Let us take six gentlemen met together to learn the old thirteenth-century part-song, the round entitled ‘Sumer is icumen in.’
The first, maybe, is in the high-collared houppelande with the long skirts; his sleeves are of a different colour to his gown, and are fastened to it under cut epaulettes at his shoulders; he wears a baldrick, hung with bells, over his shoulder; his houppelande is split on one side to show his parti-coloured hose beyond his knee; his shoes are long and very pointed; his hair is cut short, and he wears a twisted roll of stuff round his head.
The second is in the latest mode; he wears the voluminous sleeves which end in a plain band at his wrist, and these sleeves are of a different colour to his houppelande, the skirts of which are cut short at the knee, and then are cut into neat dags. This garment is not so full as that of the first gentleman, which is gathered in at the waist by a long-tongued belt, but is buttoned down the front to the waist and is full in the skirt; also it has no collar. This man wears his hair long and curled at the nape of his neck.
A third of these gentlemen, a big burly man, is in a very short tunic with wide sleeves; his tights are of two colours, his left leg red, his right blue. Over his tunic he wears a quilted waistcoat, the collar and armholes of which are trimmed with fur.
A fourth wears a loose houppelande, one half of which is blue and the other half black; it is buttoned from throat to foot; the [!-- original location - full page of line drawings --] sleeves are wide. His hair is long, and his beard is brushed into two points.