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 simple coiffure required 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 a modiste.
And the material of a dress of those days was as rich as the mode was elegant. Silk indeed was not common; 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 whom recherche and 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 inlaid in 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 thread from 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 the prelate 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.