Did he really make a fur coat made of squirrels?
Why would he do that?
I heard a little that no fur was available or hard to come by at the time?.
Anyways i heard he slain 12000 squirrels to do it, so where the heck did he find 12k squirrels!?
Asking for my wife lol.
She doesn't believe that he did lol, and i barely believe it either lol.
Edit: So does that mean Henry the 4th the slayer of squirrels!? Lol. He should have been called that! Lol.
Europeans went gaga for furs in the Middle Ages. Fur was a status item, a symbol of social standing, which was reflected for instance in the sumptuary legislation passed in England in the late 1300s that regulated precisely what types of furs could be worn, who could wear them (royal family, prelates, nobility, clerks, etc.) and who couldn't (workmen...). I've borrowed most of what follows from Veale, 1966.
European nobles did hunt fur animals but they were more likely to keep the skins for themselves: most of the furs used to adorn clothes came from a pan-European and flourishing fur trade. Some furs came from western Europe - rabbit, hare, fox -, but the finest pelts - squirrel, sable, ermine - were imported from Russia and the Baltic region where they were trapped by the local populations in massive numbers. A previous answer by u/y_sengaku provides additional information and links about the sources of the pelts and the role of the Russian city of Novgorod as a hub of squirrel fur trade up to the second half of the 15th century (see Martin, 2004).
The European squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) was extremely common in Russia (where it was grey rather than red), and there were many categories and qualities of squirrel skins depending on their origin and on the time of the year they were taken. Russia was the main exporter, but squirrel skins were also sourced from other places, like Calabria, Italy. Squirrel skins were sewn together in strips, which were joined to make a rectangular shape which was more or less standardised in Europe.
Henri IV's outfit consisted in 9 garments: two mantles, a tabard, two tunics, two kirtles, and two caps. They were made with the pelts of 12,000 squirrels and 80 ermines. But once century earlier, in 1285-1288, Edward I's houshold had bought 119,300 squirrel skins on average per year. For England, I'll just quote historian Eslpeth Veale (1966), who took these numbers from the official archives (in the sources section I added the PhD dissertation of Delort, 1978, who did the same job for France):
A total of 79,220 skins of trimmed minever [a type of high quality squirrel] were sewn into furs to satisfy the needs of the royal household alone during the year 1344-5, and nearly half as many, 32,762, were used simply for the furring of the trousseau of Princess Philippa and the liveries of her escort. Another young princess for whom an extensive wardrobe was prepared was the widowed Queen Isabella, returning to France after the death of Richard II. The only touch of colour among the sombre clothes and furnishings was provided by the 45,722 grey and white squirrel skins and the 400 white lettice skins.
When larger skins were more fashionable, great numbers were still required. Henry VI had the body of a new purple velvet gown lined with 250 backs of marten and the sleeves with 68 belly skins, and Henry VIII had 350 sable skins bought for a single gown of black satin. In this case it would be almost possible to reconstruct the gown, as sable skins were worked to a length of twelve inches and a width of three and a half, and 110 skins were to be used for the front, 130 for the back, 64 for the upper stock or breeches, 32 for the foresleeves, and 14 for the cape and collar.
Counterpanes required many more skins, particularly when lined with squirrel. Edward III’s mother, Queen Isabella, had six lined with pured minever, one containing 1,396 skins, and a red velvet keverchief lined with 700 bellies. And this was not unusual: a counterpane made for Edward III, of forty skins long and fifty-six wide, would have needed 2,240 skins.
Sources