Where women’s favours hung like labels down.”
If the Norman Kings up to the period of Edward I. had encouraged a costly extravagance of dress, there was another Norman habit which had spread among the people generally, and quite as much to their cost,—the wretched habit of swearing. To that people might well be applied the assertion, that they were covered with curses as with a garment. The Saxons were astounded at the variety and intensity of these oaths. They had not been accustomed to such profanity; but as the conquerors, and particularly the kings, swore whenever they spoke, why to use oaths was to put on the air of a conqueror and gentleman, and so a species of Norman pride kept oaths in vigour among the élite of society until a very recent period; but, as Mr. Robert Acres remarks, “the best terms will grow obsolete, and Damns have had their day.” How we progressed through execratory terms until this consummation was arrived at, is very tersely told in an old epigram of Sir John Harrington’s:—
“In elder times an ancient custom was
To swear, in weighty matters, by the mass;
But when the mass went down, as old men note,
They swore then by the cross of this same groat.
And when the cross was likewise held in scorn,
Then by their faith the common oath was sworn;
Last, having sworn away all faith and troth,