34 thoughts on “Top 5 Ways The Spanish Princess Gets 16th C. Spanish Costume Wrong

  1. “It would not have been terribly unusual to see people of African descent, Arabic descent” – but perhaps not so close to the royal family, given Fernando and Isabel’s ethnic/religious policies… They expelled the Jews and forced conversions on the Moriscos (eventually expelled in early 1600s). ‘Diverse casting’ is an attempt to make deeply intolerant characters look better to modern audiences.

    1. As a descendant of Maranos I personally find the fantasy inclusive Spain offensive given said ancestors were eventually forced to flee their native land to escape persecution.

      1. Yeah, it was hard to watch the scene where Catherine tells Arthur about how the Moors are heathens and yet she respects their culture as it’s a part of her culture. Because, actually, what she’s saying is in some ways true but only on a subconscious level — no 16th c. Spanish Catholic would be caught dead saying what she said!

        1. Well, because it was not their culture. Of course, that’s a 21st century licence to look inclusive. So no, it is not true in any way. The two cultures were in contact, and had some minor influence on one another, at time Christians showed respect and even admiration for muslim culture, but not because it was part of their culture at all The same hapoened the other way around. If she trully said so in the show, the show is even more stupid than I already thought it was.

          Those times were actually not so diverse as people would like them to be. Most of the population, muslims included, were natives, only a minority if the population were Northafricans, and the elites were mostly natives, a few arabs, and a few north Africans. But “foreign” groups were always a minority. Black Africans were mostly slaves and eunuchs. Ethnicity wise, there was either Christian or Muslims culture, minority groups, including the jews, just adapted to any of those. In terms of “race”, most people would be native spanish, and some north africans, most of them already mixed with the native population. Arabs were a tiny minority, the elite, so mixed with natives that they were more native than arabs, really. And subsaharian africans were also a small minority most of which were slaves. So no as ethnicaly diverse as people want to make it to be.

          1. Exactly. Most Spaniards back them were of the same ethnicity: a mix of native peoples (celts, iberians) and Romans. It was only the elites that might have different ethnicity: the Christian nobility descended from the Visigoths (Germanic people) and the Muslim elites were North-African or Arabic.

        2. You all have a lot of Spanish history to learn! Actually, Isabella (the Catholic Queen) loved wearing Muslim fabrics and fashion, and she had several Muslim and Jewish advisors in her court. You really should learn more about the era.
          Muslims conquered Spain first (the Christian Visigothic kingdom that lasted for 300 years and was the most advanced kingdom in Western Europe at the time—rings a bell?), and the Christian kingdoms that remained tried to recover their lost land during 800 years.
          During this very long period, there were wars betwen Muslims and Christians, yes, but Muslims and Christians would also often ally against other Christian kingdoms, etc, according to political strategies. So it’s not as simple as you think.
          By the way, Muslims weren’t perfect either. They did their own fair share of killing, plundering and raping. When people think of Muslim Spain they think of the Cordoba Caliphate (which was culturally very advanced), but that only lasted for a couple of centuries. The rest of the time, there were many tiny Muslim kingdoms that fought amongst themselves and often allied with the Christian kingdoms against other Muslims. They would also pillage Christian cities and even the cathedral of Santiago. So don’t make the common mistake of thinking, “Oh, Christians were super bad and Muslims were good.” History is way more complicated than that. And Isabella admired the Muslim Kindgom of Granada.
          If you want to understand the reasons why the Catholic Monarchs conquered Granada or vanished the Jews (by the way, England vanished them too, two centuries earlier, and all other Western countries did too), then you should read actual history books and stop simplifying everything.

      2. The ironic part is that I teach classes on female pirates in this time period and one of my favorites, Sayyida al Hurra, was forced to flee from Spain during the siege of Grenada in 1492. The Spanish culture was very Eurocentric and looked the Jewish and Moorish people as “Christ killing heratics.” In the zeal to rid Spain from the non-Christian threats, they destroyed valuable libraries which set back medical research by centuries.

        1. Sorry, but Christians just dind’t go around destroying medical books. They actually kept them.Spanish culture did not look the Jews and Muslims as “Christt killing heretics”, though they certainly did not like them, just like they didn’t like the Christians either. And Muslims were certainly a real threat to Spain, I don’t understand why we should blame Spaniards considering them so.

          1. Exactly! Google “Escuela de Traductores de Toledo” to see how Christian translators from the 13th century did an amazing job of translating thousands of classical works from Arabic to Latin and Spanish. Many of these works were by Classical authors (like Aristotle) but others were by Muslim authors, philosophers, doctors etc. So please stop repeating the same false cliches over and over!

  2. Spain was certainly multi racial but not egalitarian. Moors and Jews were persona non grata and dark skin was not admired. There were no Moorish or African nobles. Those included in Catherine’s retinue were relatively menial.

    1. Roxana, do you have any sources I can check on this statement? I’ve seen conflicting reports on whether Moor noblewomen existed in Katharine of Aragon’s household; some sources (mostly online articles, I can’t afford the $150 book on the topic) state that Catalina Cordones was a Moor noblewoman, others believe she was a slave.

      1. Catalina Cordones and Catalina the bed maker were two different women, the former a blue blooded noblewoman the latter an Ethiopian slave. I googled the name

    2. You all have a lot of Spanish history to learn! Actually, Isabella (the Catholic Queen) loved wearing Muslim fabrics and fashion, and she had several Muslim and Jewish advisors in her court. You really should learn more about the era.
      Muslims conquered Spain first (the Christian Visigothic kingdom that lasted for 300 years and was the most advanced kingdom in Western Europe at the time—rings a bell?), and the Christian kingdoms that remained tried to recover their lost land during 800 years.
      During this very long period, there were wars betwen Muslims and Christians, yes, but Muslims and Christians would also often ally against other Christian kingdoms, etc, according to political strategies. So it’s not as simple as you think.
      By the way, Muslims weren’t perfect either. They did their own fair share of killing, plundering and raping. When people think of Muslim Spain they think of the Cordoba Caliphate (which was culturally very advanced), but that only lasted for a couple of centuries. The rest of the time, there were many tiny Muslim kingdoms that fought amongst themselves and often allied with the Christian kingdoms against other Muslims. They would also pillage Christian cities and even the cathedral of Santiago. So don’t make the common mistake of thinking, “Oh, Christians were super bad and Muslims were good.” History is way more complicated than that. And Isabella admired the Muslim Kindgom of Granada.
      If you want to understand the reasons why the Catholic Monarchs conquered Granada or vanished the Jews (by the way, England vanished them too, two centuries earlier, and all other Western countries did too), then you should read actual history books and stop simplifying everything. ;)

  3. To be completely honest, as hilarious as the windmill dress is, I thought it could have been meant as a kind of avant garde design choice… but in that case it really doesn’t fit with the rest of the costumes. I like that the windmill look is a bit more structured and feels less nightgowny than many of the other dresses, but that also makes it stand out a lot more than if all the women had been wearing oddly ornamental dresses. Also funny, I knew a girl in high school whose last name was the Dutch word for farthingale (‘verdegaal’), we always assumed it was some sort of bird but it turned out to be 500 year old fashion!
    Lastly, what’s up with the White Queeniverse and interpreting late medieval hair as ‘loose with two messy Leia buns over the ears’?

    1. I was told by a Dutch friend that before Napoleon conquered the Netherlands and incorporated them into his empire in 1811 the Dutch had no regular system of family surnames, so one son might tag the home town on to his name for identification purposes, another use a patronymic, a third use a nickname, and so on. Napoleon, who liked tidying things up, ordered everyone in the Netherlands to adopt a permanent, inheritable family name; the Dutch assumed the French occupation wouldn’t last long (which in fact it didn’t) and many of them picked silly names as a form of civil resistance – and were dismayed to find, when Napoleon was finally packed off to St Helena, that they were stuck with them.

  4. Windmill dress? I call it the Queen of Hearts cause it straight out a drug filled wonderland!

  5. On the topic of underwear, what about that weird “hippy smock” in Kendra’s words that Lina wears under her dress in that one episode? It looked like a modern camisole.

  6. First of all, I would like to thank her ladyship for the insightful review of the clothes worn Spanish ladies of Princess Catalina’s retinue, and those worn by Her Highness.

    I have a question, if Spain’s noblewoman didn’t wear corsets, what did they wear instead?

    I have a theory that the seamstresses who made the verdugado had their glasses taken away to sew such wavy stripes.

    What I wouldn’t mind seeing is an adaptation of Alison Weir’s historical novels on the Six Wives. Catherine has red strawberry blonde hair on cover and Prince Henry is a boy not a weirdly infatuated almost paedophilic relationship PFG writes. But that’s not a costume problem, so I won’t dwell on it.

    My second question has to do with Juana Duchess of Burgundy’s wardrobe? What would have been something that the Burgundian court would have worn? Definitely not a copy of either Danilo Donati’s Romeo and Juliet costumes, but how close would they have been to Gabriella Pescucci’s The Borgias? Holy Roman Emperor Maxmillian invaded Lombardy as he too had a claim on the Duchy. Emperor Max was Duke Philip’s father and Juana’s father-in-law.

    1. In pre-corset eras (which is generally pre-late-16th-century), in most areas, women generally wore boned, stiffened, and/or structured gowns which did at least some of the support that corsets would later do.

  7. My guess is that the reason they wouldn’t have cast another redhead as Juana is that you then run the risk of audiences confusing the two characters. I feel like casting directors like to have the main ensemble of a show look fairly different from each other so that viewers aren’t like “wait so this redhaired princess and that other redhaired princess.. they’re two different princesses? confusingggggggg” and then change the channel.

    If you watch any show, you’ll notice that they tend to aim for relative diversity in at least hair color and often overall look, among the leads. Especially if there are multiple featured characters the audience is supposed to be paying close attention to. For example the daughters on Downton Abbey are two brunettes and a redhead, Gentleman Jack has Anne Lister and Ann Walker with brown vs. blond hair (and Anne L’s sister also has notably light brown vs. dark brown hair and looks physically pretty different from Anne L), Killing Eve has the Asian-Canadian dark haired Eve and the white blond Villanelle. Etc. etc. etc. If they’re open to the cast looking pretty samey, they’re not very worried about whether the audience can tell them apart.

  8. Good Lord the Hat Choices! You do see pudding caps for small children in the 18th century, but not in the early 1500’s! PS: I would like to see them adapt Alison FUCK YEAH Weir’s six Tudor Queens series instead of PFG’s Shitorical books!

  9. Didn’t Annette Crosbie in the Six Wives of Henry VIII have reddish hair? Looked so to me

    1. You’re right. And the best Catherine to date, in my humble opinion.

      1. Gillian, I agree that Crosbie was great, but I really thought Maria Doyle Kennedy’s performance of Katherine in The Tudors was excellent. She was dignified, smart, and proud of what was due her, without being Victorian and whiny, as she is often portrayed. The black hair was dumb, but not a surprise. And the costumes, of course, but there were some high quality performances.

  10. About the Moroccan prints: I don’t think these people are aware that Morocco isn’t part of Spain.

  11. I don’t suppose there is any chance that Mestressa Beatriz has made a reproduction of her favourite paned hooped gown (with or without duck feet) for SCA wear? And if so, could she be persuaded to favour us with a picture of it? Please?

  12. Portugal and Spain were (and are) two independant countries at the time, in fact, historical rivals. Fashions could eventually be similar, but definitely not the same, you can see it in a lot of period paintings. Although neighbouring countries, the culture evolved independantly. Stop treating Portugal as a Spanish province, which happened only for a very short period, when there was a crisis in the Royal succession. And that was after this.

  13. I get that this is an article meant to critique the accuracy of the show’s costumes. But a lot of the choices in costume are not meant to be completely accurate anyway! I think its important to keep in mind that most of these kinds of shows are not meant to be reenactments, documentaries, and are not geared towards historians in the first place. So while this is super informative, and exactly what I was looking for (season 2 is coming soon, and I’m studying this period of British history in college so..), I think you’re being overly critical. Its filmed for entertainment purposes only, loosely follows a historical timeline, and should be critiqued as such.
    Though, I admit, some of these mess ups could be easily fixed for a bit more accuracy.

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