A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY I. (1100-1135)
This shows the pendant sleeve with an embroidered hem. The long plaits of hair ended with metal, or silk, tags. At the neck and wrists the white chemise shows.
The sleeves of the gowns had now altered in shape, and had acquired a sort of pendulent cuff, which hung down about two hands’ breadth from the wrist. The border was, as usual, richly ornamented.
Then we have a new invention, the pelisse. It is a loose silk coat, which is brooched at the waist, or buttoned into a silk loop. The sleeves are long—that is, they gradually increase in size from the underarm to the wrist, and sometimes are knotted at the ends, and so are unlike the other gown sleeves, which grow suddenly long near to the wrist.
This pelisse reaches to the knees, and is well open in front. The idea was evidently brought back from the East after the knights arrived back from the First Crusade, as it is in shape exactly like the coats worn by Persian ladies.
We may conceive a nice picture of Countess Constance, the wife of Hugh Lufus, Earl of Chester, as she appeared in her dairy fresh from milking the cows, which were her pride. No doubt she did help to milk them; and in her long under-gown, with her plaits once more confined in the folds of her wimple, she made cheeses—such good cheeses that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, rejoiced in a present of some of them.
What a change it must have been to Matilda, free of the veil that she hated, from the Black Nuns of Romsey, and the taunts and blows of her aunt Christina, to become the wife of King Henry, and to disport herself in fine garments and long plaited hair—Matilda the very royal, the daughter of a King, the sister to three Kings, the wife of a King, the mother of an Empress!