The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mandilion \Man*dil"ion\, n.
See Mandil.
--Chapman.
Wiktionary
n. mandil
Wikipedia
A mandilion or mandelion is a loose men's hip-length pullover coat or jacket, open down the sides, worn in England in the later sixteenth century.
It was fashionable to wear the mandilion colly-westonward or Colley-Weston-ward, that is, rotated 90 degrees so that the front and back were draped over the arms and the sleeves hung down in front and behind.
"...sithence such is our mutability that to-day there is none to the Spanish guise, to-morrow the French toys are most fine and delectable, ere long no such apparel as that which is after the high Almaine fashion, by-and-by the Turkish manner is generally best liked of, otherwise the Morisco gowns, the Barbarian fleeces, the mandilion worn to Colley-Weston ward, and the short French breeches make such a comely vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England." - William Harrison, The Description of Elizabethan England (1577), 'Of Our Apparel and Attire'.Why the fashion was named after the small village of Collyweston in Northamptonshire remains uncertain.
Another pronunciation of the fashion is "coley-westwards".
See Chaperon for a similar development in the medieval hood-turned-hat.
Usage examples of "mandilion".
I had rather mount guard, for a week, in steel helmet and corselet, with breast, back, culet, gorget, tasses, sword, musket and bandoliers, in the hottest sun that ever roasted a blackamoor, or stand up to my knees, six months, in snow, without my mandilion, than lie a day longer in that ace--I mean that kennel of a lock-up.
Two Cassiline Brothers flanked her, upright and motionless, hands on daggers, nearly identical in their ash-grey mandilion coats and clubbed hair.
Joscelin wore his own attire, dove-grey shirt and trousers with a long, sleeveless mandilion coat of the same drab color over it.
At least he was easy enough to keep in sight, the dim grey robe of his mandilion coat swinging with the speed of his pace, the hilt of his broadsword rising over his shoulder and the blond hair clubbed at his neck.
He looked around him, saw a loose mandilion he had pulled out of the cupboard, and caught it up.