Codpiece

A codpiece is a piece of fabric fashioned into a pouch used to cover and hold a man's genitals. The term is derived from the Middle English cod, meaning "bag" or "scrotum." Originally nothing more than a triangular piece of cloth tied at the three corners, the codpiece developed into an impressive, self-sustaining sartorial construction that soon shed its original utilitarian function to become an unabashed statement of masculinity and male ego.

The codpiece first appeared in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century when the hemline of men's tunics reached midthigh, placing the unprotected genitals at risk of exposure or discomfort. By the mid-fifteenth century, when hemlines reached the top of the thighs, the codpiece became both obligatory and swank. Codpieces were often constructed with fabric of contrasting color, elaborately embellished with bows, jeweled pins, and embroidery, or stuffed and slashed as fashion might dictate, all to draw attention to the male genitals. They could also serve as pouches for coins, kerchiefs, pins, and other paraphernalia. Codpieces also served as venues for male boasting and exhibitionism, and this naturally attracted the wrath of preachers and the derision of literary wits.

After its heyday in the 1530s and 1540s, when it was often sizable, loaf shaped, and protruding, the codpiece in the 1550s and 1560s began to wane in size and splendor, becoming smaller, more oval shaped, and set closer to the body, though it was still erect. By the 1570s to 1580s the codpiece disappeared completely behind the ample folds of the new male fashion for voluminous trunk hose, a victim of a changing political and cultural climate conditioned by the spread of the various religious reform movements, as well as by the presence on the throne—or immediately behind it—of powerful female figures such as Elizabeth I of England and Catherine de Médicis, which made such unabashed statements of virility and male sexuality rather unadvisable.

see also Clothing; Masculinity: I. Overview.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eisenbichler, Konrad. 1988. "Bronzino's Portrait of Guidobaldo II Della Rovere." Renaissance and Reformation 24(1): 21-33.

Persels, Jeffery C. 1997. "Bragueta Humanística, or Humanism's Codpiece." Sixteenth Century Journal 28(1): 79-99.

Simons, Patricia. 1994. "Alert and Erect: Masculinity in Some Italian Renaissance Portraits of Fathers and Sons." In Gender Rhetorics: Postures of Dominance and Submission in History, ed. Richard C. Trexler. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies.

                                        Konrad Eisenbichler