Greguescos

Don Juan de Austria, bastard son of Carlos I of Spain, with trousers to the Greek, about 1580. In a portrait attributed to Juan Pantoja de la Cruz and deposited in the Monastery of the Escorial.

The gregüescos or greguescos are a type of short and puffy male leggings or pants. Of supposed military origin, they became fashionable in Spain during the course of the 16th century to 17th century, later adopting various shapes and sizes in Western Europe and the Spanish courts overseas, as an evolution of the botargas and other types of leggings, giving rise to the folados or afuelados.

They appear described –in their varied typology– or ridiculed by some of the best authors of the Spanish Golden Age, such as Cervantes, Lope, Tirso or Quevedo; and they were painted by Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé González or Alonso Sánchez Coello and others artists of the main European courts, such as Titian.

Origin and definition

Point out some crabs (s silk, three rods and stubs), which have three quarters long, without pieces on the sides or down, and have seven ochavas where the stroke of the skirt to the tip of the ditch and have twelve rustle sticks, and bracelets and panties like socks

Ordinances (1588)

This is how the greguescos appear mentioned for the first time, in the new Ordinances of the Toledo hosiers guild, issued in 1588, although Herrero García calculates that these garments would have started to be used twenty years ago, that is, at the beginning of the reign of Felipe II. However, neither they nor leggings in general appear in the dressmaking books of the tailoring of the time, which suggests that they were garments associated with the culture of footwear. A definition adapted to contemporary language would describe the greguescos as wide breeches gathered at the waist and open at the front; the "three-quarter length legs" They mean that they reached the knees, and the side pockets for what is known as pockets. They had a 'suppensory' or an inner panty, like that of the current sports pants, and a panty that had become fashionable for attached leggings, a resource that differentiated nobles and courtiers from common people. Herrero García specifies, however, that the origin of the gregüescos was clearly peasant, and introduced into court life by the militia.

Regarding the origin of the word gregüescos, and leaving aside an unlikely closeness to the Italian term, grechesco –a la greek–, Lope de Vega proposed its origin from the Latin «grex- gregis», associating it with wool from Greece. Three centuries later, with a fantasy partner, Francisco Rodríguez Marín, commenting on Góngora, explains that the poet uses "the words 'griego' and 'gregüesco', implying the relationship between these two voices, and that 'gregüesco' like grecisco, it is just a derivative of greek". For his part, Herrero García relates it to greaves (piece of armor that covered the leg), assuming it to be a linguistic evolution of grebescos, comparing it to the passage of 'grandfather' to agüelo. Other authors, such as Bandrés Oto, associate his name with the Greek national costume, and define it as a pair of pants within the set of models of male leggings.

Typology

Sousa Congosto warns of the usual confusion that associates gregues to the thighs of breeches from the XVI century. A Based on the gestural language and the visual impression produced by the manly legs in their tight leggings when they were completely exposed when other warm upper garments were displaced, some theories suggest that the greguescos could have responded to a demand of modesty established in the court of Philip II. Other sources mention the fashion in Italy and Germany of wearing a cloth or leather bag tied with buttons over the groin (truss) that served as a fly to assemble; and this fashion could have caused a type of shoe to be designed in hosiery workshops that somewhat concealed the shapes from the waist to the upper part of the thigh. Another reason could be the need -for hygiene or comfort of movement - of a greater slack for the game of legs and hips, which the Toledo hosiers solved by designing the pants without a waistband, made of puffed fabric, that is to say with several small puffs in horizontal series sometimes slashed and separated by more or less luxurious chevrons, which can be considered a precedent of the gregüescos.

In the court of Carlos I of Spain, models of tight-fitting tubular gregues can already be seen, starting with the botargas or bambocha leggings and the leggings attacked, which evolved under the reign of his son, Felipe II, expanding into fucked or bruised welts with a wide flare on the legs, or into knee-length breeches giving the welts the appearance of panties. Finally, the greguescos remained only as clothing for the pages.

A brief definition of the garment would be "tights with two large stabbed studs", so a lining or interior fabric was necessary that was visible between the openings and that was of a different color than the outer fabric or chevrons that in many cases formed that external part. The set, especially in the military suits, resulted in a striped strip of two colors. These noises increased in volume, reaching exaggeration with the Franco-Flemish fashions "a la duque de Guise" and, in Spain, from the court of Felipe III. The sophistication of court fashion meant that gregues often went with the puffs at the top of the sleeves, decorated with gold herringbones, trimmings and expensive trimmings, carved velvets and silks. Beyond the puffed effect, the voluminousness of the greguesques usually attracts attention, amplitude that was achieved by filling the space between the lining and the fabric with paper or cotton (and even sawdust or bran in the most modest ones). It must also be explained that under the greguesque it was customary to wear canvas or linen breeches, and even under this they wore a loincloth as underpants.

The exterior description of the greguesques is made in the aforementioned Ordinances for hosiers, in 1588, warns that "if the greguesques were stewed, or satin, or taffeta, or velvet, or gold, or of any other fabric, they have the interlinings of caniqui or another thin black canvas, and the linings on top are of white canvas that is not caniqui".

Typology in all men's leggings

• 

  Toneletes in an engraving of the Roger de Gaignières collection, about 1600.

• 

  Tambor de los Tercios españolas con calzas botargas in 1577. Col. Gaignières.

• 

  The tailor, in blood,
  painted at 1565-70
  by Giovanni Battista Moroni.
  National Gallery of London.

Literary documentation

Mentioned several times by Lope de Vega, the defense he makes of the original Spanish prototype against imported models is interesting, when he writes:

From cloth, open the crab
Not as now unsubstantiated,
with such new inventions,
more with folds and laces,
more comfortable and fresh.

The Isidro. Lope de Vega (1597)

Luis de Góngora seems to answer Lope with these romanced verses:

And the silk slugs,
wire,
much more crooked
That mulates in tears.

The quotes can be completed with the sonnet that Quevedo dedicates to them or with Cervantes' mention of some "green gregüescos made of cloth of gold". In Don Quixote, Cervantes advises against the use of greguescos to Sancho when he governs his island, "which are not good for knights or governors".

Pictorial documentation

Ulrich III, Duke of Mecklenburg, 1573

Contrary to what one might imagine, the greguesque fashion became very popular among the lower class and especially the soldiery; in The Dialogue of Truths, written around 1570, one can read descriptions of the daring and deformity of some models:

“There are some that look like saddlebags, who wear what is now used on their thighs, they make leggings with those thighs that they call afollados. There are some who carry about thirty yards of cloth and silk and old mats and other rags with which those vejazazas, gourds are made... made of leather on the inside and very well sewn on their curbs, they swell them up like wine skins..." The history of painting allows us to visualize some of those excesses.