. Two centuries of costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX . yes. Therewas not a double-breasted coat in the Mayflower^ noron any man in any of the colonies for many years ;163 164 Two Centuries of Costume they hadnt been invented. Let me attempt to de-fine these several coatlike garments. In 1697 a jerkin was described by Randle Holmeas a kind of jacket or upper doublet, with fourskirts or laps. These laps were made by slits up from the hemto the belt-line,and varied innumber, butfour on eachside was a usualnumber, orthere might bea slit up theback, and oneon each hip,which would af-ford four laps
. Two centuries of costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX . yes. Therewas not a double-breasted coat in the Mayflower^ noron any man in any of the colonies for many years ;163 164 Two Centuries of Costume they hadnt been invented. Let me attempt to de-fine these several coatlike garments. In 1697 a jerkin was described by Randle Holmeas a kind of jacket or upper doublet, with fourskirts or laps. These laps were made by slits up from the hemto the belt-line,and varied innumber, butfour on eachside was a usualnumber, orthere might bea slit up theback, and oneon each hip,which would af-ford four laps inall. Mr. Knight,in his notes onShakesperesuse of the word,conjectures thatthe jerkin wasgenerally wornover the doublet; but one guess is as good as an-other, and I guess it was not. I agree, however, withhis surmise that the two garments were constantlyconfounded; in truth it is not a surmise, it is a expressed the situation when he said inThe Two Gentlemen of Verona, My jerkin is adoublet; and I fancy there was slight difference in. A Plain Jerkin. The Evolution of Coats and Waistcoats 165 the garments, save that in the beginning the doubletwas always of two thicknesses, as its name indi-cates ; and it was wadded. As the jerkin was often minutely slashed, it couldscarcely have been wadded; though it may havehad a lining for special display through the slashes. A jerkin had no skirts in our modern sense ofthe word, — a piece set on at the waist-line, — norcould it on that account be what we term a coat,nor was it a coat, nor was it what the colonistsdeemed a coat. The old Dutch word is jurkken, and it was oftenthus spelt, which has led some to deem it a Dutchname and article of dress. But then it was alsospelt irkin, ircken, jorken, jorgen, erkyn, and ergoin —which are not Dutch nor any other tongue. In-deed, under the name ergoin I wonder that we rec-ognize it or that it knew itself. A jerkin was oftenof leather like a buff-coat, but not always so. Sir
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