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up behind; and long-pointed shoes. The habit of a lady of high rank, in the fourteenth century, is shown in the annexed figure, wearing the surcol, or external corset. In this century also, females first appear with open bosoms and the steeple head-dress, and the body costume showing the shape; the tunics of the women in the preceding century being only reeved

FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

in at the waist. Perhaps the most costly item of dress in this century is a coat or robe of Richard II. which Holinshed tells us, cost thirty thousand crowns.

Some curious information from Strutt, respecting shirts, may be introduced here. By the Normans and Saxons, the shirt could only be shown above the tunic collar, and that but by chance, since it would be hid by the mantle. Later, when tunics were exchanged for doublets and waistcoats, they were made more open at the neck, and upon the bosom; and the shirtcollars were displayed, enriched with needlework. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the doublets were cut and slashed, and nearly disjointed at the elbows, to show the fineness and whiteness of the shirts; and in the succeeding century, the dress was so altered as to show

the shirt between the doublets and the ligature of the breeches.

The coxcombry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries must not be spared; since the clergy of the time in their pulpits, and the king in council, declaimed and decreed against its excesses. Thus, the beaux had their long-pointed shoes cut on the front with the rich tracery of a churchwindow, and the points fastened to their knees by gold and silver chains. Their habits were of innumerable colours, the beard was worn long, and the head was embroidered with figures of animals, which, like lappets, buttoned beneath the chest, and were sometimes enriched with jewels. The females also wore as many colours as possible; petit caps were fastened on with cords; and girdles with short swords hung before the stomach.

In the fifteenth century, gowns became less frequent, and the skirts of the tunic more puckered. The sleeves were like those of bishops; though few of our fair readers, and perchance once wearers of bishops' sleeves, are aware that they were fashion nearly three and a half centuries ago. The cloaks, or appendages to tunics, had large flaps. In this century, the jacket, originally the same as the doublet, differed materially from it; for, at this time, both were often worn together; then the jacket served as an upper tunic, and, like the doublet, it eventually lost its proper name, and is now called a coat. The breeches or hose were tight, the sleeves of the doublets were pinked to show the shirt, and

the men wore their hair very long. A fashionable

male habit of this cen

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their doublets were laced in front like a woman's stays, across a stomacher; and their gowns were open in front, above and below the girdle. The coxcombry of the two preceding centuries was almost exceeded in the present. Beaux wore a boot on one leg, and a stocking on the other; and winter mantles, with sleeves that hung down to the ground, and licked up thedirt of the streets. The borders of these habits were frequently embroidered with verses of Latin, hymns or psalms in gold, and the garment itself was sometimes of red and white silk.

Among the female fashions were outer corsets or boddiced waists, and enormous trains to the gowns, which were discontinued for borders about the middle of the century. There were two peculiar head-dresses: one was the horned, of two elevations, like a heart in cards, with the bottom cut off, as shown on a monumental brass of

Maud, wife of John Fosbrok*, in Cranford Church, Northamptonshire; this lady having been nurse to King Henry VI. The other extraordinary headdress was the steeple

fashion, as shown in the subjoined figure of a lady of rank: so immoderately high and broad was this headgear worn, that we read of the doors of state apartments being raised and widened, in 1416, that the headdresses of the company might have room

FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

to enter. The fabric was supported by a horn on each side, and from each top was suspended a silken streamer, which fluttered in the wind, or crossed the breast, and was tied to the arm.

In this century should not, however, be forgotten the common bonnet, i. e. one with shades over the cheeks, which now first appears. Shoes also were regularly manufactured, and the Cordwainers' Company incorporated in 1410: the queen of Richard II. introduced the piked shoes, with chains, &c. and Edward IV. proclaimed that beaks of skin and boots should not exceed two inches in length, upon pain of cursing by

Ancestrix of the Rev. Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, to whose valuable Encyclopædia of Antiquities we are indebted for many of the leading facts of the present paper.

the clergy, and a fine of twenty shillings; and any cordwainer that "shod" any man or woman on the Sunday was to pay thirty shillings. The piked shoe next gave way to the rosette fastening. Ribands of every colour, except white, the emblem of the depressed house of York, were had in esteem; but the red, like the house of Lancaster, held the pre-eminence; thus denoting the antique origin of the rosette of our day, from the full-blown riband rose of the house of Tudor. Representations of ladies in huntingdresses at this period differ but little from the present riding-habit: one bears a bow in her hand and a quiver of arrows at her side, and another has a horn resembling a bugle, slung from the right shoulder across to the left side.

In the sixteenth century, the men wore gowns, tight or easy boddices, with short skirts, close pantaloons, boots to the middle of the thigh, with linen tops turned down, cloaks, slashed doublets, puffed breeches, petticoat breeches, - and the remarkable

The fur

trunk sort.
gown of this century
is preserved in the
livery-gown of the
city of London. The
slashed doublet and
close pantaloons are
represented in the an-
nexed figure, from
an old painting in
St. George's Chapel,

SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

T

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