Codpiece

A Practical Covering for Open Hose

The codpiece began as a solution to a construction problem in men's dress. Men's hose were typically very snug on the legs and open at the crotch, with the genitalia simply hanging loose under the doublet. As long as the doublet was long, coverage was adequate. A shortening of the doublet resulted in often-exposed genitalia, so the codpiece came into being, though there are other versions of its origin. At first the codpiece was entirely a practical matter of modesty: a flap or pouch attached at the front of the crotch of the trousers or hose, held closed by string ties, buttons or other methods, so the wearer was covered when he moved, sat or rode.

The name records that practical origin. Codpiece comes from Middle English codpece: cod, a bag, from Old English codd, a bag, plus pece, a piece. It is literally the bag-piece at the front of the garment. Because it was a separate attached piece rather than part of the hose itself, it could be made, shaped and fastened independently, and that separateness is what allowed its later development. A closure that can be tied or buttoned can also be padded, enlarged and decorated, and the history of the codpiece in the 15th and 16th centuries is the history of a modest covering turning into a shaped feature of dress.

From Modesty to Emphasis

As time passed, codpieces were shaped to emphasize the male genitalia and eventually often became padded and bizarrely shaped. The garment that began by covering became a display in its own right, its size and shape carrying meanings about masculinity and status in the courts and streets of Renaissance Europe. That exaggeration is the phase for which the codpiece is now best known, and it is visible in portraits of the period, where the padded front of the hose is drawn as deliberately as any sleeve or jewel. Alongside display, the codpiece kept a practical side: codpieces also often doubled as pockets, handy carrying places for a variety of items, so the pouch served as storage as well as covering.

When close-fitting hose gave way to breeches and trousers with a closed front opening, the codpiece lost its function and disappeared from ordinary dress, surviving as a historical garment and a costume reference. It still appears where the 15th and 16th centuries are deliberately evoked: the lead singer of the 1980s music group Cameo famously wore a large, bright-red codpiece in all of his performances, and Alex and his gang members in Anthony Burgess's book A Clockwork Orange, and in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation, wear codpieces as part of their uniform. Those modern uses quote the garment's display phase, not its modest beginning, which is a fair measure of how completely its meaning reversed over its working life.