–95,
PB 3.322. By permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene
5.2a Peter Lely, Louise de Kéroualle, 1671, oil on canvas. From the
Collection at Althorp. 160
5.2b Gerard Valck, Louise de Kéroualle, 1678, mezzotint. © National
Portrait Gallery, London. 161
5.2c Abraham Blooteling, Louise de Kéroualle, 1677, mezzotint. © The
Trustees of the British Museum. 162
5.3 The Pensive Prisoners Apology, 1675, PB 2.80. By permission of the
5.4 The Young-Mans Labour Lost, 1678–80, Roxburghe 4.81. © The
British Library Board. 172
5.5 Broadside, Which of These Fower,That Here You See, in Greatest Daunger
You Thinke to Be, 1623. By kind permission of The Society of
Antiquaries of London. 173
5.6 Anonymous designs for inn-signs, c.1660, engraving. By
Cambridge. 174
5.7 The Princess Welcome to England, 1689, PB 2.256. By permission of
5.8 The Maulsters Daughter of Malborough, 1684–98, PB 3.70. By
Cambridge. 177
5.9 Advice to the Maidens of London, 1685–8, PB 4.365. By permission
5.10 The Somersetshire Wonder, 1690s, PB 4.362. By permission of the
5.11 A Fair Warning for Pride, 1690s, PB 4.310. By permission of the
5.12 The London Ladies Vindication, 1690s, PB 4.363. By permission of
E.1 Sections from anonymous linen panel, c.1670–99, woodblock
printed and painted. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 195
x
newgenprepdf
CITATIONS AND
ABBREVIATIONS
CITATION OF BLACK-L ETTER BALLADS
It is customary for ballads to be cited like books; this study, however, also
treats them as primary art-and dress-historical sources. Named ballads are
therefore specified in each chapter’s Endnotes by collection and shelfmark.
Approximate publication dates are given according to the English Ballads and
Broadsides Archive, the holding institution’s catalogue, or the English Short Title
Catalogue. To differentiate clearly between Samuel Pepys’s diary and print col-
lections, Pepys’s ballads are cited ‘PB’ before the selfmark. Some ballads exist
in two parts, with consecutive shelfmarks, for example ‘PB 1.76–7’. An index
of titles for surviving ballads cited can be found within the main Index,
while the principal ballad collections consulted are listed in the Bibliography.
ABBREVIATIONS
Some key reference sources are cited as follows:

Oxford English Dictionary: OED followed by word reference, for example ‘OED
“pedlar”’.
B.E. Gent’s A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
(1699): Canting Dictionary followed by word reference, for example
‘Canting Dictionary “pedlar”’.
Diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn: cited by author and date, for
example ‘Pepys 2 October 1663’.
The English Short Title Catalogue: referred to as ESTC.
Victoria and Albert Museum: referred to as V&A .
1
INTRODUCTION
Fig. 0.1 The Country Lass, 1690?, PB 3.290. By permission of the Pepys Library, Magdalene
College, Cambridge.
This sheet of paper, about eight by twelve inches in size, was printed in
London around 1690 (fig. 0.1).1 Set to the tune of ‘My Maid Mary’, its rhym-
ing stanzas relate how Jenny, a country girl, strives to elevate herself socially
from poor spinner to well-dressed woman. Neatly encapsulated by two
woodcuts, the legend of Jenny’s finery reached its beholders as song, text
and image in seventeenth-century England.
Sheets like this were printed mainly in London throughout the seven-
teenth century, before being distributed and sold throughout the country
2
2 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England
by pedlars –in streets, at fairs or door-to-door. Costing a penny or less,

their high circulation made them available to every sort of person: even
with no money or literacy, people could hear the words sung by the seller,
see them pasted up on alehouse walls and distinguish between them by
the arrangement of their pictures.2 As such, sheets like The Country Lass
were some of the most accessible and visible print products in seven-
teenth-century England. Predating the earliest British fashion journalism
by over a century,3 they offer rich material for historical research today.
Yet, until recently, they have been largely forgotten in histories of dress
and representation.
Papers printed on one side like this are known as ‘broadsides’, and
when they contain rhyming songs in gothic text, they are now described
as ‘black-letter ballads’. Their publishers were entirely dependent on mar-
ket uptake for profitability, which meant ballad themes had to attract
and amuse a very broad audience. Ballads addressed a great variety of sub-
jects, but dress was a recurring topic because it was central to widespread
controversies on religious and social morality, and vital to England’s employ-
ment and export trade.
This book examines how English black-letter broadside ballads rep-
resented dress in the seventeenth century, how these representations
changed in the period, and why. Part of this question has to do with
the development of the concept of ‘fashion’, as opposed to dress. Today,
while the classic definition of ‘dress’ refers to any kind of modification or
supplement to the body, ‘fashion’ is generally understood to mean dress
styles that are particularly of the moment, or associated with newness
and change.4 The idea that fashionable clothing could be valued for being
‘up to date’, without necessarily comprising textiles of high intrinsic
value, was in certain respects established during the period covered by
this book.
As garment industries and international fashions developed in the sev-
enteenth century, England saw a ‘widening and deepening of the mar-
ket for clothing’.5 Christopher Breward observes that, connected to these
changes, ‘the old assurances of explicit links between social standing and
choice of clothing underwent rapid change and permutation’ which in
turn expanded the vocabulary of dress and its meanings.6 Ballads could
register and communicate this shift to enormous audiences –indeed, as
we will see, they could do so for almost anyone in seventeenth-century
England.
3
Introduction 3
Seventeenth-century writers themselves certainly considered ballads to be

concerned with clothing styles. For example, in 1620, Thomas Middleton’s
play A Courtly Masque summarised the merits of making ballads:
scholar : I could make Ballads for a need
soldier : Very well sir; and Ile warrant thee thou shalt never want subject
to write of: One hangs himself to day, another drownes himself to
morrow, a Ser[v]‌ant stabd next day, here a Petti-fogger ath’Pillory …
Fashions, Fictions, Fellonies, Foolleries, a hundred havens has the
Ballad-monger to traffique at, and new ones still daily discovered.
In their short dialogue, Middleton’s characters portray ballads as market-
driven commodities of news and legend, pragmatically produced for finan-
cial ‘need’ rather than for literary acclaim, their subjects responding to
contemporary events and ‘fashions’.
Black-letter ballad publishing flourished throughout the seventeenth cen-
tury, but today there are only a few thousand ballad sheets left: these are pre-
served, on the whole, in collections made by relatively wealthy men of the
period. The largest known collection of just over 1300 black-letter sheets was
begun by scholar John Selden, bought and added to by naval administrator
and diarist Samuel Pepys, and bequeathed by Pepys to Magdalene College,
Cambridge in 1703.7 Other significant collections are now kept in major
libraries such as the Bodleian in Oxford, the British Library, the National
Library of Scotland and the University of Glasgow.8 Owing to the vicissitudes
and chances that have always governed the movement of ballads, however,
this book does not attempt to examine them on the basis of the collections in
which they now happen to reside.
Instead, we will take a cue from collector Samuel Pepys, who bound his
ballad sheets for posterity into five volumes, as a means to understand the
transient concerns of his own times. On the title page of his first volume,
Pepys quoted John Selden’s (now famous) comment, that:
you may see by [ballads], how the Wind sits. As take a Straw, and throw it
up into the Air; you shall see by that, which way the Wind is; which you
shall not do, by casting up a Stone. More solid things do not shew the
Complexion of the Times, so well as Ballads and Libells.
Preserving ballads alongside his ‘more solid’ books and fine prints, Pepys sought
to capture the ephemeral fashions and preoccupations that he and Selden had
4
seen pass in their lifetimes. He even divided his collection into themed categor-
ies, such as ‘Devotion & Morality’, ‘History True & Fabulous’, ‘Tragedy –vizt
Murdrs. Execut.s Jugdmts of God &c.’, ‘State & Times’ and ‘Love Pleasant’.
A book of this length could not hope to do justice to the full variety of
seventeenth-century ballad texts and images; however, pursuing Selden’s
and Pepys’s approaches, it aims to elucidate some of the key changes in ‘the
Complexion of the Times’ which ballads portray, especially with regard to
that other ephemeral and Protean commodity: dress. It examines certain
developments in the attitudes to dress and fashion consumption repre-
sented in ballads over the course of the century –from the lapse of sump-
tuary ‘fashion laws’ in 1604 to the lapse of the Licensing Act restrictions
on print in 1695 –and analyses these developments in light of other visual
and textual evidence of the period, such as books, printed images, peti-
tions, white-letter ballads and paintings.
On the whole, the media listed above tended to be commissioned by
patrons, or undertaken by named authors, or to be more expensive than
black-letter ballads. These are the kinds of sources that typically inform
histories of seventeenth-century dress. Compared with such media, black-
letter ballads appear hard to pin down. They were produced outside the
traditional arts patronage system, destined for speedy sale on the open
market, and they rarely state their authors or dates. However, ballads almost
always list the name of their publisher. For example, The Souldiers Prayers of
1690 was (it declares) ‘printed for James Bissel at the Bible and Harp in
West-Smithfield near the hospital gate’.9 Recent scholarship uses the biog-
raphy of publishers and their professional peregrinations to identify rough
dates, or date ranges, for ballad sheets.10 For this reason, although ballad
dating is best approached tentatively, broad chronological developments in
ballad representations can still make a fruitful starting-point for analysis.
Ballads’ wide social reach, and typical designation as material evidence of
‘popular’ culture, may seem to promise new information for a history of dress
‘from below’. However, there are two reasons we shall not aim for that here.The
first is that ballads do not offer information purely about the lower social orders.
They are just as concerned with nobles and monarchs as they are with beggars
and labourers. The second reason is the difficulty of making any firm correla-
tion between ballad woodcuts and surviving seventeenth-century clothing. The
study of surviving seventeenth-century garments already faces the challenges of
rare survival and provenance, but even the objects that fortunately do remain
cannot be linked in a simple manner to what we see in ballads.
5
Introduction 5
While a fully rounded understanding of historical dress always requires

evidence from image, object and text sources,11 ballad texts and images need
to be understood in relation to conventions of representation –which have
a dynamic of their own –rather than as reliable documents of what was
actually worn. Hence, this book pays attention to the associative qualities
of words and images about fashion –the way they refer to contemporary
themes and issues, but also to other words and images.12 To do justice to the
particular image/text evidence offered by ballads, we will examine them
primarily in relation to other images and texts of the period.13
In order to employ ballads as a resource for dress history, then, what
follows is indebted not only to numerous authors of dress history and cul-
tural history, but also to a great deal of scholarship on art and print history.
Building upon research in cheap print and popular culture, scholars have
turned from the canonical or ‘great’ cultural traditions fostered by patron-
age, to the less-studied, market-driven, ‘little’ traditions. This approach seeks
to find something of the ‘mentalities’ of early modern England.14 The recent
flourishing of scholarship on British printed images of the period has also
been foundational for this book.15
In terms of ballads, however, there is a much smaller range of scholarship
to build upon, due to the fact that they have largely been studied as aural, or
textual, entities.16 Until recently, indeed, ballad texts have often been inves-
tigated separately from their images. Ballad pictures have typically been dis-
missed as irrelevant to the text and too poorly executed to merit attention.17
However, the work of those scholars who have pioneered a more positive
approach to ballad woodcuts –most importantly, Alexandra Franklin, Angela
McShane and Tessa Watt –has proved a crucial basis for all that follows here.18
Yet, despite this recent research, there is still no book-length study to
redress the general bias away from the visual aspects of ballad sheets.19 On
the whole, ballad images still tend to be examined as if they might offer
direct insight into contemporary social practice, or to be judged accord-
ing to how precisely (or otherwise) they are presumed to ‘fit’ their texts.
Here, however, we will approach ballads both as an ‘intra-textual’ whole –
in which word and image create an interlinked web of meaning –and as
single elements within a wider network of ‘inter-textual’ reference, in which
meaning is created by association with, or evocation of, other visual and tex-
tual sources.20 Furthermore, adopting the priorities of cultural history, this
study aims to explore why and how ballad meanings shifted and changed
during the seventeenth century.21
6
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century printed editions of ballad collections

tended to reproduce ballads as texts only (with some copied woodcuts),22
or in facsimile where the text is not always legible.23 However, recent ballad
digitisation projects now represent ballads more clearly as word-and-image
combinations. Such endeavours seek to make ballad material that would
otherwise be physically confined to specific collections, freely available on
the Internet. On websites such as Bodleian Ballads, Early English Books Online and
English Broadside Ballad Archive, ballad sheets appear as clear, expandable images.
Although nothing can replace the experience of physically encountering
ballads on paper, these online archives nevertheless preserve and emphasise
the text-and-image appearance of the black-letter ballad. Such projects not
only restore something of the free visibility of the seventeenth-century bal-
lad, but also draw fresh attention to the ballad image.24
At the lower right of figure 0.1 appears the line ‘Printed for P. Brooksby, J.
Deacon, J. Blare, J. Back’. Groups of named publishers are commonly seen on
ballads, sometimes in a variety of combinations, as individuals moved loca-
tion, made new alliances or died. Certain preferences of text or image can, in
some cases, be associated with specific publishers. However, while publishers’
imprints often help with dating (as described above), one cannot consistently
use them to analyse ballads, as one might do with books by the same author.
There were no image copyright laws in seventeenth-century England; print
piracy was everywhere and ballad texts and images could be copied, swapped,
traded and inherited between publishers. Whether in business as individuals
or groups, publishers tended to trade under their own name rather than retain
that of their predecessor: this prevented any long-term build-up of ‘brand’
loyalty towards the name of one publishing house over another. In any case,
trends in ballad production tended to cross the boundaries of publication. If
something worked for one publisher, others were sure to copy. Therefore, this
book embraces ballads’ more nebulous status as market-driven commodities.
Drawing from historical evidence for their sale alongside dress commodities,
and guided by the idea that objects’ ‘social life’ can only be understood by
examining the conditions under which they become (and cease to be) com-
modities,25 what follows will focus not just upon styles of dress, but also
upon how ballads represent dress consumption.
OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
Chapter 1 establishes the historical relationship between ballads and cloth-

ing in the seventeenth century, locating them as commodities with a shared
7
Introduction 7
and mutually dependent history at the stages of production, circulation and

consumption. It demonstrates how ballads throughout the century merit
examination as evidence for attitudes to dress, introducing the figure of the
pedlar and the location of London as central to our understanding of the
ballad product and its representations.
Chapter 2 expands upon this commodity connection. It examines how
ballad texts commented upon the consumption of clothing, and outlines the
key ways that these comments changed during the century. By charting shifts
in attitude to the circulation and consumption of print and fashion, seven-
teenth-century ballads responded not only to significant national events such
as the Civil Wars, the Restoration or the Glorious Revolution, but also to con-
temporary developments in sumptuary legislation, religious practice, eco-
nomic theory and technological innovation.
Chapter 3 turns from the ballad as commodity and as text, to address
the neglected aspect of its visual imagery. After setting out the principal
problems that have thus far beset the study of ballad images, it engages
approaches that highlight ballads’ links to wider visual culture, as well as
acknowledging the distinctive ways ballad images functioned. Overall, we
see how changes in ballad comment on dress consumption during the
seventeenth century were also registered by new visual conventions of
depicting the clothed body.
Having established the ballad as a commodity that was physically, text-
ually and visually connected to issues of dress production, circulation and
consumption, and having distinguished key shifts in attitude towards dress
consumption and the representation of dress in ballads during the seven-
teenth century, the following chapters harness the conclusions of Chapter 3,
to examine further the symbolic effects in ballads of changing visual
conventions.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on representations of gender in ballads’ depic-
tions of the clothed body. Chapter 4 charts the ways that ‘masculine’ ideals
in ballad images related to ideals of male consumption of dress, satir-
ical depictions of men and notions of England’s international military
achievements. Chapter 5 explores the different trends evident in ballad
representations of women and fashion consumption, showing how both
ideals and satires of femininity related to concepts of the nation’s eco-
nomic success.
The Epilogue looks ahead from the seventeenth century, to the early
eighteenth-century calico crisis, examining the extent to which the cen-
tral trends discussed in this book continued to characterise the relationship
between print and dress.
8
9
1
COMMODITIES OF
PRINT AND DRESS
‘The logic of clothing,’ Daniel Roche observes:
offers a way of understanding and a means of studying the social trans-

formations taking place within urban melting-pots … It poses all the
problems, those of raw materials, of the processes and structure of pro-
duction, of cost and benefits, of cultural constraints and variations in
time and space.1
During the seventeenth century, this ‘logic’ of clothing –its raw materi-
als, its production processes and its cultural space –was also shared with
broadside ballad sheets. That is to say, broadside ballads and dress were fun-
damentally connected on many levels. To some extent, early modern schol-
ars have already recognised a connection at the point of sale. For example,
certain geographical areas of London, such as St Paul’s churchyard, were
centres for selling both printed and clothing commodities.2 More impor-
tantly, as Margaret Spufford has shown, print and dress were typically sold
by the same itinerant salesmen, who were described at the time as pedlars,
chapmen or hawkers. These highly mobile vendors –called pedlars here3 –
carried printed paper and clothing from the centre of cities to the farthest
corners of the country.4
However, the links between print and dress in seventeenth- century
England are much deeper and more complex than has been recognised hith-
erto. Taking a cultural history approach, we will attend to the circulation of
ideas surrounding print and dress both before and after they entered the
pedlar’s pack, focusing on ‘use and practice’ in order to ‘gain entry into the
10
world of meanings of those among whom we have never lived’.5 As this

chapter will contend, ballads and dress were commodities linked at every
stage of what Arjun Appadurai has called their ‘exchangeability’ or ‘com-
modity potential’, from production, through exchange and distribution, to
consumption.6 This fundamental and many-layered relationship offers a his-
torical basis upon which to examine the representation of dress in ballads.
The chapter therefore explores what the basic materials of dress and bal-
lads –fabric and paper –shared in terms of their production processes, sales
and patterns in consumption. Drawing upon contemporary literature and
documentation, we will examine their physical and figurative shared history
and ask how it was understood in the period.
PRODUCING TEXTILES AND PAPER
By the time that ballads and clothing items found themselves as objects in
the same pedlar’s pack, they had already shared a long series of other con-
nections that would have been commonplace to seventeenth-century con-
sumers. To open up these associations, we first examine ballads and clothing
as commodities within the wider context of textile and paper production. An
overview of textile manufacture introduces the principal raw materials of the
period –wool, silk, cotton, hemp and linen –elucidating their production
processes and their relative cultural value on the textile commodity market.
This gives background to the meanings that ballads assigned to these materi-
als as clothing, which will be discussed in later chapters. A brief survey of
English paper-making in the period demonstrates not only how the paper
and print trades relied upon recycled clothing, but also how the the clothing
trades relied upon paper as an element of both of inner garment construc-
tion and surface textile design. Together, this variety of physical intercon-
nections will reveal how clothing and print were objects tied together in
multiple ways, as they moved in and out of the commodity phases of their
existence. We therefore now turn to examine the typical textile contents of
a pedlar’s pack, how they were made, and what they might have meant for
the pedlar’s customers.
Wool
Of all the textiles a pedlar carried, wool was seen as the quintessentially
English type.7 Sheep farming and wool processing had brought great
11
Commodities of Print and Dress 11
prosperity to England, and wool was associated with the very essence of
English identity. This is portrayed in the ballad The Shepheard and the King, where
the social gap between the title’s two protagonists is closed by their shared
appreciation for wool and sheep.8 In practice, several kinds of woollen textile
were named after specific English towns or counties, such as ‘Tauntons’ or
‘Short Suffolks’, so that the welfare of England’s people and land was both
imaginatively as well as practically tied to wool production.9
From the Middle Ages, raw English wool dominated the country’s export
economy; after the 1550s, woven wool cloth was exported as well. Depending
on its yarn and weave, this ranged from very light, fine ‘New Drapery stuffs’ to
cheap, ‘kersey’ cloth, made of uneven, worst-quality thick yarn. Heavy, dense
‘broadcloth’ was considered the best and most characteristic of England’s
woollen textiles.10 Overall, however, wool’s national symbolism was con-
nected to its importance as a source of employment. Its numerous stages
of production required many workers, including shepherds, wool brokers,
clothiers, spinners, weavers, fullers, rowers and, finally, shearmen.11
Although the association between wool and English national pride
continued through the seventeenth century, its peak of success in the mid-
1500s was long past. European-wrought silks brought strong competition
in the early 1600s, while the over-reaching aims of the Cockayne Project of
1614–17 tried (and failed) to force Dutch markets to buy dyed and finished,
instead of unfinished, wool.12 Yet, despite its trade and production problems,
wool remained a textile which aroused recurring nostalgic lamentations of
lost national pride, particularly whenever it faced new market difficulties:13 it
was materially and culturally important for the country’s identity.
Silk
Silk was more expensive than other textiles, because it had to be imported raw
from China and defied all efforts to produce it in England. In 1680, a pedlar
called Richard Ridding had his wares valued. His red woollen tape was val-
ued at a halfpenny per yard, but his silken ribbons were costlier, at twopence
each.14 The ballad The Virgins Constancy imagined a ‘Faithful Marriner’ returning
home to deck his sweetheart with valuable gifts from abroad, saying:
I’ve brought thee home most costly things,

Rare precious stones, and diamond Rings,
Rich Taffities, and Silks so fine,
To deck my Love, for thou are mine.15
12
Woven silk was uniquely colourful, lustrous, light and strong, and its high
value throughout the seventeenth century supported the perception of silk
fabrics as significant love-gifts. Even low quality, leftover scraps were spun
into threads for sewing and knitting, or perhaps for ribbons like those sold
by Richard Riddings.
Taken as filaments directly from silkworm cocoons, silk fibres were
twisted or ‘thrown’ into threads: strong ‘organzine’ for warp, or weaker
‘tram’ threads for weft.16 Until the mid-sixteenth century, independent silk-
women were largely in control of importing and working silk goods into
ribbons and small luxury wares. An influx of Huguenot refugees to England
in the late sixteenth century helped establish broadloom silk weaving as a
male-only industry, which expanded considerably after a second wave of
Huguenot immigration in the 1680s.17 Women lost their independent foot-
hold in silk working, but a divide remained between ribbon-weaving or
‘narrow-wares’, and broadloom weaving of wider silk textiles.18 As we will
see in later chapters, while immigrants aroused anger and suspicion from
native silkworkers, their new production techniques allowed England to
compete with Continental silks.19
Although silk textiles were associated with high fashion, weaving them
was a long process and complex brocade designs could further slow the pace.
Master weavers employed outworkers to make individual pieces of broad silk
for an agreed piece-rate; the design for one piece could take up to six weeks to
plan and set up for weaving, which even then progressed at a maximum rate
of only one yard a day. Silk’s unmatched expense and kudos might suggest that
it was a reliable luxury commodity (particularly compared to the troubles of
the wool cloth industry); but in fact, it too could be subject to sudden changes
in fortune. In addition to the vicissitudes of fashion, silk weavers faced the
constant threat of deaths at Court, because the sobriety of national mourning
precluded the wearing of colourful silk altogether. For a weaver in the midst of
constructing a new piece of silk, this fashion hiatus might last until the design
he was weaving had ceased to be popular.20
Cotton
Like silk, raw and finished cotton were imports. However, unlike silk, the
relatively gradual increases in consumption of pure cotton goods in seven-
teenth-century England may explain why few seventeenth-century ballads
mention them. Presumably cotton had not built up enough of an individual
‘character’ in consumers’ minds to merit specific discussion.21 Unlike silk,
13
cotton goods were associated with imperial expansion: they first appeared
on English shores as cargo of the East India Company. Cotton had been
woven in Europe since the fourteenth century, usually mixed with linen
into a twill ‘fustian’;22 but until Crompton’s spinning mule appeared in
the 1770s it was impossible to produce in England a strong, even warp
thread for pure cotton cloth.23 Pure cotton cloth consumption is there-
fore often associated with the eighteenth century, though in fact such fab-
rics were imported to England from at least the mid-sixteenth century,
for both furnishing and dress.24
Woven in India, pure cotton textiles were known as ‘calicoes’, a refer-
ence to ‘Calicut’, or Kozhikode, then one of India’s main trading ports
with Europe. There were many practical reasons for their success: unlike
worsted and wool, cotton held its colour and washed easily.25 Cottons
could thus replace the lighter wools of the ‘New Draperies’, and com-
pete with the washability and weight of linens; by 1695, cottons were
already in common use for shirts and shifts.26 To promote demand for
cotton across different levels of society, the East India Company created
different varieties and quality grades of cotton.27 They were assisted in this
project by Catherine of Braganza’s marriage dowry to Charles II in 1662,
which included the Indian port of Bombay.28 In addition to its widespread
social appeal, cotton’s bright colours and lively designs competed with
silk’s, but were cheaper. Imports of both cottons and silks increased during
the century, but remained controversial.29 There were several protectionist
attempts in the Commons to create a renewed dependence upon English
wool, with varying success,30 but the craze for calicoes merely increased
over the eighteenth century.31
Linen
Notwithstanding the increasing importance of silk and cotton, seventeenth-
century pedlars’ inventories are dominated by linen.32 As Beverly Lemire
observes, linen consistently remained a staple good, used ‘from birth to
death, from swaddling bands to shifts, shirts to shrouds’.33 Although local-
ised and small-scale production obscures its history, linen has been described
as ‘the most essential raw material for local textile use’.34 Furthermore –and
unlike all other clothing textiles –linen was the essential ingredient for pro-
ducing white paper.
Linen is made from the inner bark, or ‘bast’ fibre, of the flax plant. In the
seventeenth century, its hardy strength provided raw material not just for
14
clothes, but also for rope, sailcloth, canvas, sacking and carpeting. Sometimes
the term ‘linen’ was used loosely, to refer to cloth made from either flax or
hemp.35 Flax and hemp plants required a great deal of labour to grow and linen
required several stages of processing. The plant fibres had to be combed, rotted
in water, beaten with knives, hammered, untangled, twisted, wound, spun,
scoured, woven and finally bleached, before they produced linen.36 Owing to
this complex production, almost all types of linen were intrinsically valuable.
Surviving shirts and shifts, as well as textual accounts, reveal how linen was
cut out –in neat squares and rectangles –to avoid wasting the tiniest amount
of material.37 Pawning clothes and other valuable objects was commonplace in
the period, and even used linen had financial value in the pawnshop.38
Linen’s cultural significance differed from other textiles, being neither
symbolic of the nation (like wool), nor exotic (like silk or cotton). Lemire
observes the paradox that, although linen was economically very impor-
tant, it was not perceived to promote national prestige.39 In part, this may
be because linen products were more heterogeneous than other fabrics.
Being highly absorbent and hardwearing, it was used for undergarments
and domestic sheeting; a surviving coarse linen doublet from this period
suggests it was also material for outer clothing.40 Tough linen interlinings
supported finer and more expensive textiles: for example, a jerkin from the
period reveals a sturdy linen ground beneath a decayed silk velvet exterior
(fig. 1.1). Furthermore, linen could range all the way from hardy sailcloth to
intricate lace, which was an important aspect of fashionable display through-
out the seventeenth century.41 Heavy-duty canvases, towels, tents and tar-
paulins were thus formed, paradoxically, from the same plant as the most
delicate, transparent head veils and finest domestic damasks.42
Linen also had a gendered significance. Clothes of silk and wool were cut and
sewn by a male tailor, but the workforce dedicated to making and decorating
linen clothing (whether professional or amateur), was almost entirely female.
In the ballad The Dorset-shire Damosel, Nancy the ‘damosel’ offers herself in mar-
riage to a miller, with the promise of ‘three Ells of good Linnen /For to make
you a Shirt, of my Mother’s own Spinning’.43 Even wealthy and titled women
sewed linen shirts for their family, as Brilliana, Lady Harley did in 1642.44 Linen
materials were thus malleable, multivalent, capable of extremely diverse trans-
formations, and appealing to a very broad range of people and occupations.
Paper
Once clothing textiles had been used beyond repair, they became fodder for
paper-making. Brown paper for packaging could be made from almost any
15
Fig. 1.1 Detail of a crimson velvet jerkin, showing collar and centre front, c.1628–32. © Museum
of London; author’s photograph.
fabric, while paper for printing and writing was made out of used white
linen, in a process that changed little between 1500 and 1800.45 The diarist
and writer John Evelyn described his visit to a paper mill in Byfleet in his
journal for 24 August 1678:
First they cull the raggs (which are linnen for white paper, Wollen for
browne) then they stamp them in troughs to a papp, with pestles or
hammers like [a]‌powder cloose as a Weavers reede: upon this take up
the papp, the superfluous water draining from it thro the wyres: This
they dextrously turning shake out like a thin pan-cake on a smoth board,
between two pieces of flannell: Then presse it, betweene a great presse,
the [flannel] sucking out the moisture, then taking it out ply & dry it on
strings, as they dry linnen in the Laundry, then dip it in allume water,
lastly polish, & make it up in quires: &c: note that the[y] put some gumm
in the water, in which they macerate the raggs into a papp: note that the
marks we find in the sheetes is formed in the wyres.46
16
Evelyn’s description tellingly evokes the connections he perceived between

textiles and the paper-making processes: in the clothing materials used; the
simile of beating rags as ‘a Weavers reede’ beats threads on a loom;47 noting
the use of ‘two pieces of flannell’ to drain water from the sheets of paper;
comparing drying sheets of paper to ‘linnen in the Laundry’; and even the
geometric ‘weave’ of the paper itself, imprinted by the wire moulds.
Like linen textile production, paper-making had several complex stages
that required running water and considerable space for airing and drying.
Once dried and ‘sized’ in animal gelatine, paper was pressed smooth and cut
into sheets of various sizes. These were then sorted into ‘quires’ of twenty-
four or twenty-five sheets of paper, twenty of which made a ream. A single-
vat paper mill might produce up to 5000 sheets of foolscap-size paper per
day,48 which, like linen and wool manufacture, relied upon the coordination
of several different workers and processes: a rag-sorter, a vatman, a coucher,
a layer, a presser, an engine-worker, a finisher and a paper-sorter.49
Until 1665, paper-making in England was vulnerable to the effects of
plague, because used linen sheets and underclothes were considered a risk
to health in times of contagion and collection was prohibited.50 England
had more wool than linen rags, so it produced mainly brown paper,51 and
imported most of its paper for the book trade from France.52 After 1670, how-
ever, native paper production picked up, with engines introduced to speed up
cutting and beating the rags. By 1690 there were over 100 paper mills in the
country, over half in the south-east, a number which increased and spread
significantly after the lapse of the Licensing Act for printing in 1695.53
Converting old clothes into paper was not just of interest to owners of
paper mills. It was a universal commonplace of the period, because rag-
collectors visited towns and villages, even if the paper mills were remote.54
The irony that human clothing could became mere fodder for the mills
offered rich comic potential for seventeenth-century authors. On a sheet
printed in 1663, a ‘Poore Scholar’ poet confesses that his ‘Thred-bare Suit’
became so tattered that part of it accidentally ‘Fell in the Batter, and was fryed
for Dinner’, which shows, he laments,
That Land is ful of Ignorance and ills

Where Scholars Teeth, prove their own Paper mills.55
Joseph Addison later considered this process in a comic meditation on the

production of his own periodical, The Spectator, noting how even fine clothing
could disintegrate to become nothing but ‘mean Materials’ and ‘Gleanings’
17
for the rag-collector. Yet such fragments could eventually ‘assume a new
whiteness’ in paper, so that ‘A Beau may peruse his Cravat after it is worn
out, with greater Pleasure and Advantage than ever he did in a Glass.’56 We
can vividly imagine Addison’s ‘Beau’, unwittingly reading his own recycled
necklinen. This highlights how linen’s cultural flexibility was perceived at
the time, not just as a malleable textile, but also as a highly mobile product
that could enter and re-enter the commodity stage in different forms, and
with a different status each time.
Rag-
collecting was important street trade right up until the mid-
nineteenth century, when wood pulp was introduced for paper produc-
tion.57 This ease of recycling meant that paper and linen shared similar
qualities even in their ‘afterlives’. Most seventeenth-century linens that
survive today have been preserved for their finely worked embroidery.
Likewise, paper’s longevity was contingent upon what was printed upon
it, either as literary content or an assigned monetary value: the first paper
money dates from 1695.58 In this sense, linen and paper were both ‘foun-
dational’ materials. Outer clothes or embroideries were placed upon the
basic covering of the linen shift, just as symbolic letters were laid upon the
blank white paper.
Another key link between clothing and paper in the period was that
paper could also play a part in making textiles and dress. In the first place,
printed designs on paper were an important medium for disseminating
textile designs, whether as emblems, lace patterns or engravings of bibli-
cal texts.59 Such patterns were often lost as people would tear out designs
from pattern books and distribute them to needlewomen and lace makers
to produce the desired pattern.60 The term ‘passementerie’ or ‘passments’ for
lace trimmings comes from the method of making ‘parchment’ needle lace,
which was built up, stitch by stitch, on threads tacked to a design drawn on
a parchment, or paper pattern.61
There was a neat circularity to the way linen could re-enter the realm of
personal adornment after being recycled into paper form. While linen tex-
tiles could form supple yet supportive interlinings for silk garments, once
they had been reformed into paper or card, they could be layered to rein-
force sections of clothing with an even firmer effect. The ‘Poore Scholar’
mentioned above humorously describes this as a cheap method of clothing
repair:
My Doublet canvasse worn out quite behind

I put a Poem there, to keep out the wind.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
From insinuations he proceeded to open accusations. After
having kept himself secluded for a fortnight, he one day appeared in
the public fold and proclaimed that he had at last discovered the
cause of the drought. After keeping the audience in suspense for a
short time, he suddenly broke forth: “Do you not see,” he asked,
“when the clouds cover us, that Hamilton and Moffat look at them?
Their white faces scare them away, and you cannot expect rain so
long as they are in the country.” This was a home stroke. The people
became impatient, and poured forth their curses against the poor
missionaries as the cause of all their sorrows. The bell which was
rung for public worship, they said, frightened the vapours; the
prayers even came in for a share of the blame. “Don’t you,” said the
chief one day rather fiercely to Mr. Moffat, “bow down in your houses
and pray, and talk to something bad in the ground?”
But to shorten a long story, after exposing the missionaries to
much risk and danger by his insinuations and accusations, the tables
were turned in their favour. The rain-maker now was suspected, his
gross impositions were unveiled, and he was about to pay the
penalty of death,—the well-merited reward for his scandalous
conduct, when Mr. Moffat generously interfered, and through his
presence of mind and humanity succeeded in saving the life of one
who had so often threatened his own, and who would not have
scrupled to take it could he thereby have served his purpose. Death,
however, soon overtook him, for he was eventually murdered
amongst the Bauangketsi nation.
There is scarcely a savage country on the face of the earth but
has its professional rain-makers; Figi has; and these, like other
players of a game of chance, occasionally win in a manner that
seems surprising even to an educated European.
During Mr. Seeman’s stay in Figi, one of the days was rainy,
preventing him from making an excursion. On expressing his regret
to that effect, a man was brought who may be called the clerk of the
weather. He professed to exercise a direct meteorological influence,
and said that, by burning certain leaves and offering prayers only
known to himself, he could make the sun shine or rain come down;
and that he was willing to exercise his influence on Mr. Seeman’s
behalf if paid handsomely. He was told that there was no objection to
giving him a butcher’s knife if he could make fine weather until the
travellers returned to the coast; but if he failed to do so, he must give
something for the disappointment. He was perfectly willing to risk the
chance of getting the knife, but would not hear of a forfeit in case of
failure; however, he left to catch eels. “When returning,” says Mr.
Seeman, “the clouds had dispersed, and the sun was shining
brilliantly, and he did not fail to inform me that he had ‘been and
done it.’ I must farther do him the justice to say, that I did not
experience any bad weather until I fairly reached the coast; and that
no sooner had I set my foot in Navua than rain came down in regular
torrents. This man has probably been a close observer of the
weather, and discovered those delicate local indications of a coming
change with which people in all countries living much in the open air
are familiar; and he very likely does not commence operations until
he is pretty sure of success.”
This was not the only singular ceremony witnessed by the
gentleman just quoted, and who is the most recent of Figian
travellers. While out one day he and his friends met a company of
natives, and were struck with the fact that all the young lads were in
a state of absolute nudity; and, on inquiry, learned that preparations
were being made to celebrate the introduction of Kurudwadua’s
eldest son into manhood; and that until then neither the young
chieftain nor his playmates could assume the scanty clothing
peculiar to the Figians. Suvana, a rebellious town, consisting of
about five hundred people, was destined to be sacrificed on the
occasion. When the preparations for the feast were concluded, the
day for the ceremony appointed, Kurudwadua and his warriors were
to make a rush upon the town and club the inhabitants
indiscriminately. The bodies were to be piled into one heap, and on
the top of all a living slave would lie on his back. The young chief
would then mount the horrid scaffold, and standing upright on the
chest of the slave, and holding in his uplifted hands an immense club
or gun, the priests would invoke their gods, and commit the future
warrior to their especial protection, praying he may kill all the
enemies of the tribe, and never be beaten in battle; a cheer and a
shout from the assembled multitude concluding the prayer. Two
uncles of the boy were then to ascend the human pile, and to invest
him with the malo or girdle of snow white tapa; the multitude again
calling on the deities to make him a great conqueror, and a terror to
all who breathe enmity to Navua. The malo for the occasion would
be, perhaps, two hundred yards long, and six or eight inches wide.
When wound round the body the lad would hardly be perceivable,
and no one but an uncle can divest him of it.
“We proposed,” says Mr. Seeman, “to the chief that we should be
allowed to invest his son with the malo, which he at first refused, but
to which he consented after deliberation with his people. At the
appointed hour the multitude collected in the great strangers’ house
or bure ni sa. The lad stood upright in the midst of the assembly
guiltless of clothing, and holding a gun over his head. The consul
and I approached, and in due form wrapped him up in thirty yards of
Manchester print, the priest and people chanting songs and invoking
the protection of their gods. A short address from the consul
succeeded, stirring the lad to nobler efforts for his tribe than his
ancestors had known, and pointing to the path of fame that
civilization opened to him. The ceremony concluded by drinking
kara, and chanting historical reminiscences of the lad’s ancestors;
and thus we saved the lives of five hundred men. During the whole
of this ceremony the old chief was much affected, and a few tears
might be seen stealing down his cheeks; soon, however, cheering
up, he gave us a full account of the time when he came of age, and
the number of people that were slain to celebrate the occasion.”
To return, however, to the rain-making business. Lucky is it for the
dim-minded heathen that these false priests of his have not the
advantage of studying for their profession either in England or
America; if it were so, heaven only knows the awful extent to which
they would be bamboozled. Rain-makers especially would have a
fine time of it, at least, if they were all as clever as Mr. Petherick,
who, in his “Egypt and the Soudan,” unblushingly narrates how he
“Barnumized” the Africans as a rain-maker.
“The rainy season was now approaching, and still no tidings of my
men, and the natives daily continued to surround my encampment,
and attempted, sometimes by the report of the murder of my men,
and at others by night attacks upon ourselves when in the darkness
we could not see them, to induce us to return to our boats and
abandon our property. This they more strenuously insisted on, as
they were convinced that as long as we remained in the country the
rain would not fall, and both themselves and their cattle would be
reduced to starvation. This idea being seriously entertained, I one
day plainly stated to the chief and several of the principal men the
absurdity of their assertions, and endeavoured to explain that God
alone,—who had created heaven and earth,—could exercise any
power over the elements. The attention with which my discourse was
received induced me to prolong it, but to my discomfiture, at its
close, it was treated as a capital joke, and only convinced them the
more that I endeavoured to conceal from them my own powers.
Finding no relief from their increasing persecutions, I at length was
reduced to a ruse; and after a reference to an antiquated Weekly
Times, I told them that the Supreme Being whose it was to afford
them the so much-required rains, withheld them in consequence of
their inhospitality towards myself; this, although it had the effect of
procuring increased temporary supplies, could not induce them to
furnish me with porters. Endless were the straits and absurdities to
which I had recourse in order to obtain a respite, but the one creating
the greatest amusement to myself and my followers was the
following. A deputation of several hundred men, headed by a
subchief, from their kraals some miles distant, in the most
peremptory manner demanded rain or my immediate departure; the
latter they were determined at whatever sacrifice to enforce. Placing
my men under arms in an enclosure, and with a pair of revolver
pistols at my waist, and a first-rate Dean and Adams’ revolver rifle in
my hand, I went into the midst of them, and seated myself in the
centre of them, opposite to the subchief, a man fully six feet six
inches high, and proportionably well made. I stated that no
intimidation could produce rain, and as to compelling me to withdraw,
I defied them; that if I liked, with one single discharge of my gun, I
could destroy the whole tribe and their cattle in an instant; but that
with regard to rain, I would consult my oracle, and invited them to
appear before me to-morrow, upon which, with as much dignity as I
could command, I withdrew. Various were the feelings of the
savages. Some expressed a wish to comply with my desire, whilst
others showed an inclination to fall upon me. Although I was
convinced that the chief, Tschol, secretly encouraged his men, he in
the present instance made a demonstration in my favour; he
threatened them with a curse unless they dispersed. Some device
now became necessary to obtain a further respite for the desired
rains; and setting my wits to work, I hit upon an expedient which I at
once put in execution. Despatching some men to catch half-a-dozen
large flies, bearing some resemblance to a horse-fly, but much
larger, which infested a temporary shed where my donkey had been
kept; the men, confident in the success of anything I undertook, set
about the task with a will. In the course of the afternoon they were
fortunately obtained, and were consigned to an empty bottle. At the
appointed time my persecutors did not fail to appear, and shaking a
little flower over my flies, I sallied out amongst them, bottle in hand.
Referring to their wants, I treated them to a long harangue, touching
the depredations which I had learnt in conversation with the chief
they had committed upon the cattle of neighbouring tribes, and
assassinations of unoffending men who had fallen into their power;
also to several abstractions of girls from poor unprotected families of
their own tribe, without the payment of the customary dowry in cattle,
and dwelt upon the impossibility of their obtaining rain until restitution
and satisfaction were made. They unanimously denied the charges;
when I told them that it was nothing less than I had expected, but
that I was furnished with the means of satisfying myself of the
veracity of their assertions. The proof would consist in their restoring
to me the flies, which I intended to liberate from the bottle I held. In
the event of their succeeding, they should be rewarded with
abundant rain; but if one fly escaped, it was a sign of their guilt, and
they would be punished with a continuation of drought until
restitution was made; therefore it was in their own power to procure
rain or otherwise. Hundreds of clubs and lances were poised high in
the air, amidst loud shouts of ‘Let them go! let them go! let them go!’
With a prayer for the safety of my flies, I held up the bottle, and
smashing it against the barrel of my rifle, I had the satisfaction of
seeing the flies in the enjoyment of their liberty. Man, woman, and
child gave chase in hot pursuit, and the delight of my men at the
success of the stratagem may be imagined. It was not until after the
sun had set that the crest-fallen stragglers returned, their success
having been limited to the capture of two of the flies, though several
spurious ones, easily detected by the absence of the distinctive flour
badge, were produced. A long consultation ensued, and in the firm
belief of my oracle they determined to adopt measures for the
carrying out of its requirements, but with a threat that if the promised
rain did not follow, I should incur their vengeance. Aware of the
difficulties in store for them from their unwillingness to part with cattle
under any circumstances, I promised myself a long cessation from
their molestations. I was not disappointed.”
Further still into the country, and still no sign of amendment; not
that it should be expected, as in this region—Equatorial Africa—the
Christian crusader never yet penetrated, unless indeed we so regard
Mr. Du Chaillu, who certainly appears to have done his best by
example, at least, to convince the barbarous people among whom
he found himself of the advantages of Christianity. Here is a sample
of one of many Sabbaths spent by the renowned gorilla hunter
amongst the savages here abiding.
“The next day was Sunday, and I remained quietly in my house
reading the Scriptures, and thankful to have a day of rest and
reflection. My hunters could scarcely be prevailed upon not to hunt;
they declared that Sunday might do for white people, but the blacks
had nothing to do with it. Indeed, when customs thus come in
contact, the only answer the negro has to make—and it applies to
everything—is, that the God who made the whites is not the God
who made the blacks.
“Then the king and a good many of his people gathered about me,
and we astonished each other with our talk. I told them that their
fetishes and greegrees were of no use and had no power, and that it
was absurd to expect anything of a mere wooden idol that a man
had made, and could burn up. Also that there was no such a thing as
witchcraft, and that it was very wrong to kill people who were
accused of it; that there was only one God, whom the whites and
blacks must alike love and depend on. All this elicited only grunts of
surprise and incredulity.
“Then the king took up the conversation, and remarked that we
white men were much favoured by our God, who was so kind as to
send guns and powder from heaven.
“Whereupon the king’s brother remarked that it must be very fine
to have rivers of alougou (rum) flowing through our country all the
year round, and that he would like to live on the banks of such a
river.
“Hereupon I said that we made our own guns, which no one
present seemed to believe; and that there were no rivers of rum,
which seemed a disappointment to several.”
It would appear that our traveller betrayed at least as much
curiosity respecting the singular rites and superstitions of these
Equatorial African heathens as they evinced in the matter of
Christianity.
“One day the women began their peculiar worship of Njambai,
which it seems is their good spirit: and it is remarkable that all the
Bakalai clans and all the females of tribes I have met during my
journeys, worship or venerate a spirit with this same name. Near the
seashore it is pronounced Njembai, but it is evidently the same.
“This worship of the women is a kind of mystery, no men being
admitted to the ceremonies, which are carried on in a house very
carefully closed. This house was covered with dry palm and banana
leaves, and had not even a door open to the street. To make all
close, it was set against two other houses, and the entrance was
through one of these. Quengueza and Mbango warned me not to go
near this place, as not even they were permitted so much as to take
a look. All the women of the village painted their faces and bodies,
beat drums, marched about the town, and from time to time entered
the idol house, where they danced all one night, and made a more
outrageous noise than even the men had made before. They also
presented several antelopes to the goddess, and on the 4th, all but a
few went off into the woods to sing to Njambai.
“I noticed that half-a-dozen remained, and in the course of the
morning entered the Njambai house, where they stayed in great
silence. Now my curiosity, which had been greatly excited to know
what took place in this secret worship, finally overcame me. I
determined to see. Walking several times up and down the street
past the house to allay suspicion, I at last suddenly pushed aside
some of the leaves, and stuck my head through the wall. For a
moment I could distinguish nothing in the darkness. Then I beheld
three perfectly naked old hags sitting on the clay floor, with an
immense bundle of greegrees before them, which they seemed to be
silently adoring.
Du Chaillu’s Peep into a Heathen Temple.

“When they saw me they at once set up a hideous howl of rage,
and rushed out to call their companions from the bush; in a few
minutes these came hurrying in, crying and lamenting, rushing
towards me with gestures of anger, and threatening me for my
offence. I quickly reached my house, and seizing my gun in one
hand and a revolver in the other, told them I would shoot the first one
that came inside my door. The house was surrounded by above
three hundred infuriated women, every one shouting out curses at
me, but the sight of my revolver kept them back. They adjourned
presently for the Njambai house, and from there sent a deputation of
the men, who were to inform me that I must pay for the palaver I had
made.
“This I peremptorily refused to do, telling Quengueza and Mbango
that I was there a stranger, and must be allowed to do as I pleased,
as their rules were nothing to me, who was a white man and did not
believe in their idols. In truth, if I had once paid for such a
trangression as this, there would have been an end of all travelling
for me, as I often broke through their absurd rules without knowing it,
and my only course was to declare myself irresponsible.
“However, the women would not give up, but threatened
vengeance, not only on me, but on all the men of the town; and as I
positively refused to pay anything, it was at last, to my great surprise,
determined by Mbango and his male subjects, that they would make
up from their own possessions such a sacrifice as the women
demanded of me. Accordingly Mbango contributed ten fathoms of
native cloth, and the men came one by one and put their offerings on
the ground; some plates, some knives, some mugs, some beads,
some mats, and various other articles. Mbango came again, and
asked if I too would not contribute something, but I refused. In fact, I
dared not set such a precedent. So when all had given what they
could, the whole amount was taken to the ireful women, to whom
Mbango said that I was his and his men’s guest, and that they could
not ask me to pay in such a matter, therefore they paid the demand
themselves. With this the women were satisfied, and there the
quarrel ended. Of course I could not make any further investigations
into their mysteries. The Njambai feast lasts about two weeks. I
could learn very little about the spirit which they call by this name.
Their own ideas are quite vague. They know only that it protects the
women against their male enemies, avenges their wrongs, and
serves them in various ways, if they please it.”
Before Chaillu left Goumbi a grand effort was made by the people
to ascertain the cause of their king’s sufferings. Quengueza had sent
word to his people to consult Ilogo, a spirit said to live in the moon.
The rites were very curious. To consult Ilogo, the time must be near
full moon. Early in the evening the women of the town assembled in
front of Quengueza’s house and sang songs to and in praise of the
moon. Meantime a woman was seated in the centre of the circle of
singers, who sung with them and looked constantly towards the
moon. She was to be inspired by the spirit and to utter prophecies.
Two women made trial of this post without success. At last came
a third, a little woman, wiry and nervous. When she seated herself,
the singing was redoubled in fury—the excitement of the people had
had time to become intense; the drums beat, the outsiders shouted
madly. Presently the woman who, singing violently, had looked
constantly towards the moon, began to tremble. Her nerves twitched,
her face was contorted, her muscles swelled, and at last her limbs
straightened out, and she lay extended on the ground insensible.
The excitement was now intense and the noise horrible. The
songs to Ilogo were not for a moment discontinued. The words were
little varied, and were to this purport:
“Ilogo, we ask thee,

Tell who has bewitched the king!
Ilogo, we ask thee,
What shall we do to cure the king?
The forests are thine, Ilogo!
The rivers are thine, Ilogo!
The moon is thine.
O moon! O moon! O moon!
Thou art the house of Ilogo.
Shall the king die, O Ilogo?
O Ilogo! O moon! O moon!”
These words were repeated again and again with little variation.
The woman who lay for some time as she had fallen was then
supposed to be able to see things in the world of Ilogo, and was
brought to after half an hour’s insensibility; she looked very much
prostrated. She averred that she had seen Ilogo, that he had told her
Quengueza was not bewitched.
Chaillu heard one day by accident that a man had been
apprehended on a charge of causing the death of one of the chief
men of the village, and went to Dayoko, the king, and asked about it.
He said yes, the man was to be killed; that he was a notorious
wizard, and had done much harm.
Chaillu begged to see this terrible being, and was taken to a
rough hut, within which sat an old, old man, with wool white as snow,
wrinkled face, bowed form, and shrunken limbs. His hands were tied
behind him, and his feet were placed in a rude kind of stocks. This
was the great wizard. Several lazy negroes stood guard over him,
and from time to time insulted him with opprobrious epithets and
blows, to which the poor old wretch submitted in silence. He was
evidently in his dotage.
When asked if he had no friends, no relatives, no son or daughter
or wife to take care of him, he said sadly, “No one.”
Now here was the secret of this persecution. They were tired of
taking care of the helpless old man, who had lived too long, and a
charge of witchcraft by the greegree man was a convenient pretext
for putting him out of the way.
The Wizard in the Stocks.
Chaillu went, however, to Dayoko, and argued the case with him,
and tried to explain the absurdity of charging a harmless old man
with supernatural powers; told him that God did not permit witches to
exist, and dually made an offer to buy the old wretch, offering to give
some pounds of tobacco, one or two coats, and some looking-
glasses for him, goods which would have bought an able-bodied
slave.
Dayoko replied that for his part he would be glad to save him, but
that the people must decide; that they were much excited against
him, but that he would, to please Chaillu, try to save his life.
During the night following our travellers heard singing all over the
town all night, and a great uproar. Evidently they were preparing
themselves for the murder. Even these savages cannot kill in cold
blood, but work themselves into a frenzy of excitement first, and then
rush off to do the bloody deed.
Early in the morning the people gathered together with the fetish
man, the rascal who was at the bottom of the murder, in their midst.
His bloodshot eyes glared in savage excitement as he went round
from man to man getting the votes to decide whether the old man
should die.
In his hands he held a bundle of herbs, with which he sprinkled
three times those to whom he spoke. Meantime a man was stationed
on the top of a high tree, whence he shouted from time to time in a
loud voice, “Jocoo! Jocoo!” at the same time shaking the tree
strongly.
Jocoo is devil among the Mbousha, and the business of this man
was to keep away the evil spirit, and to give notice to the fetish-man
of his approach.
At last the sad vote was taken. It was declared that the old man
was a most malignant wizard, that he had already killed a number of
people, that he was minded to kill many more, and that he must die.
No one would tell Chaillu how he was to be killed, and they proposed
to defer the execution till his departure. The whole scene had
considerably agitated Chaillu, and he was willing to be spared the
end. Tired and sick at heart, Chaillu lay down on his bed about noon
to rest and compose his spirits a little. After a while he saw a man
pass his window, almost like a flash, and after him a horde of silent
but infuriated men. They ran towards the river. Then in a little while
was heard a couple of sharp piercing cries, as of a man in great
agony, and then all was still as death. Chaillu got up, guessing the
rascals had killed the poor old man, and turning his steps toward the
river, was met by the crowd returning, every man armed with axe,
knife, cutlass, or spear, and these weapons and their own hands and
arms and bodies all sprinkled with the blood of their victim. In their
frenzy they had tied the poor wizard to a log near the river bank, and
then deliberately hacked him into many pieces. They finished by
splitting open his skull and scattering the brains in the water. Then
they returned; and to see their behaviour, it would have seemed as
though the country had just been delivered from a great curse.
By night the men, whose faces for two days had filled Chaillu with
loathing and horror, so bloodthirsty and malignant were they, were
again as mild as lambs, and as cheerful as though they had never
heard of a witch tragedy.
The following is a fair sample of “witch-test,” as practised in this
region. A Gaboon black trader in the employment of a white
supercargo, died suddenly. His family thinking that the death had
resulted from witchcraft, two of his sisters were authorised to go to
his grave and bring his head away in order that they might test the
fact. This testing is effected in the following manner: An iron pot with
fresh water is placed on the floor; at one side of it is the head of the
dead man, at the other side is seated a fetish doctor. The latter
functionary then puts in his mouth a piece of herb, supposed to
impart divining powers, chews it, and forms a magic circle by spitting
round the pot, the head, and himself. The face of the murderer, after
a few incantations, is supposed to be reflected on the water
contained in the pot. The fetish man then states he sees the
murderer, and orders the head to be again put back to its proper
grave, some days being then given to him for deliberation. In the
mean time he may fix on a man who is rich enough to pay him a
sufficient bribe to be excused of the charge, and if so he confesses
that the fetish has failed.
In the central regions of Eastern Africa all that is sacerdotal is
embodied in individuals called Mganga or Mfumbo. They swarm
throughout the land; are of both sexes: the women, however,
generally confine themselves to the medical part of the profession.
The profession is hereditary; the eldest or the cleverest son begins
his education at an early age, and succeeds to his father’s functions.
There is little mystery, says Burton, in the craft, and the magicians of
Unyamwezi have not refused to initiate some of the Arabs. The
power of the Mganga is great; he is treated as a sultan, whose word
is law, and as a giver of life and death. He is addressed by a kingly
title, and is permitted to wear the chieftain’s badge, made of the base
of a conical shell. He is also known by a number of small greasy and
blackened gourds filled with physic and magic hanging round his
waist, and by a little more of the usual grime, sanctity and dirt being
closely connected in Africa. These men are sent for from village to
village, and receive as spiritual fees sheep and goats, cattle and
provisions. Their persons, however, are not sacred, and for criminal
acts they are punished like other malefactors. The greatest danger to
them is an excess of fame. A celebrated magician rarely, if ever, dies
a natural death; too much is expected from him, and a severe
disappointment leads to consequences more violent than usual.
The African phrase for a man possessed is ana’p’hepo, he has a
devil. The Mganga is expected to heal the patient by expelling the
possession. Like the evil spirit in the days of Saul, the unwelcome
visitant must be charmed away by sweet music; the drums cause
excitement, the violent exercise expels the ghost. The principal
remedies are drumming, dancing, and drinking till the auspicious
moment arrives. The ghost is then enticed from the body of the
possessed into some inanimate article which he will condescend to
inhabit. This, technically called a Keti or stool, may be a certain kind
of bead, two or more bits of wood bound together by a strip of
snake’s skin, a lion’s or a leopard’s claw, and other similar articles
worn round the head, the arm, the wrist, or the ankle. Paper is still
considered great medicine by the Wasukuma and other tribes, who
will barter valuable goods for a little bit: the great desideratum of the
charm in fact appears to be its rarity, or the difficulty of obtaining it.
Hence also the habit of driving nails into and hanging rags upon
trees. The vegetable itself is not worshipped, as some Europeans,
who call it the devil’s tree, have supposed; it is merely the place for
the laying of ghosts, where by appending the keti most acceptable to
the spirit, he will be bound over to keep the peace with man. Several
accidents in the town of Zanzibar have confirmed even the higher
orders in their lurking superstition. Mr. Peters, an English merchant,
annoyed by the slaves, who came in numbers to hammer nails and
to hang iron hoops and rags upon a devil’s tree in his court-yard,
ordered it to be cut down, to the horror of all the black beholders.
Within six months five persons died in that house—Mr. Peters, his
two clerks, his cooper, and his ship’s carpenter. Salim bin Raschid, a
half caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar, avers, and his
companions bear witness to his words, that on one occasion, when
travelling northwards from Unyamzembe, the possession occurred to
himself. During the night two female slaves, his companions, of
whom one was a child, fell without apparent cause into the fits which
denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously the master became
as one intoxicated; a dark mass—material, not spiritual—entered the
tent, threw it down, and presently vanished, and Salim bin Raschid
was found in a state of stupor, from which he did not recover till the
morning. The same merchant circumstantially related, and called
witnesses to prove, that a small slave boy, who was produced on the
occasion, had been frequently carried off by possession, even when
confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door carefully bolted
and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found although the
chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was met in the
jungle, wandering absently, like an idiot, and with speech too
incoherent to explain what had happened to him. The Arabs of Iman
who subscribe readily to transformation, deride these tales; those of
African blood, believe them. The transformation belief, still so
common in many countries, and anciently an almost universal
superstition, is, curious to say, unknown amongst these East African
tribes.
The Mganga, Mr. Burton further informs us, is also a soothsayer.
He foretels the success, or failure of commercial undertakings, of
wars, and of kidnapping; he foresees famine and pestilence, and he
suggests the means of averting calamities. He fixes also before the
commencement of any serious affair fortunate conjunctions, without
which, a good issue cannot be expected. He directs, expedites, or
delays the march of a caravan; and in his quality of augur, he
considers the flight of birds, and the cries of beasts like his prototype
of the same class, in ancient Europe, and in modern Asia.
The principal instrument of the Mganga’s craft is one of the dirty
little buyou, or gourds, which he wears in a bunch round his waist,
and the following is the usual programme when the oracle is to be
consulted. The magician brings his implements in a bag of matting;
his demeanour is serious as the occasion, he is carefully greased,
and his head is adorned with the diminutive antelope horns, fastened
by a thong of leather above the forehead. He sits like a sultan, upon
a dwarf stool in front of the querist, and begins by exhorting the
highest possible offertory. No pay no predict. The Mganga has many
implements of his craft. Some prophesy by the motion of berries
swimming in a cup full of water, which is placed upon a low stool,
surrounded by four tails of the zebra, or the buffalo, lashed to stakes
planted upright in the ground. The Kasanda is a system of folding
triangles, not unlike those upon which plaything soldiers are
mounted. Held in the right hand, it is thrown out, and the direction of
the end points to the safe and auspicious route; this is probably the
rudest appliance of prestidigitation. The shero is a bit of wood, about
the size of a man’s hand, and not unlike a pair of bellows, with a
dwarf handle, a projection like a muzzle, and in a circular centre a
little hollow. This is filled with water, and a grain, or fragment of wood
placed to float, gives an evil omen if it tends towards the sides, and
favourable if it veers towards the handle or the nozzle. The Mganga
generally carries about with him, to announce his approach, a kind of
rattle. This is a hollow gourd of pine-apple, pierced with various
holes prettily carved, and half filled with maize grains, and pebbles;
the handle is a stick passed through its length, and secured by
cross-pins.
The Mganga has many minor duties. In elephant hunts he must
throw the first spear, and endure the blame if the beast escapes. He
marks ivory with spots disposed in lines and other figures, and thus
enables it to reach the coast, without let or hindrance. He loads the
kirangoze, or guide, with charms to defend him from the malice
which is ever directed at a leading man, and sedulously forbids him
to allow precedence even to the Mtongi, the commander and
proprietor of the caravan. He aids his tribe by magical arts, in wars
by catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it
in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an
army of its fellows and disperse a host however numerous. This
belief well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the
supernatural. The land being full of swarms, and man’s body being
wholly exposed, many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff
before the wind by a bevy of swarming bees. Similarly in South
Africa the magician kicks an ant-hill, and starts wasps which put the
enemy to flight.
Here is an account of a queer dance witnessed in this land of
Mgangas and Mfumbos and fetishes, furnished by the celebrated
explorer Bakie:—“A little before noon Captain Vidal took leave of
King Passol, in order to prosecute his observations. I remained, but
shortly afterwards prepared to leave also. Passol, however, as soon
as he perceived my intention, jumped up, and in a good-humoured
way detaining me by the arm, exclaimed, ‘No go, no go yet; ‘top a
little; bye-bye you look im fetish dance; me mak you too much laugh!’
It appeared that the old man had heard me some time before, on
listening to the distant tattoo of a native drum, express a
determination to the young midshipman who was with me to go
presently to see the dance, with which I had little doubt that it was
accompanied. The noise of the drum, almost drowned by the
singing, whooping, and clamour of a multitude of the natives, was
soon heard approaching. When close to us the procession stopped,
and the dancers, all of whom were men, ranged themselves in
parallel lines from the front of an adjoining house, and commenced
their exhibition. They were specially dressed for the purpose, having
suspended from their hips a complete kilt formed of threads of grass-
cloth, manufactured by the natives of the interior, and likewise an
appendage of the same kind to one or both arms, just above the
elbow. Some had their faces and others their breasts marked with
white balls, given to them by the fetish as a cure or safeguard
against some disease which they either had or dreaded. The
dancing, although not elegant, was free from that wriggling and
contortion of body so common on the east coast. It consisted
principally in alternately advancing and drawing back the feet and
arms, together with a corresponding inclination of the body, and, at
stated times, the simultaneous clapping of hands, and a loud sharp
ejaculation of ‘Heigh!’ Although I have remarked that it was not
elegant, yet it was pleasing, from the regularity with which it was
accompanied. There were two men who did not dance in the line
among the rest, but shuffled around, and at times threaded the
needle among them: one was termed the master fetish, and the
other appeared to be his attendant; neither wore the fancy dress, but
they were both encircled by the usual wrapper round the loins. The
former had on a French glazed hat, held in great request by the
natives, and the other, chewing some root of a red colour, carried a
small ornamented stick, surmounted at the end like a brush with a
bunch of long and handsome feathers. At times one of these men
would stop opposite a particular individual among the dancers, and
entice him by gestures to leave the line and accompany him in his
evolutions, which finally always ended where they began, the
pressed man returning to his former place. For some time I had
observed the master fetish dancing opposite to the house, and with
many gesticulations apparently addressing it in a half threatening
half beseeching tone. Old Passol, who was standing close by me,
suddenly exclaimed, ‘Now you laugh too much; fetish he come!’
“Sure enough, forthwith rushed from the house among the
dancers a most extraordinary figure. It was a man mounted on stilts
at least six feet above the ground, of which from practice he had
acquired so great a command that he certainly was as nimble in his
evolutions as the most active among the dancers. He was
sometimes so quick that one stilt could hardly be seen to touch the
earth before it was relieved by the other. Even when standing still he
often balanced himself so well as not to move either stilt for the
space of two or three minutes. He wore a white mask with a large
red ball on each cheek, the same on his chin, and his eyebrows and
the lower part of his nose were painted with the same colour. Over
his forehead was a sort of vizor of a yellow colour, having across it a
line of small brass bells; it was armed in front by long alligator’s
teeth, and terminated in a confused display of feathers, blades of
grass, and the stiff hairs of elephants and other large animals. From
the top of his head the skin of a monkey hung pendant behind,
having affixed to its tail a wire and a single elephant’s hair with a
large sheep’s bell attached to the end. The skin was of a beautiful
light green, with the head and neck of a rich vermilion. From his
shoulders a fathom of blue dungaree with a striped white border
hung down behind; and his body and legs and arms were completely
enshrouded in a number of folds of the native grass-cloth, through
which he grasped in each hand a quantity of alligator’s teeth, lizard’s
skins, fowl’s bones, feathers, and stiff hairs, reminding me strongly of
the well-known attributes of Obi, the dread of the slave-owners of
Jamaica.
“The fetish never spoke. When standing still he held his arms
erect, and shook and nodded his head with a quick repetition; but
when advancing he extended them to their full length before him. In
the former case he appeared as if pointing to heaven, and
demanding its vengeance on the dancers and the numerous
bystanders around; and in the latter as one who, finding his
exhortations of no avail, was resolved to exterminate, in the might of
his gigantic stature and superior strength, the refractory set. The
master fetish was his constant attendant, always following, doubling,
and facing him, with exhortations uttered at one minute in the most
beseeching tone, accompanied hat in hand by obsequious bows,
and in the next threatening gestures, and violent, passionate
exclamations. The attendant on the master fetish was likewise
constantly at hand, with his stick applied to his mouth, and in one or
two instances when the masquerader approached, he crouched
close under him, and squirted the red juice of the root he was
chewing into his face. For upwards of an hour I watched the dance,
yet the fetish appeared untired; and I afterwards heard that the same
ceremony was performed every day, and sometimes lasted three or
four hours. I at first thought that it was merely got up for our
amusement, but was soon undeceived; and when, under the first
impression, I inquired of a bystander what man it was who performed
the character, he answered, with a mixture of pique at the question
and astonishment of my ignorance, ‘He no man; no man do same as
him; he be de diable! he be de debil!’ Still I was a little sceptic as to
their really holding this belief themselves, though they insisted on the
fact as they represented it to me; and therefore, after I had received
the same answer from all, I used to add in a careless way to try their
sincerity, ‘In what house does he dwell?’ ‘What! fetish! I tell you he
de debil; he no catch house; he lib (live) in dat wood,’ pointing to a

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Fashion and popular print in early

modern England depicting dress in

The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in

Dressed in dreams a black girl s love letter to the

Fashion in European art dress and identity politics and

Angels in early Medieval England First Edition Sowerby

Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern

Elizabeth I in Writing. Language, Power and

Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales of

The Practice of Citizenship Black Politics and Print

Clare Backhouse received her doctorate from the Courtauld Institute of

‘This is the first serious study of English seventeenth-century illustrated bal-

‘This is interdisciplinarity at its best, connecting popular prints with the

Copyright © 2017 Clare Backhouse

References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

ISBN: 978 1 78453 837 8

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK), Croydon, CR0 4YY

0.1 The Country Lass, 1690?, PB 3.290. By permission of the Pepys

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii

viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

3.9 The Unbelieving Maiden, 1684–​6, PB 3.111. By permission of the

4.9 A Looking-​Glass for Lascivious Young Men, 1689–​92, PB 2.72. By

CITATION OF BLACK-​L ETTER BALLADS

Some key reference sources are cited as follows:

2 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

by pedlars –​in streets, at fairs or door-​to-​door. Costing a penny or less,

Seventeenth-​century writers themselves certainly considered ballads to be

4 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

While a fully rounded understanding of historical dress always requires

6 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century printed editions of ballad collections

OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

Chapter 1 establishes the historical relationship between ballads and cloth-

and mutually dependent history at the stages of production, circulation and

‘The logic of clothing,’ Daniel Roche observes:

offers a way of understanding and a means of studying the social trans-

10 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

world of meanings of those among whom we have never lived’.5 As this

PRODUCING TEXTILES AND PAPER

Commodities of Print and Dress 11

I’ve brought thee home most costly things,

12 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

Commodities of Print and Dress 13

14 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

Commodities of Print and Dress 15

16 Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England

Evelyn’s description tellingly evokes the connections he perceived between

That Land is ful of Ignorance and ills

Joseph Addison later considered this process in a comic meditation on the

Commodities of Print and Dress 17

My Doublet canvasse worn out quite behind

Du Chaillu’s Peep into a Heathen Temple.

“Ilogo, we ask thee,

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3.9 The Unbelieving Maiden, 1684–6, PB 3.111. By permission of the

4.9 A Looking-Glass for Lascivious Young Men, 1689–92, PB 2.72. By

CITATION OF BLACK-L ETTER BALLADS

by pedlars –in streets, at fairs or door-to-door. Costing a penny or less,

Seventeenth-century writers themselves certainly considered ballads to be