The Dress of the British Seaman Part I

Abstract

British sailors, in Roman times, wore, poetically, blue or azure leather. The sea-kit of the Cinque ports was a blue woolen tunic.   Chaucer’s 14c seamen preferred blue or brown serge knee-length gowns; still seen recently amongst West Country fishermen.   Cotes, jacketts and doublets, gowns, shirt, hose and shoes were provided to crew.   Tudors liking for ceremonial saw barge crews garbed in yellow, sky-blue livery and Tudor white and green uniforms.   In Elizabeth I time, the seamen had begun to pay for slops; Monmouth cap, close fitting canvas jerkins and trousers. The Mariner’s Mirror cover shows two officers of the period.

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Filed under: Tudors | Antiquity | Medieval | Early Modern | Health at Sea | Other (location)
Subjects include: Administration | Art & Music | Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines | Navies