Reigned thirty-five years: 1100-1135.
Born 1068. Married to Matilda of Scotland, 1100; to Adela of Louvain, 1121.
THE MEN
The Father of Popular Literature, Gerald of Wales, says: ‘It is better to be dumb than not to be understood. New times require new fashions, and so I have thrown utterly aside the old and dry methods of some authors, and aimed at adopting the fashion of speech which is actually in vogue to-day.’
Vainly, perhaps, I have endeavoured to follow this precept laid down by Father Gerald, trying by slight pictures of the times to make the dry bones live, to make the clothes stir up and puff themselves into the shapes of men.
It is almost a necessity that one who would describe, paint, stage, or understand the costume of this reign should know the state of England at the time.
For there is in this reign a distinction without a difference in clothes; the shapes are almost identical to the shapes and patterns of the previous reigns, but everybody is a little better dressed.
The mantles worn by the few in the time of William the Red are worn now by most of the nobility, fur-lined and very full.
One may see on the sides of the west door of Rochester Cathedral Henry and his first wife, and notice that the mantle he wears is very full; one may see that he wears a supertunic, which is gathered round his waist. This tunic is the usual Norman tunic reaching to the knee, but now it is worn over an under-tunic which reaches to the ground in heavy folds.