Medieval & Renaissance Pomanders

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Girdles

Fans

Pouches and Purses

Gloves

Pendants

Rosaries, Rosary Beads, & Paternosters

New Year's Gifts for Queen Elizabeth
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For now, this page focuses on extant examples of pomanders; while many portraits show pomanders worn at the end of a girdle (as in the portrait of Anne Fernely, 1564), sometimes it's hard to tell whether it's a pomander or just a fancy tassel or similar ornament. (For another nifty and clearly-a-pomander example from portraiture, there's also this portrait of a man by Jacob Cornelisz von Oostsanen, c. 1518.)

See also Girdle Tassels: Pomanders for a few more examples, The Painted Face for pomander recipes from 1573 and 1609, Scents of the Middle Ages for materials commonly used in pomanders and recipes from 1606 and 1615, and Stefan's Florilegium: Pomanders.

From the 16th century descriptions, it appears that "pomander" can be the term for the actual scented stuff (and can, in fact, refer to scented beads, as "a cheyne of pomaindes, with buttons of silver betwene" and "a cheyne of pomaunder with a verey small ragged perle" in the New Year's Gifts to Queen Elizabeth, 1577-8), or the fancy container for the scented stuff.

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