![]() ![]() The codpiece, with its sexual connotations, represented the uncontrollable carnal impulses that warred against the rational soul of man. As Marston's 1598 quote above makes evident, even after its demise, it retained its metaphorical associations with masculine essence. In addition to the padding and ornamentation on the codpiece itself, further attention was drawn to the groin area by the positioning of dagger and sword belts just above it, the dagger often worn with the hilt pointing to or framing the codpiece, creating a visual dialogue between codpiece and dagger, thus amplifying and doubling the phallus.įrom its introduction early in the sixteenth century, until its disappearance from fashion in the 1590s, the codpiece served as an emblem for manhood, the part standing for the whole. It was essentially a bag made of fabric, usually silk, and was often elaborately embroidered and decorated, either made of the same material as the trunk hose or breeches, or to match the doublet or other upper garments, to which it was fastened by points or lacings. ![]() By the early sixteenth century, the front flap on men's breeches and hose was no longer a flat pouch, but had become a protuberance, often padded and stiffened, to support and accentuate the male genitals. They evolved from the pouch-shaped flap which was used to close the front of the close-fitting hose worn by men in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. They were designed, along with doublets with massive chests and coats with wide shoulders, to enhance and exaggerate the masculine attributes of the wearer, to ‘disclose’ rather than conceal or contain, the ‘sex they are’.Ĭodpieces were a distinctive feature of late Renaissance male dress in Italy, Spain, France, and England, reaching their peak of popularity in the mid sixteenth century, before gradually disappearing by the end of the century. Codpieces appeared in Europe in the early sixteenth century, during a period of economic and territorial expansion, in which the conspicuous display of virility, in public life, sport, warfare, and dress played a major part in a competitive culture of self-presentation, self-aggrandisement, and advertisement. He pointed to the primary purpose of a codpiece: to emphasize the gender of its wearer. ![]() That wear a codpiece, thereby to disclose Codpiece When the early seventeenth-century English playwright John Marston wrote in his Satires,Nay then, I'll never rail at those ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |