FOOTNOTES:

“In faith of Christ a Christian trueThe wicked laws of infidels,He sought by power to subdue.“So passed he the seas of Greece,To help the Emperour to his right,Against the mighty Soldan’s hostOf puissant Persians for to fight:Where he did slay of SarazensAnd heathen Pagans many a man,And slew the Soldan’s cousin dear,Who had to name, Doughty Colbron.“Ezkeldered that famous knight,To death likewise he did pursue,And Almain, king of Tyre also,Most terrible too in fight to view:He went into the Soldan’s host,Being thither on ambassage sent,And brought away his head with him,He having slain him in his tent.”

“In faith of Christ a Christian trueThe wicked laws of infidels,He sought by power to subdue.

“So passed he the seas of Greece,To help the Emperour to his right,Against the mighty Soldan’s hostOf puissant Persians for to fight:Where he did slay of SarazensAnd heathen Pagans many a man,And slew the Soldan’s cousin dear,Who had to name, Doughty Colbron.

“Ezkeldered that famous knight,To death likewise he did pursue,And Almain, king of Tyre also,Most terrible too in fight to view:He went into the Soldan’s host,Being thither on ambassage sent,And brought away his head with him,He having slain him in his tent.”

Or passing by his

“Feats of armsIn strange and sundry heathen lands,”

note his beneficent progress at home—

“In Windsor forest he did slayA boar of passing might and strength;The like in England never was,For hugeness both in breadth and length.Some of his bones in Warwick yet,Within the castle there do lye;One of his shield bones to this dayHangs in the city of Coventry.“On Dunsmore heath he also slewA monstrous wild and cruel beast,Call’d the dun cow of Dunsmore heath,Which many people had opprest;Some of her bones in Warwick yetStill for a monument doth lie,Which unto every looker’s view,As wondrous strange they may espy.“And the dragon in the land,He also did in flight destroy,Which did both men and beasts oppress,And all the country sore annoy:”

“On Dunsmore heath he also slewA monstrous wild and cruel beast,Call’d the dun cow of Dunsmore heath,Which many people had opprest;Some of her bones in Warwick yetStill for a monument doth lie,Which unto every looker’s view,As wondrous strange they may espy.

“And the dragon in the land,He also did in flight destroy,Which did both men and beasts oppress,And all the country sore annoy:”

Or look we at him all doughty as he was, as the pilgrim of love, as subdued by the influence of the tender passion, a suppliant to the gentle Phillis, and ready to compass the earth to fulfil her wishes, and to prove his devotion:

“Was ever knight for lady’s sakeSo tost in love, as I, Sir Guy;For Phillis fair, that Lady bright,As ever man beheld with eye;She gave me leave myself to tryThe valiant knight with shield and spear,Ere that her love she would grant me,Who made me venture far and near.”

Or, afterwards view him as—

“All clad in grey in Pilgrim sort,His voyage from her he did take,Unto that blessed, holy land,For Jesus Christ, his Saviour’s sake.”

Lastly, recal we the time when the fierce and ruthless Danes were ravaging our land, and there was scarce a town or castle as far as Winchester, which they had not plundered or burnt, and a proposal was made, and per force acceded to by the English king to decide the struggle by single combat. But the odds were great: Colbrand the Danish champion, was a giant, and ere he came to a combat he provided himself with a cart-load of Danish axes, great clubs with knobs of iron, squared barrs of steel lances and iron hooks wherewith to pull his adversary to him.

On the other hand the English—and sleepless and unhappy, the king Athelstan pondered the circumstance as he lay on his couch, on St. John Baptist’s night—had no champion forthcoming, even though the county of Hants had been promised as a reward to the victor. Roland, the most valiant knight of a thousand, was dead; Heraud, the pride of the nation, was abroad; and the great and valiant Guy, Earl of Warwick, was gone on a pilgrimage. The monarch was perplexed and sorrowful; but an angel appeared to him and comforted him.

In conformity with the injunctions of this gracious messenger, the king, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester, placed himself at the north gate of the city (Winchester) at the hour of prime. Divers poor people and pilgrims entered thereat, and among the rest appeared a man of noble visage and stalwart frame, but wan withal, pale with abstinence, and macerated by reason of journeying barefoot. His beard was venerably long and he rested on a staff; he wore apilgrim’s garb, and on his bare and venerable head was strung a chaplet of white roses. Bending low, he passed the gate, but the king warned by the vision, hastened to him, and entreated him “by his love for Jesus Christ, by the devotion of his pilgrimage, and for the preservation of all England, to do battle with the giant.” The Palmer thus conjured, underwent the combat, and was victorious.

After a solemn procession to the Cathedral, and thanksgiving therein, when he offered his weapon to God and the patron of the Church, before the High Altar, the pilgrim withdrew, having revealed himself to none but the king, and that under a solemn pledge of secrecy. He bent his course towards Warwick, and unknown in his disguise, took alms at the hands of his own lady—for, reader, this meek and holy pilgrim, was none other than the wholesale slayer, whose deeds we have been contemplating—and then retired to a solitary place hard by—

“Where with his hand he hew’d a house,Out of a craggy rock of stone;And lived like a palmer poor,Within that cave himself alone.”

Nor was this at all an unusual conclusion to a life of butchery; all the heroes of romance turned hermits; and as they all, at least all of Arthur’s Round Table, were gifted with a very striking development of the organ of combativeness, their profound piety at the end of their career might not improbably give rise to a very common adage of these days regarding sinners and saints.

But here was a theme for Tapestry-workers! areal original, genuine English romance; for though the only pieces now extant be, or may be, translated from the French, still there are many concurring circumstances to prove that the original, often quoted by Chaucer, was an ancient metrical English one. That it is difficult to find who Sir Guy was, or in fact, to prove that there ever was a Sir Guy at all, is nothing to the purpose; leave we that to antiquarians, and their musty folios. Guy of Warwick was well known from west to east, even as far as Jerusalem, where, in Henry the Fourth’s time, Lord Beauchamp was kindly received by those in high stations, because he was descended from

“A shadowy ancestor, so renowned as Guy.”

One tapestry on this attractive subject which was in Warwick Castle, before the year 1398, was so distinguished and valued a piece of furniture, that a special grant was made of it by King Richard II. conveying “that suit of arras hangings in Warwick Castle, which contained the story of Guy Earl of Warwick,” together with the Castle of Warwick and other possessions, to Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent. And in the restoration of forfeited property to this lord after his imprisonment, these hangings are particularly specified in the patent of King Henry IV., dated 1399.

And the Castle wherein the tapestry was hung was worthy of the heroes it had sheltered. The first building on the site was supposed to be coeval with our Saviour, and was called Caer-leon; almost overthrown by the Picts and Scots, it lay in ruinstill Caractacus built himself a manor-house, and founded a church to the honour of St. John the Baptist. Here was afterwards a Roman fort, and here again was a Pictish devastation. A cousin of King Arthur rebuilt it, and then lived in it—Arthgal, first Earl of Warwick, a Knight of the Round Table; this British title was equivalent toUrsusin Latin, whence Arthgal took the Bear for his ensign: and a successor of his, a worthy progenitor of our valiant Sir Guy, slew a mighty giant in a duel; and because this giant’s delicate weapon was a tree pulled up by the roots, the boughs being snagged from it, the Earls of Warwick, successors of the victor, bore a ragged staff of silver in a sable shield for their cognisance.

We are told that,—

“When Arthur first in court began,And was approved king,By force of arms great victoryes wanne,And conquest home did bring.Then into England straight he cameWith fifty good and ableKnights, that resorted unto him,And were of his round table.”

Of these the most renowned were Syr Perceval, Syr Tristan, Syr Launcelot du Lac, Syr Ywain, Syr Gawain, Syr Galaas, Syr Meliadus of Leonnoys, Sir Ysaie, Syr Gyron, &c. &c., and their various and wondrous achievements were woven into a series of tales which are known as the “Romances of the Round Table.” Of course the main subject of each tale is interrupted by ten thousand varied episodes, in which very often the original objectseems entirely lost sight of. Then the construction of many of these Romances, or rather their want of construction, is marvellous; their genealogies are interminable, and their geography miraculous.

One of the most marvellous and scarce of these Romances, and one, the principal passages of which were frequently wrought into Tapestry, was the “Roman du Saint Greal,” which is founded upon an incident, to say the least very peculiar, but which was perhaps once considered true as Holy Writ. St. Joseph of Arimathœa, a very important personage in many romances, having obtained the hanap, or cup from which our Saviour administered the wine to his disciples, caught in the same cup the blood which flowed from his wounds when on the Cross. After he had first achieved various adventures, and undergone an imprisonment of forty-two years, St. Joseph arrives in England with the sacred cup, by means of which numerous miracles are performed; he prepares the Round Table, and Arthur and his Knights all go in quest of the hanap, which by some, to us unaccountable, circumstance, had fallen into the hands of a sinner. All make the most solemn vow to devote their lives to its recovery; and this they must indeed have done, and not short lives either, if all recorded of them be true. None, however, but two, everseethe sacred symbol; though oftentimes a soft ray of light would stream across the lonesome wild, or the dark pathless forest, or unearthly strains would float on the air, or odours as of Paradise would entrance the senses, while the wandering and woeworn knightwould feel all fatigue, all sense of personal inconvenience, of pain, of sickness, or of sorrow, vanish on the instant; and then would he renew his vows, and betake himself to prayer; for though all unworthy to see the Holy Grayle, he would feel that it had been borne on viewless pinions through the air for his individual consolation and hope. And Syr Galahad and Syr Perceval, the two chaste and favoured knights who, “after the dedely flesshe had beheld the spiritual things,” the holy St. Grael—never returned to converse with the world. The first departed to God, and “flights of angels sang him to his rest;” the other took religious clothing and retired to a hermitage, where, after living “a full holy life for a yere and two moneths, he passed out of this world.”

But wide as is the range of the Romances of the “Round Table,” they form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of fictitious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were likewise woven around the mangled remains of classic heroes.

“The mightiest chiefs of British songScorn’d not such legends to prolong;They gleam through Spenser’s elfic dream,And mix in Milton’s heavenly theme;And Dryden in immortal strain,Had raised the ‘Table Round’ again.”

The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palacesof Henry VIII. are preserved in the British Museum.[94]

These are some of them re-copied from Warton:—

In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the original and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there are recited, Godfrey of Bulloign; the Three Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St. George; King of Erkenwald; the History of Hercules; Fame and Honour; the Triumph of Divinity; Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St. George; the Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke Joshua; the Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly Sins; the Riche History of the Passion; the Stem of Jesse; Our Lady and Son; King Solomon; the Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of Maccabee.

At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical Romance); the Tapestrie of Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the Prodigal Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.

At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras; Charlemagne; the Siege of Troy; and Hawking and Hunting.

At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.

At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.

At the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, King Arthur, Hercules, Astyages, and Cyrus.

At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue and Vice fighting.

Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes,Romulus and Remus, Æneas, and Susannah.

Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster, Greenwich, Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey, and other royal seats, some of which are now unknown as such.

FOOTNOTES:[84]Warton.[85]Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of the arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries: even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras were in existence.[86]Moynes—nun. Lady Werburg[87]Spyre—twig, branch.[88]Youre—burnt.[89]Hallynge—Tapestry.[90]Faythtes—feats, facts.[91]Brothered—embroidered.[92]Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ.[93]“Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile of dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his breast.”—Ellis, vol. ii.[94]Harl. MSS. 1419.

[84]Warton.

[85]Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of the arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries: even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras were in existence.

[86]Moynes—nun. Lady Werburg

[87]Spyre—twig, branch.

[88]Youre—burnt.

[89]Hallynge—Tapestry.

[90]Faythtes—feats, facts.

[91]Brothered—embroidered.

[92]Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ.

[93]“Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile of dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his breast.”—Ellis, vol. ii.

[94]Harl. MSS. 1419.

“What neede these velvets, silkes, or lawne,Embrodery, feathers, fringe and lace.”Bp. Hall.

“Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use,Save their own painted skins, our Sires had none.As yet black breeches were not.”Cowper.

Manifold indeed were the varieties in mode and material before thatbeau idealof all that is graceful and becoming—the “black breeches”—were invented. For though in many parts of the globe costume is uniform, and the vest and the turban of a thousand years ago are of much the same make as now, this is not the case in the more polished parts of Europe, where that “turncoat whirligig maniac, yclept Fashion,” is the pole-star and beacon of the multitude of men, from him who has the “last new cut from Stultz,” to him who is magnificent and happy in the “reg’lar bang-up-go” from the eastern parts of the metropolis.

It would seem that England is peculiarly celebrated for her devotion at Fashion’s shrine; for we are told that “an Englishman, endevoring sometime to write of our attire, made sundrie platformes for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one stedfast ground whereon to build the summeof his discourse. But in the end (like an orator long without exercise) when he saw what a difficult peece of worke he had taken in hand, he gave over his travell, and onely drue the picture of a naked man, unto whome he gave a paire of sheares in the one hand, and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should shape his apparell after such fashion as himselfe liked, sith he could find no kind of garment that could please him anie while together, and this he called an Englishman. Certes this writer shewed himself herein not to be altogether void of iudgement, sith the phantasticall follie of our nation, even from the courtier to the carter, is such, that no forme of apparell liketh vs longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long and be not laid aside, to receive some other trinket newlie devised.

“And as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costlinesse and the curiositie; the excesse and the vanitie; the pompe and the brauerie; the change and the varietie; and, finallie, the ficklenesse and the follie that is in all degrees; insomuch that nothing is more constant in England than inconstancie of attire.

“In women, also, it in most to be lamented, that they doo now far exceed the lightnesse of our men (who nevertheless are transformed from the cap even to the verie shoo) and such staring attire as in time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives onlie, is now become a habit for chast and sober matrons.

“Thusit is now come to passe, that women are become men, and men transformed into monsters.”

This ever-revolving wheel is still turning; and so all-important now isTHE MODEthat one half of the world is fully occupied in providing for the personal embellishment of the other half and themselves; and could we contemplate the possibility of a return to the primitive simplicity of our ancient “sires,” we must look in the same picture on one half of the world as useless—as a drug on the face of creation. Why, what a desert would it be were all dyers, fullers, cleaners, spinners, weavers, printers, mercers and milliners, haberdashers and modistes, silk-men and manufacturers, cotton-lords and fustian-men, tailors and habit makers, mantuamakers and corset professors, exploded? We pass over pin and needle makers, comb and brush manufacturers, jewellers, &c. The ladies would have nothing to live for; (for on grave authority it has been said, that “woman is an animal that delights in the toilette;”) the gentlemen nothing to solace them. “The toilette” is the very zest of life with both; and if ladies are more successful in the results of their devoirs to it, it is because “nous sommes faites pour embellir le monde,” and not because gentlemen practice its duties with less zeal, devotion, or assiduity—as many a valet can testify when contemplating his modish patron’s daily heap of “failures.” Indeed to put out of view the more obvious, weighty, and important cares attached to the due selection and arrangement of coats, waistcoats, and indispensables, the science of “Cravatiana” alone is one which makes heavy claims on the time, talents, and energies of the thorough-going gentleman of fashion. He should be thoroughly versed in all itsvarieties—The Royal George: The Plain Bow: The Military: The Ball Room: The Corsican: The Hibernian Tie: The Eastern Tie: The Hunting Tie: The Yankee Tie: (the “alone original” one)—The Osbaldiston Tie: The Mail Coach Tie: The Indian Tie, &c. &c. &c.

Though of these and their numberless offshoots, the Yankee Tie lays most claim to originality, the Ball Room one is considered the most exquisite, and requires the greatest practice. It is thus described by a “talented” professor:—

“The cloth, of virgin white, well starched and folded to the proper depth, should be made to sit easy and graceful on the neck, neither too tight nor loose; but with a gentle pressure, curving inwards from the further extension of the chin, down the throat to the centre dent in the middle of the neck. This should be the point for a slight dent, extending from under each ear, between which, more immediately under the chin, there should be another slight horizontal dent just above the former one. It has no tie; the ends, crossing each other in broad folds in front, are secured to the braces, or behind the back, by means of a piece of white tape. A brilliant broach or pin is generally made use of to secure more effectually the crossing, as well as to give an additional effect to the neckcloth.”

What a world of wit and invention—what a fund of fancy and taste—what a mine of zeal and ability would be lost to the world, “if those troublesome disguises which we wear” were reduced to their old simplicity of form and material! Industry and talent would be at discount, for want of materialswhereon to display themselves; and money would be such a drug, that politicians would declaim on the miseries of beingwithouta national debt. Commerce, in many of its most important branches, would be exploded; the “manufacturing districts” would be annihilated; the “agricultural interest” would, consequently and necessarily, be at a “very low ebb;” and the “New World,” the magnificent and imperial empress (that is to be) of the whole earth, might sink again to the embraces of those minute and wonderful artificers from whom, I suppose, she at first proceeded—the coral insects; for who would want cotton! No, no. Selfish preferences, individual wishes, must merge in the general good of the human race; and however “their own painted skins” might suffice our “sires,” clothing, “sumptuous,” as well as “for use,” must decorate ourselves.

To whom, then, are the fullers, the dyers, the cleaners—to whom are the spinners and weavers, and printers and mercers, and milliners and haberdashers, and modistes, and silk-men and manufacturers, cotton lords and fustian men, mantuamakers and corset professors, indebted for that nameless grace, that exquisite finish and appropriateness, which gives to all their productions their charm and their utility?—To theNeedlewoman, assuredly. For though the raw materials have been grown at Sea Island and shipped at New York,—have been consigned to the Liverpool broker and sold to the Manchester merchant, and turned over to the manufacturer, and spun and woven, and bleached and printed, and placed in the custody of the warehouseman, or on the shelf of the shopkeeper—of what good would itbe that we had a fifty-yard length of calico to shade our oppressed limbs on a “dog-day,” if we had not the means also to render that material agreeably available? Yet not content with merely rendering it available, this beneficent fairy, the needlewoman, casts, “as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow.” For the love of becoming ornament—we quote no less an authority than the historian of the ‘State of Europe in the Middle Ages,’—“is not, perhaps, to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from Nature to give effect to those charms which are her defence.” And if it be necessary to woman with her charms, is it not tenfold necessary to those who—Heaven help them!—have few charms whereof to boast? For, as Harrison says, “it is now come to passe that men are transformed into monsters.”

“Better be out of the world than out of the fashion,” is a proverb which, from the universal assent which has in all ages been given to it, has now the force of an axiom. It was this self evident proposition which emboldened the beau of the fourteenth century, in spite of the prohibitions of popes and senators,—in spite of the more touching personal inconvenience, and even risk and danger, attendant thereupon—to persist in wearing shoes of so preposterous a length, that the toes were obliged to be fastened with chains to the girdle ere the happy votary of fashion could walk across his own parlour! Happy was the favourite of Crœsus, who could display chain upon chain of massy gold wreathedand intertwined from the waistband to the shoe, until he seemed almost weighed down by the burthen of his own wealth. Wrought silver did excellently well for those who could not produce gold; and for those who possessed not either precious metal, and who yet felt they “might as well be out of the world as out of the fashion,” latteen chains, silken cords, aye, and cords of even less costly description, were pressed into service to tie up thecrackowes, or piked shoes. For in that day, as in this, “the squire endeavours to outshine the knight, the knight the baron, the baron the earl, the earl the king, in dress.” To complete the outrageous absurdity of these shoes, the upper parts of them were cut in imitation of a church-window, to which fashion Chaucer refers when describing the dress of Absalom, the Parish Clerk. He—

“Had Paul ’is windowes corven on his shose.”

Despite the decrees of councils, the bulls of the Pope, and the declamations of the Clergy, this ridiculous fashion was in vogue near three centuries.

And the party-coloured hose, which were worn about the same time, were a fitting accompaniment for the crackowes. We feel some difficulty in realising the idea that gentlemen, only some half century ago, really dressed in the gay and showy habiliments which are now indicative only of a footman; but it is more difficult to believe, what was nevertheless the fact, that the most absurd costume in which the “fool” by profession can now be decked on the stage, can hardly compete in absurdity with theoutrécostume of a beau or a belle of the fourteenth century.The shoes we have referred to: the garments, male or female, were divided in the middle down the whole length of the person, and one half of the body was clothed in one colour, the other half in the most opposite one that could be selected. The men’s garments fitted close to the shape; and while one leg and thigh rejoiced in flaming yellow or sky-blue, the other blushed in deep crimson. John of Gaunt is portrayed in a habit, one half white, the other a dark blue; and Mr. Strutt has an engraving of a group assembled on a memorable occasion, where one of the figures has a boot on one leg and a shoe on the other. The Dauphiness of Auvergne, wife to Louis the Good, Duke of Bourbon, born 1360, is painted in a garb of which one half all the way down is blue, powdered with gold fleurs-de-lys, and the other half to the waist is gold, with a blue fish or dolphin (a cognizance, doubtless) on it, and from the waist to the feet is crimson, with white “fishy” ornaments; one sleeve is blue and gold, the other crimson and gold.

In addition to these absurd garments, the women dressed their heads so high that they were obliged to wear a sort of curved horn on each side, in order to support the enormous superstructure of feathers and furbelows. And these are what are meant by the “horned head-dresses” so often referred to in old authors. It is said that, when Isabel of Bavaria kept her court at Vincennes,A.D.1416, it was necessary to make all the doors of the palace both higher and wider, to admit the head-dresses of the queen and her ladies, which were all of this horned kind.

This high bonnet had been worn, under various modifications, ever since the fashion was brought from the East in the time of the Crusades. Some were of a sugar-loaf form, three feet in height; and some cylindrical, but still very high. The French modistes of that day called this formidable head-gearbonnet à la Syrienne. But our author says, if female vanity be violently restrained in one point, it is sure to break out in another; and Romish anathemas having abolished curls from shading fair brows, so much the more attention was paid to head-gear, that the bonnets and caps increased every year most awfully in height and size, and were made in the form of crescents, pyramids, and horns of such tremendous dimensions, that the old chronicler Juvenal des Ursins makes this pathetic lamentation in his History of Charles VI.:—

“Et avoient les dames et damoyselles de chacun costé, deux grandes oreilles si larges, que quand elles vouloient passer par l’huis d’une chambre il fallait qu’elles se tournassent de costé et baisassent, ou elles n’eussent pu passer:” that is, “on every side old ladies and young ladies were seen with such high and monstrous ears (or horns), that when they wanted to enter a room they were obliged perforce to stoop and crouch sideways, or they could not pass.” At last a regular attack was made on the high head-gear of the fifteenth century by a popular monk, in his sermons at Nôtre Dame, in which he so pathetically lamented the sinfulness and enormities of such a fashion, that the ladies, to show their contrition, madeauto da fésof their Syrian bonnets in the public squares and market-places; and as theChurch fulminated against them all over Europe, the example of Paris was universally followed.

Many attempts had previously been made by zealous preachers to effect this alteration. In the previous century a Carmelite in the province of Bretagne preached against this fashion, without the power to annihilate it: all that the ladies did was to change the particular shape of the huge coiffures after every sermon. “No sooner,” says the chronicler, “had he departed from one district, than the dames and damoyselles, who, like frightened snails, had drawn in their horns, shot them out again longer than ever; for nowhere were thehennins(so called, abbreviated fromgehinnin, incommodious,) larger, more pompous or proud, than in the cities through which the Carmelite had passed.

“All the world was totally reversed and disordered by these fashions, and above all things by the strange accoutrements on the heads of the ladies. It was a portentous time, for some carried huge towers on their foreheads an ell high; others still higher caps, with sharp points, like staples, from the top of which streamed long crapes, fringed with gold, like banners. Alas, alas! ladies, dames, and demoiselles were of importance in those days! When do we hear, in the present times, of Church and State interfering to regulate the patterns of their bonnets?”[95]

It is no wonder that fashions so very extreme and absurd should call forth animadversion from various quarters. Thus wrote Petrarch in 1366:—

“Who can see with patience the monstrous, fantastical inventions which the people of our timeshave invented to deform, rather than adorn, their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes; their caps with feathers; their hair twisted and hanging down like tails; the foreheads of young men, as well as women, formed into a kind of furrows with ivory-headed pins; their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords, that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion? Our ancestors would not have believed, and I know not if posterity will believe, that it was possible for the wit of this vain generation of ours to invent so many base, barbarous, horrid, ridiculous fashions (besides those already mentioned) to disfigure and disgrace itself, as we have the mortification to see every day.”

And thus Chaucer, a few years later:—

“Alass! may not a man see as in our daies the sinnefull costlew array of clothing, and namely in too much superfluite, or else in too disordinate scantinese: as to the first, not only the cost of embraudering, the disguysed indenting, or barring, ounding, playting, wynding, or bending, and semblable waste of clothe in vanitie.” The common people also “were besotted in excesse of apparell, in wide surcoats reaching to their loines, some in a garment reaching to their heels, close before and strowting out on the sides, so that on the back they make men seem women, and this they called by a ridiculous name,gowne,” &c. &c.

Before this time the legislature had interfered, though with little success: they passed laws at Westminster, which were said to be made “to prevent that destruction and poverty with which the wholekingdom was threatened, by the outrageous, excessive expenses of many persons in their apparel, above their ranks and fortunes.”

Sumptuary edicts, however, are of little avail, if not supported in “influential quarters.” King Richard II. affected the utmost splendour of attire, and he had one coat alone which was valued at 30,000 marks: it was richly embroidered and inwrought with gold and precious stones. It is not in human nature, at least in human nature of the “more honourable” gender, to be outdone, even by a king. Gorgeous and glittering was the raiment adopted by the satellites of the court, and, heedless of “that destruction and poverty with which the whole kingdom was threatened,” they revelled in magnificence. Of one alone, Sir John Arundel, it is recorded, that he had at one time fifty-two suits of cloth of gold tissue. At this time, says the old Chronicle,

“Cut werke was great bothe in court and tounes,Bothe in mens hoddes, and also in their gounes,Brouder and furres, and gold smith werke ay newe,In many a wyse, eche day they did renewe.”

Unaccountable as it may seem, this rage of expense and show in apparel reached even the (then) poverty-stricken sister country Scotland; and in 1457 laws were enacted to suppress it.

It is told of William Rufus, that one morning while putting on his new boots he asked his chamberlain what they cost; and when he replied “three shillings,” indignantly and in a rage he cried out, “you—how long has the king worn boots of so paltry a price? Go, and bring me a pair worth a mark of silver.” He went, and bringing him a muchcheaper pair, told him falsely that they cost as much as he had ordered: “Ay,” said the king, “these are suitable to royal majesty.”

This is merely a specimen of the monarch’s shallow-headed extravagance; but the costume of his time and that immediately preceding it was infinitely superior in grace and dignity to that of the fantastical period we have been describing. The English at this period were admired by all other nations, and especiallyby the French, from whom in subsequent periodswehave copied so servilely, for the richness and elegance of their attire. With a tunic simply confined at the waist, over this, when occasion required, a full and flowing mantle, with a veil confined to the back of the head with a golden circlet, her dark hair simply braided over her beautiful and intelligent brow and waving on her fair throat, the wife of the Conqueror looked every inch a queen, and what was more, she looked a modest, a dignified, and a beautiful woman.

The male attire was of the same flowing and majestic description: and the “brutal” Anglo-Saxons and the “barbarous” Normans had more delicacy than to display every division of limb or muscle which nature formed, and more taste than to invent divisions where, Heaven knows, nature never meant them to be. The simplecoiffurerequired little care and attendance, but if a fastening did happen to give way, the Anglo-Norman lady could raise her hand to fasten it if she chose. The arm was not pinioned by the fiat of amodiste.

And the material of a dress of those days was as rich as the mode was elegant. Silk indeed was notcommon; the first that was seen in the country was in 780, when Charlemagne sent Offa, King of Mercia, a belt and two vests of that beautiful material; but from the particular record made of silk mantles worn by two ladies at a ball at Kenilworth in 1286, we may fairly infer that till this period silk was not often used but as

“———a robe pontifical,Ne’er seen but wonder’d at.”

Occasionally indeed it was used, but only by persons of the highest rank and wealth. But the woollens were of beautiful texture, and Britain was early famous in the art of producing the richest dyes. The Welsh are still remarkable for extracting beautiful tints from the commonest plants, such most probably as were used by the Britons anciently; and it is worthy of note that the South Sea cloths, manufactured from the inner bark of trees, have the same stripes and chequers, and indeed the identical patterns of the Welsh, and, as supposed, of the ancient Britons. Linen was fine and beautiful; and if it had not been so, the rich and varied embroidery with which it was decorated would have set off a coarser material.

Furs of all sorts were in great request, and a mantle of regal hue, lined throughout with vair or sable, and decorated with bands of gold lace and flowers of the richest embroidery, interspersed with pearls, clasped on the shoulder with the most precious gems, and looped, if requisite, with golden tassels, was a garment at which a nobleman, even of these days, need not look askance.

Robert Bloet, second bishop of Lincoln, made a present to Henry I. of a cloak of exquisitely fine cloth, lined with black sables with white spots, which cost a sum equivalent to £1500 of our money. The robes of females of rank were always bordered with a belt of rich needlework; their embroidered girdles were inlaid, or rather inwrought, with gold, pearls, and precious stones, and from them was usually suspended a large purse or pouch, on which the skill of the most accomplished needlewomen was usually expended.

This rich and becoming mode of dress was gradually innovated upon until caprice reigned paramount over the national wardrobe. For “fashion is essentially caprice; and fashion in dress the caprice of milliners and tailors, with whomrechercheand exaggeration supply the place of education and principle.” That this modern definition applied as accurately to former times as these, an instance may suffice to show. Richard I. had a cloak made, at enormous cost, with precious and shining metals inlaidin imitation of the heavenly bodies; and Henry V. wore, on a very memorable occasion, when Prince of Wales, a mantle or gown of rich blue satin, full of small eyelet-holes, as thickly as they could be put, and a needle hanging by a silk threadfrom every hole.

The following incident, quoted from Miss Strickland’s Life of Berengaria, will show the esteem in which a rich, and especially a furred garment was held. Richard I. quarrelled with the virtuous St. Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, on the old ground of exacting a simoniacal tribute on the installation of theprelate into his see. Willing to evade the direct charge of selling the see, King Richard intimated that a present of a fur mantle worth a thousand marks might be a composition. St. Hugh said he was no judge of such gauds, and therefore sent the king a thousand marks, declaring, if he would devour the revenue devoted to the poor, he must have his wilful way. But as soon as Richard had pocketed the money he sent for the fur mantle. St. Hugh set out for Normandy to remonstrate with the king on this double extortion. His friends anticipated that he would be killed; but St. Hugh said, “I fear him not,” and boldly entered the chapel where Richard was at mass, when the following scene took place:—

“Give me the embrace of peace, my son,” said St. Hugh.

“That you have not deserved,” replied the king.

“Indeed I have,” said St. Hugh, “for I have made a long journey on purpose to see my son.”

So saying, he took hold of the king’s sleeve and drew him on one side. Richard smiled and embraced the old man. They withdrew to the recess behind the altar and sate down.

“In what state is your conscience?” asked the bishop.

“Very easy,” said the king.

“How can that be, my son,” said the bishop, “when you live apart from your virtuous queen, and are faithless to her; when you devour the provision of the poor, and load your people with heavy exactions? Are those light transgressions, my son?”

The king owned his faults, and promised amendment; and when he related this conversation to hiscourtiers he added, “Were all our prelates like Hugh of Lincoln, both king and barons must submit to their righteous rebukes.”

Furs were much used now as coverings for beds; and they were considered anecessarypart of dress for a very considerable period.

In Sir John Cullum’s Hawsted, mention is made that in 1281 Cecilia, widow of William Talmache, died, and, amongst other bequests, left “to Thomas Battesford, for black coats for poor people, xxxs.in part.” “To John Camp, of Bury St. Edmunds, furrier, for furs for the black coats, viijs.xjd.” On which the reverend and learned author remarks, “We should now indeed think that a black coat bestowed on a poor person wanted not the addition of fur: such, however, was the fashion of the time; and a sumptuary law of Edward III. allows handicraft and yeomen to wear no manner of furre, nor of bugg,[96]but only lambe, coney, catte, and foxe.”

The distinction in rank was expressly shown by the kind of fur displayed on the dress, and these distinctions were regulated by law and rigidly enforced. By a statute passed in 1455, for regulating the dress of the Scottish lords of parliament, the gowns of the earls are appointed to be furred with ermine, while those of the other lords are to be lined with “criestay, gray, griece, or purray.”

The more precious furs, as ermine and sable, were reserved exclusively for the principal nobility of both sexes. Persons of an inferior rank wore thevairorgris(probably the Hungarian squirrel); thecitizens and burgesses, the common squirrel and lamb skins; and the peasants, cat and badger skins. The mantles of our kings and peers, and the furred robes of the several classes of our municipal officers, are the remains of this once universal fashion.

Furs often formed an important part of the ransom of a prisoner of rank:—

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