Eye Glasses during the GAoP

[CrazyCholeBlack]

I know that eye glasses were invented well before the GAoP yet I don't seem to find many references to them during the period. I also can't recall seeing any images with someone wearing or even holding them. I am hoping that some of the more studious might be able to assist me in this tidbit of research.

[Capn_Enigma]

While they are no period depictions, here are some examples of spectacles from the 16th century, and a pair of glasses from the 17th century

I even found the ladies version of spectacles which was fixed to the hood of this charming lady.

Compared to these glasses, the Clark Kent model are really cool shades.

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Glasses (with side ear pieces) like modern glasses come in just after the GAoP. If you google "glasses history" you will get a lot of links and see lots of examples.

The "period" glasses sold by most vendors are F&I or Rev War period.

Greg

[Capt. Sterling]

There were quizzing lenses already as well...

http://www.eyeglasseswarehouse.com/quizzing.html

supposedly the first two are late 17th century

Here's some brief info

http://www.college-optometrists.org/index....cles.seventeen/

[jessie k.]

The version without ear pieces; were they held up to the face, or did they pinch onto the nose?

[Capt. Sterling]

The version without ear pieces; were they held up to the face, or did they pinch onto the nose?

Earlier on they were held in place, but supposedly by the beginning of the GAoP they were already pinching the nose...

[Brit.Privateer]

Here is another question that may influence the whole thing on glasses, were there a significant number of people who needed glasses back then? I would imagine if the demand for glasses were low, that little effort would be put toward developing a functional pair for the public. Also, if knowledge of the amount of people who needed glasses is known, do we know if they are far sited or near sighted. If the majority of those needing glasses were near sited (meaning they can not see things close up), I would have a feeling that many would not want or try to get glasses (I have seen many people at convenience stores who have problems reading the credit card swiper screen being able to write their check, due to "they forgot their glasses." If people today don't see glasses as important enough to have with them everywhere, then I can imagine common people back then not even thinking of getting glasses due to they thought they would not be that important. Many people wouldn't need them due to they couldn't read and write.). That is a angle to look at it from.

[CrazyCholeBlack]

that is an interesting way to think about eye glasses. It was definately a less "reading heavy" lifestyle. I can see that there would be less need for close vision problems. Though there would still be people such as myself who can't see past arms length & wouldn't be functional without some sort of eye assistance. There is always the issue of cost. Eye glasses didn't get common until there was a way to mass produce lenses (1800 something right?)

It's an interesting detail to think about.

[jessie k.]

Maybe they were simply too expensive for most people? I know I, personally, would not be able to see much farther than my nose without glasses or contact lenses. And while reading may not have been an issue, things like sewing would have been troublesome without glasses.

[Red Maria]

At a Anitquarian book faire I work at back in Febuarary the booth across from us had besides books various optics among which were a sample case of glass eyes and two pairs of period eyeglasses. One was 16thc. the other 18thc. the 16thc. werr hand held the 18thc. had ear peices. I do recall an 16thc. portrait of a cardinal wearing eyeglasses with ear pieces.

Personally if I don't wear my glasses I get teribble headaches. I try to wear as period eyeglasses that my perscription will allow.

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Well, i don't know....

According to Antique Spectacles the first side arm temple glasses don't come about till 1726ish

From the beginning, spectacles failed to remain in position and stay on. As noted during the 15th and 16th centuries, they were of the riveted type which was normally  hand-held. These spectacles evolved into the type with a more comfortable arched bridge known as bow specs. Following this, the ultra-rare  slit-bridge spectacles appeared with slits to give some added elasticity to the nose bridge. Then one piece wire (usually copper) frames with round lenses, better known as Nuremberg style nose spectacles, came into fashion, being mass-produced throughout the 17th century and until the early 19th century. Compounding the problem of stability, the first spectacles did not have side arms. This critical problem went unsolved for about 440 years until finally London optician Edward Scarlett (1677-1743) was credited with perfecting temple spectacles – those having short, stiff side pieces ending in a circular ring that pressed against the temples above the ears. This innovation facilitated the easy putting on and taking off of the glasses and didn’t interfere with a person’s long hair or wig. It hasn’t been proven that Scarlett truly was the inventor. He advertised spectacles with spiral ends and his  trade card is the earliest surviving illustration of them. Twenty-five years later, longer sides (temples) hinged in the middle became popular. This change finally added much needed comfort and stability. Another London instrument-maker and optician, James Ayscough, gets the credit for inventing this first  double-hinged temple in 1752. He described these sides as "so contrived as to press neither upon the nose nor upon the temples."

GoF

[blackjohn]

This pic is spot on GAP.

[Mission]

I found this in Elizabeth Bennion's, Antique Medical Instruments:

This suggests that eyeglasses with some way to attach them to the wearer's head existed in 1700. (Quick, someone over there go check the British Optical Ass'n Library for verification.) I do wish we knew the dates of each of those.

Also, according to Bennion, eye glasses and pince nez glasses were very popular and common and could be fairly cheaply purchased.

"In the late fifteenth century they [glasses] were occasionally held on by an extension over the forehead. Early frames were made of brass or iron and then of horn, bone, gold, silver and even of leather. The first lenses were only for long-sightedness and were ground from berillus or beryl, a smoke coloured glass. From beryl came the French bericle and later besicles, meaning spectacles. The word 'lenses' comes from the Italian word for lentils. Eye-glasses, being precious, required cases, and these were often the most intricate and beautiful works of art, made of wood, metal, or ivory or, for the hoi polloi, leather, horn or parchment. Sometimes, since spectacles were only

__

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used for reading, the case was contrived in the cover of a book. With the invention of the printing press in 1476 more and more people wished to read, resulting in large scale production for the spectacle-maker. Prices fell and spectacles were sold by pedlars; glasses were available to almost all. The first known spectacle-maker was one in Nuremberg in 1478 and by 1567 that city had entirely regularised the craft.

The sixteenth-century saw the introduction of concave lenses for the short-sighted, and the innovation of oval lenses meant that one might look over them for distance vision. Frames were becoming slightly more flexible; some were strapped round the head with leather, others had cord around each ear, and others still were attached to a hat. A book entitled A Briefe Treatise touching the Preservation of the Eisight, published in 1586, mentions the usefulness of tinted glasses, and by 1591 lenses of amber, soaked in linseed oil, were used as protection against the sun." (Bennion, p. 233-5)

"The seventeenth century saw a return to the single eye-glass, mostly for the rich who did not wish to be associated with double ones now that they had become available to all." (Bennion, p. 237)

"The form of mid-seventeenth-century spectacles is not clear as the books of the London Spectacle Makers' Company were burned in the Great Fire, but by the end of the century we read of black frames for sale at 5d the pair and ordinary

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white ones for 7d. Samuel Pepys, whose bad eyesight regrettably caused him eventually to stop writing his diary, nevertheless in 1666, 'did this evening buy me a pair of green spectacles to see whether they will help my eyes or no.'" (Bennion, p. 237-8)

[Joe Pyrat]

My thought on whether or not to wear glasses is that most common citizens would not be able to afford them so I don't wear them (my long range glasses). I can see well enough that this isn't a problem so I carry my reading glasses in my pocket for those moments when they are needed. If your vision requires them then wear them (even if you don't have PC frames) as safety trumps PC every time. This, of course, depends on who you are protraying. If it's some lord or other welthy individual then they would be appropriate.

[Mission]

My thought on whether or not to wear glasses is that most common citizens would not be able to afford them so I don't wear them (my long range glasses). I can see well enough that this isn't a problem so I carry my reading glasses in my pocket for those moments when they are needed. If your vision requires them then wear them (even if you don't have PC frames) as safety trumps PC every time. This, of course, depends on who you are protraying. If it's some lord or other welthy individual then they would be appropriate.

Actually, if you read those last few quotes, eyeglasses in one form or another were available to one and all. However, I can see the argument for wearing your regular glasses if that's what it takes for you to function, especially if you can't wear contacts. Dead Eye with the Bone Island Buccaneers informed me that his vision is so bad without glasses that they won't issue him a driver's license. Looking period is important, but you there's no sense in being a damned fool about it.

[Joe Pyrat]

My point was not reference availability, but about affordability. What was the cost glasses at the time? Since the lenses could not be mass produces I would guess the cost was substantial and unless a person could just not function without them they would make due and not spend the money. Pirates, of course, have the ability to bypass such economic issues. :)

[Sjöröveren]

This pic is spot on GAP.

This picture is great! It means that I can wear my "period" glasses for distance, and my pince nez for reading. I had always thought that pince nez were 19th century at the earliest.

[Mission]

My point was not reference availability, but about affordability. What was the cost glasses at the time? Since the lenses could not be mass produces I would guess the cost was substantial and unless a person could just not function without them they would make due and not spend the money. Pirates, of course, have the ability to bypass such economic issues. :)

Going by this quote:

"The seventeenth century saw a return to the single eye-glass, mostly for the rich who did not wish to be associated with double ones now that they had become available to all.” (Bennion, p. 237)

and this one:

"With the invention of the printing press in 1476 more and more people wished to read, resulting in large scale production for the spectacle-maker. Prices fell and spectacles were sold by pedlars; glasses were available to almost all. The first known spectacle-maker was one in Nuremberg in 1478 and by 1567 that city had entirely regularised the craft." (Bennion, p. 235)

Extrapolating from the late 15th century forward, my guess is that they were produced in larger quantities during period and available from street peddlers in various standard strengths - kind of like reading glasses are today at K-Mart. The street peddler sold primarily to the common people as I understand it.

[Joe Pyrat]

Interesting, any idea what the percentage of people who could read was, excluding the upper classes? Teach is often mentioned as being unique among pirates in his ability to read and write so it appears that the percentage was not high. It would seem that the merchant class and above may have been more literate then sailors though. What made me wonder regarding the cost was a conversation we had at the Castillo this weekend regarding the making of paper cartridge tubes becoming a cottage industry where the producer was paid only 1 cent per 100. When combined with other sources regarding wages and the practice of often reneging on paying owed wages I was wondering how much of a luxury item these would be among the commoners. However if they were producing them in quantity there must have been a market for them.

Edit...

Oh, BTW Mission, there is a gentleman at the Castillo who is our surgeon and has an extensive collection of medical gear. I mentioned you were also very interested in the period medical arts but we didn't have time to continue our conversation. Would you like me to pass along your email address? PM me if you like.

Edited May 11, 2009 by Joe Pyrat

[Mission]

Good point. Regular seamen and men pressed into piratical service occasionally kept journals, so we know some of them could write (and, logically, read.) Probably not the majority of them, though. I could see an argument suggesting that most seamen who couldn't read wouldn't even be totally aware that they needed vision correction. (Except the surgeon, the navigator (both of whom could most likely read) and the sailmakers. Maybe the carpenter.)

[Capt. Sterling]

More spectacles without side pieces.

[Captain_MacNamara]

Aye... I've tried to wear a pair similar to those, and they hurt my nose. I try to go without my specs at events, even though it's just the SCA... but I have astigmatism, and for some reason get really nasty headaches if I go too long without them. I thought about getting a pair of these, as they look ok and are "period", just not the right period... but still closer to period than my modern frames:

[Sjöröveren]

Aye... I've tried to wear a pair similar to those, and they hurt my nose. I try to go without my specs at events, even though it's just the SCA... but I have astigmatism, and for some reason get really nasty headaches if I go too long without them. I thought about getting a pair of these, as they look ok and are "period", just not the right period... but still closer to period than my modern frames:

I used to have a pair just like these, and I wouldn't get another like them. They were very tight behind the ears, even after loosening the coil of the loops. They also corroded from perspiration very quickly. The place where the nosepiece joined the lens frame turned green and corroded in two within a year.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Sjöröveren

[Mission]

I found what appears to be a period reference in the book The Travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant in Three Parts,

"There is no Winter on this Island [Malta], nor no need of warming one's self by the fire; on the contrary, they always drink their Wine with Ice. [This is not relevant, but I do wonder where they got the ice.] The Air is very thin and wholsom for Old Men, who can hardly die; but Head-aches are dangerous there, and sore Eyes, because of the whiteness of the Earth, which makes many Commanders and Knights to wear green Spectacles, though I cannot tell but that the Glass by contracting the beams of the Sun, may burn their Eyes." (Thevenot, p. 6)

[jendobyns]

Mission, that is just wonderful! Do you have a date for the work? I can't tell you how many people have got it into their heads that dark lenses were to protect the eyes of people suffering from venereal disease! In spite of research done over a decade ago proving that is just not so. Sigh