Later in the reign, when the second Queen of Richard had brought over many rich fashions, the ladies adopted the houppelande, with its heavy collar and wide, hanging sleeves. Every lady and most women carried a purse in the hand or on the girdle, ornamented according to their station.
The merchant’s wife wore, in common with her maids, a white apron. The child who was spinning a peg-top in the street was simply dressed in a short-skirted cotehardie.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF RICHARD II. (1377-1399)
Her loose surcoat is cut away to show her under-dress. Her hair is completely hidden by her jewelled caul.
For riding and sport the woman was dressed almost exactly as a man—with houppelande or heavy cloak buttoned on the right shoulder, hawking-glove on her left hand with a bell or metal ball depending from it. She wore boots laced up at the side, or long boots of soft leather fastened with hook and eye; shoes like a man’s, but not so pointed and extreme. Sometimes for riding a big round hat was worn over a hood.
In many cases the dresses were powdered with the monogram of the Blessed Virgin, with badges of the family or some small device, or they were ornamented with a simple flowing pattern, or were plain.
All the fripperies of fashion lay in pins for the wimple, the head made as a figure of a patron saint; or girdles rich with precious stones; or mirror-cases on whose ivory fronts were carved the Castle of Love, or hunting scenes, or Calvary. The clasps of purses were rich in design, and rings of every kind were worn on every finger and upon the thumb. Charms against evil were hung about the neck or sewn into the clothes. No matter who wrote, passed, and practised the many sumptuary laws, still, one may know it to have been frequent for persons owning less than £20 a year to wear gold and silver ornaments, although expressly forbidden, and ladies of a lower estate than wives of knights-banneret wore cloth of gold and velvet, and gowns that reached and trailed upon the ground, while their husbands braved it in ermine and marten-lined sleeves which swept the road.
The custom of wearing crowns was common to all people of rank, as heraldic distinction of crowns did not commence until the sixteenth century.