http://collections.ecu.edu/files/original/25/811/Mantle.png 7c44dae6c66952857d104f6ea738412f http://collections.ecu.edu/files/original/25/811/Mantle_2.jpg 228ab837b2e44ec8bf399f664c5fc19c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Object Descriptions from Centering Spenser Subject The topic of the resource Objects Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Centering Spenser, Dr. Thomas Herron, ECU Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mantle Subject The topic of the resource Tower House Ground Floor Description An account of the resource A mantle is a common type of heavy woolen cloak found in medieval and early modern Ireland. Fantastic, colorful and richly woven varieties are described in medieval Irish poetry. Elaborate and expensive mantles would have been worn by the rich and noble. Plainer, more workaday kinds are found here in our reconstruction of Kilcolman, as befits Spenser’s status as a prosperous but not rich English gentleman. If Spenser and his family didn’t wear mantles, their servants likely did. Early modern mantles have been found in modern times preserved in bogs. For example, a plain, semi-coarse example from the sixteenth century is on display in the National Museum of Ireland. The museum also holds a fragment of a different type of mantle, the shaggy woven (or “rya”) kind. A shaggy fringe can be seen at the top of mantles in the sixteenth-century illustrations of John Derricke. Literary Connections In Spenser’s prose dialogue and political policy tract, A View of the Present State of Ireland (c. 1596; pub. 1633), Spenser’s alter-ego Irenius discusses with Eudoxus the ancient and barbaric origins of the mantle, before listing its practical and treacherous uses by the Irish. <blockquote> Irenius They have another custom from the Scythians that is the wearing of mantles and long glibs, which is a thick curled bush of hair hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them, which are both very bad and hurtful. Eudoxus: Do you think that the mantle comes from the Scythians? I would surely think otherwise: For by that which I have read it appears that most nations in the world anciently used the mantle. […] Iren: I cannot deny but anciently it was common to most, and yet since disused and laid away. But in this latter age of the world since the decay of the Roman empire, it was renewed and brought in again by those Northern nations when breaking out of their cold caves and frozen habitation into the sweet soil of Europe. They brought with them their usual weeds [i.e., clothes], fit to shield the cold and that continual frost, to which they had at home been inured. The which yet they left not of, by reason that they were in perpetual wars with the nations where they had invaded, but still removing from place to place carried always with them that weed as their house, their bed, and their garment. Coming lastly into Ireland, they found there more special use thereof, by reason of the raw cold climate. From whom it is now grown into that general use in which that people now have it. […] Eudox: Since then the necessity thereof is so commodious as you allege, that it is [serving] in stead of housing, bedding, and clothing. What reason have you then to wish, so necessary a thing [to] cast off? Iren: Because the commodities do not countervail the discommodity. For the inconveniences which thereby do arise, are much more many: for it is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and apt cloak for a thief. First, the outlaw being for his many crimes and villainies banished from the towns and houses of honest men, and wandering in waste places far from danger of law, makes his mantle his house, and under it covers himself from the wrath of heaven, from the offence of the earth, and from the sight of men. When it rains it is his pentice [i.e., “pent-house” or makeshift shelter], when it blows it is his tent, when it freezes, it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose, in winter he can wrap it close, at all times he can use it, never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is as serviceable: for in his war that he makes (if at least it deserves the name of “war”), when he still flies from his foe and lurks in the thick woods and straight passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea and almost all his household stuff. For the wood is his house against all weathers, and his mantle is his cave to sleep in: therein he wraps his self round and ensconces him self strongly against the gnats, which in the country do more annoy the naked rebels, while they keep the woods, and do more sharply wound them then all their enemies swords or spears, which can seldom come nigh them. Yea and oftentimes their mantle serves them when they are near driven, being wrapped about their left arms in stead of a target [i.e., a small shield], for it is hard to cut through it with a sword. Besides, it is light to bear, light to throw away, and being as they then commonly are naked, it is to them all in all. Lastly, for a thief it is so handsome, as it may seem it was first invented for him: for under it he can cleanly convey any fit pillage that comes handsomely in his way. And when he goes abroad in the night on freebooting, it is his best and surest friend: for lying as they often do, two or three nights together abroad to watch for their booty, with that they can prettily shroud themselves under a bush or a backside, till they may conveniently do their errand. And when all is done, he can in his mantle pass through any town or company, being close-hooded over his head, as he uses [to keep] from knowledge of any to whom he is endangered. Besides all this, he or any man else that is disposed to mischief or villainy may under his mantle go privily armed without suspicion of any, carry his headpiece, his skene [i.e., long knife] or pistol, if he please to be always in a readiness. Thus necessary and fitting is a mantle for a bad man. And surely for a bad housewife [i.e., woman], it is no less convenient. For some of them that be these wandering women, called of them Monashut, it is half a wardrobe: for in summer you shall find her arrayed commonly, but [i.e., “only”] in her smock and mantle, to bee more ready for the light services. In winter and in her travel, it is her cloak and safe-gear, and also a coverlet for her lewd exercise. And when she has filled her vessel [i.e., become pregnant], under it she can hide both her burden and her blame. Yea and when her bastard is borne, it [i.e., the mantle] serves in stead of all her swaddling clothes. And as for all other good women which love to do but little work, how handsome it is to lie in and sleep, or to louse themselves in the sunshine, they that have been but a while in Ireland can well witness. Sure I am that you will think it very unfit for good housewives to stir in or to busy herself about her housewifery in sort as they should. These be some of the abuses for which I would think it meet to forbid all mantles. [A View of the Present State of Ireland, MS Rawlinson B.478 (Bodleian Library, Oxford), 31r-33r. Some words are modernized.]</blockquote> Spenser mentions mantles in various places in his poetry. In The Faerie Queene, for example, the treacherous, shape-changing villain Malengin (or “Guyle”) lives in a “hollow cave” (V.ix.10.1), has “hollow” eyes, long “curled” hair and wears a mantle-like cloak on his back (over his torn pants, or “breech”): <blockquote>Full dreadfull wight he was, as euer went Vpon the earth, with hollow eyes deepe pent, And long curld locks, that downe his shoulders shagged, And on his backe an vncouth vestiment Made of straunge stuffe, but all to worne and ragged, And vnderneath his breech was all to torne and iagged. (V.ix.10.4-9)</blockquote> As such, Malengin resembles a half-starved and dangerous Irish refugee or rebel. In Book I of The Faerie Queene, Spenser associates the personified figure of Night, an evil hag, with a mantle: “griesly Night, with visage deadly sad… in a foule blacke pitchy mantle clad” (I.v.20.1-3). In a standard metaphor for the time, Night covers the world in darkness with her ”mantle” or cloak. The passage has a political tinge, furthermore, in that she hides crimes, including “traitorous” ones: <blockquote> Vnder thy mantle black there hidden lye, Light-shonning thefte, and traiterous intent, Abhorred bloodshed, and vile felony. (III.iv.58.1-3) </blockquote> The description of Night’s “bloodshed” and “traitorous intent” gives it/her political resonances that would align it/her with the rebellious and dangerous Irish, as described in the View. Conversely, Spenser invokes “night so long expected” with its “sable mantle” in his wedding poem, “Epithalamion,” asking that it keep him and his bride safe from the threats surrounding his castle: <blockquote> Now welcome night, thou night so long expected… Spread thy broad wing ouer my loue and me, That no man may vs see, And in thy sable mantle vs enwrap, From feare of perrill and foule horror free. Let no false treason seeke vs to entrap, Nor any dread disquiet once annoy The safety of our ioy: But let the night be calme and quietsome, Without tempestuous storms or sad afray. (“Epithalamion” 315-27) </blockquote> The “mantle” here, while representing dangerous “night,” paradoxically protects the married couple from the threats that might disturb their well-being (including supernatural threats that are listed in the following stanza: they include the “evil” Irish spirit, the “Pouke” or pouca). As such, the poet is asking the evil forces of the night to confound themselves by keeping themselves hidden, which in turn allows the couple to stay safely obscure, perhaps hidden under a mantle used for a bedcovering. In this case, Spenser may have in mind another description of the mantle in the View, where it is described as a garment of Venus lined with stars (as is the night). A mantle could be put to good or bad, ugly or positive uses, depending on the intent of the owner. Links: <a href="http://www.libraryireland.com/articles/ChapterIrishCostume/index.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.libraryireland.com/articles/ChapterIrishCostume/index.php</a> (accessed 1/30/18) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dr. Thomas Herron, ECU Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Bibliography: Sheila Cavanagh, “‘Licentious Barbarism’: Spenser’s View of the Irish and The Faerie Queene.” Irish University Review 26 (1996), 268-80. Andrew Hadfield, Edmund Spenser’s Irish Experience: wilde fruit and salvage soyl (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997): 160-64. Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, “Beyond the Empire: An Irish Mantle and Cloak.” The Roman Textile Industry and Its Influence: A Birthday Tribute to John Peter Wild (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2001), 91-7. Thomas Herron, “An Exhibit in Ireland.” Spenser Review 33.2 (Summer 2002), 41-4. Geoffrey G. Hiller, “Night.” The Spenser Encyclopedia. Ed. A. C. Hamilton (Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1990), 511. H.F. McClintock, “The ‘Mantle of St. Brigid’ at Bruges.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 7th series. 6.1 (June 1936), 32-40. Harold Skulsky, “Malengin.” The Spenser Encyclopedia. Ed. A. C. Hamilton (Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1990), 450.