The Arbor Consort

First and foremost, to our members… If you can’t sew, don’t worry. We will do our best to help you create, borrow and/or buy to pieces to get a costume that fits your budget. Before you embark, if you would like to read some of our current costuming standards, you can do so below.

The BASICS
Generally speaking men will wear a shirt, doublet, pants, tights, hat and shoes.

Generally speaking ladies will either wear an Italian Renaissance gown, or an Elizabethan gown and a head covering. Italian Renaissance gowns usually consist of a chemise, an underskirt, an overdress. Elizabethan gowns will consist of a chemise, corset, farthingale, bumroll, underskirt, overskirt and bodice. All ladies must also have a head-covering.

Some biggie No-no’s!
The Elizabethans had something called Sumptuary Laws. The one we strictly enforce is “no purple unless you are the monarch”, and so only Caroline, who plays Queen Elizabeth I at festival is allowed to wear purple. Please do not include purple, (violet, lavender, or any other shade or tint of purple) in your costume.

No LACE, unless it is Needlelace (or can pass for it), and you shouldn’t have lots of it. No pure lace skirts. No lace around all your edges, cuffs, etc. etc. Lace was too expensive to make and was used as an embellishment only.

Polyester is not a good idea. Some fabrics that are synthetic look natural (this is why you’re bringing in swatches) so they’re acceptable looking. But they don’t breathe very well. In Elizabethan times they were going through a mini-ice-age, and on top of that when Henry VIII got fat, everyone padded up and bulked their clothing to emulate him so fashions were heavy, puffy things. Combine those with fabrics that don’t breathe and Michigan weather in August and you’re going to have a tough time of it.

No printed pattern fabrics. All patterns should be woven or embroidered.

Some Simple, Easy to follow DOs.

Do wear a hat! Head coverings are required. You should have a hat of some kind. A simple fabric flat cap is acceptable, and any Elizabethan tall hats or riding hats are as well. A French hood with a veil has recently become an acceptable choice of headgear at Michigan Renaissance festival, so ladies are welcome to go that route as well. Your headcovering should be waterproof, or you should have a waterproof option available to you if it is not. Hats should be approved by your costumer (for 2011 that would be Jody or Sara).

DO wear a chemise under your gown, ladies. That’s a nice, lightweight shirt (well, technically LONG shirt, but I cut mine short due to heat concerns) in white or off-white. It can be a partlet. It can have a ruff. It should be long sleeved. Cotton is fine.

DO wear pants, men! Or at least make THAT part of your anatomy is appropriately covered by the top part of your costume (or a codpiece if you MUST wear tights).

DO make or buy removable sleeves. It’s 90 freakin’ degrees out there some days, 45 on others. Sleeves should be an on/off item.

You will want a cloak. Wool or some other waterproof, natural material. You can spray it with scotch guard, tent-guard, whatever, to make it more waterproof. It wouldn’t hurt to have a heavy cloak and a light one (sometimes it is hot and rainy, sometimes it is cold and rainy).

More Information/Ideas
FOOTWEAR:

Ladies you can wear Mary Janes (with good insoles and rubber soles), leather slippers (watch out on rain days), or leather boots. There is HUMAN EATING MUD at festival and wood chips of pokey pain so I don’t suggest open toed shoes or sandals.

Men, you should either wear boots or black or brown leather shoes that aren’t tennis shoes or obviously modern dress shoes.

Boots are good choices for men or women. You can buy boots out at festival, or online. I have Son of Sandlar boots and they get me through rain days, but I swear by a Mary Jane style shoe made by Born for when it is dry outside.

LADIES UNDERPINNINGS:

Normally you would want a corset to make your silhouette very Elizabethan. However, if you are singing, you will also want to breathe. You can compromise by getting a relatively flexible or loose fitting corset, or merely wearing an enforced bodice.

If you’re going for an a courtly Elizabethan look you will want a farthingale (hoop skirt) and a bum roll as well.

If you are going for an Italian Renaissance ladies look you can skip the hoop and bumroll.

RESOURCES:
THIS WEBSITE IS AMAZING!!!

http://www.elizabethancostume.net/

It’s INCREDIBLE. I’ve learned a lot of that stuff over the years, but it teaches it all to ya in one fell swoop. Sure there’ s a lot, but read it, it’s worth it in the long run.

Alter Years Patterns

COSTUMES TO BUY!
Basic rule: Please get approval before you buy. Email Sara and/or Jody a link, and we will let you know if your costume choice is acceptable.

Etsy has some handmade costumes that are lovely and wearable, though not generally the most affordable. This is great, for example, though out of most of our budgets.

The Tudor Shoppe is another good costume shop.

Pendragon has a few costumes that are appropriate for the Arbor Consort.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

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First, it’s important to note we’re not the first site to list create a pronunciation guide like this. Renfaire.com has recordings of the pronunciations, which I find most helpful for some of the “weirder” ones, like the first short a sound presented below, and also for the mess that is “fair”.

WANT- (a) like the a sound in “flat, fat, wack or wax.”
Some words to practice with: Father, water, salt, fall, halt

HARK – (a) “ah” (not “aw” but aa)

MAKE: (a) the long a sound becomes short e. Make becomes “mek”
Some words to practice with: Make, take, cake, bake, table

HEAD- (e) short e: Pronounced “haid”
Some words to practice with: Dead, bread

I- Long is pronounced “uh-ee” Do not round your lips.
Some words to practice with: my, die, sigh, fly, lie

BIT- Short I is still “ih”. It is still it, still is still still.

MERCY (ur): Pronounced “maircy”.

FAIR (ar): Faaeer. I suggest listening to it.

NEITHER: ei is another diphthong. Short e plus short i. Comes out “nayther”

DAY: Another diphthong. The Elizabethan short a and long I sounds. “daa-uhee”.

LORD: The short O Is pronounced with lots o flip rounding and is drawn out. Lord = “loord”
Some words to practice with: come, word

DOWN: (ou) Combination pronounced “uh-oo” any OW or OU sound is pronounced “uh-oo” House = “hu-oose”

CUP: The short U sound is rounded and drawn out “Not “uh “ but “ooo” Cup = coop, cut – coot
Some words to practice with: Up, bus, cup, but

LOVE: Drawn out like (modern) cup. Just like the Beatles say it “luv”.
Words to practice with: love, mother, brother, another

The “ZH” sound: Does not exist for Elizabethan so say “pleassure” not “pleasure”. Examples: Pasture = “Past ee ur” affection = “affec see on” righteousness – “right e ous ness”
Drill- “A measure o’ pleasure doth be an earthy treasure. Leisure doth be another measure o’ pleasure.”

ED- Always voiced at the end of past tense words. lovED, turnED, walkED, talkED, marriED.
Drill- “he turned, stopped and asked “Art thou angered?” She leaned toward him and vowed his death, then walked and talked no more. He had tarried, they might be married, now the doth be buried. They were killed and trapped by hate, carried away by evil.”

For my own amusement and possibly for your education, I’ve attempted to write out “Fine Knacks for Ladies” with Elizabethan pronunciation written in. I don’t know if it will make sense or not, but I figure I can give it a try.

“Fuh ine knaacks for lehdies, cheap, chuh oice, braave and new. Goood penny worths that mooney caaan not mooove. I keep a faaeer but foor the faaeer to view. A beggar meh be liberal of luv. Thuh-oo all my wairs be traash, the hairt is truh-oo.

Gret gifts aare guh-iles and looook for gifts aagain, muh-ee truh-eyefuls coom as pleassures from muh-ee muh-eyend. It is a preh-see-us jewell to be plain, soom tuh-eyems in shell the oorienst pearls we fuh-eyend. Oof oothers tek a shef, oof me a grain.

Within this paack, pins, puhoints, lehses and gluvs, aand duheyevers toys(?) fitting a country faaeer. Boot in my hairt hwair duty sairvs and luvs, tairtuhlls and twins coourts broood a haivenly paaer. Haappy the hairt that think oof noo remoooves.”

Not at all sure how “toys” would be pronounced so I would leave it modern I guess, and I’m not one hundred percent sure that “serves” and “turtles” should have the same sound as “mercy”, but I think I might be right there. Anyway, there are probably errors above, so tek it with a grain oof saaalt. ^_^

EDIT (Update to add):  I’ve been listening to some of  The Hilliard Ensemble’s recordings of English Madrigals.  They tend to pronounce ai as a long i sound, rather than the long a sound which we give it in modern English.  For example, they sing “Since Roben Hood” and pronounce “maid” muhEYEd.

Haven’t seen any other sources of this, but tend to think The Hilliard Ensemble’s recorded music is painstakingly researched. So you might want to include that pronunciation rule in your Elizabethan dialect.

[Sources] These rules and drills are compiled from materials distributed to Michigan Renaissance Festival’s resident cast sometime between 2002 and 2005. There are no sources for the pronunciations listed on the materials. I retyped, paraphrased and in some cases actually edited before including anything on this page, which is meant to be a guideline for fun and performance, NOT as a piece of absolute historical fact.

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