“4. The peasant-folk shall wear no high boots and no large hats of wool, nor yet trimmed with marten fur, nor an embroidered belt, for he is a peasant. Who is seen wearing such will thereby expose himself to ridicule, and the boots shall be drawn off his legs, that he shall go barefoot.
“5. The women shall avoid all that is superfluous in dress, nor shall they make horns upon their heads.[12] Rich veils shall only be worn by such as are entitled to them, neither shall any woman wear gold cords beneath her veil, not even if she be the wife of a gentleman.
“6. Silk caps with golden stars are not suitable for every woman. More than two handsome jewelled pins shall no woman wear, and should a woman require more than two for fastening her veil, let her take small pins. Not every one’s child is entitled to wear corals round its neck. Let no woman copy the dress of noble dames, for it is not suitable for us Saxons.
“7. Peasant-maids shall wear no crooked (probably puffed) sleeves sewed with braids, for they have no right to them. They may wear no red shoes, and also on their best aprons may they have two braids only; one of these may be straight and the other nicked out, but neither over-broad. Let none presume to wear high-heeled shoes, but let them conform to the prescribed measure under heavy penalty.
“8. Let the womenkind remember that such things as are forbidden become them but badly. Let them wear the borten[13] according to the prescribed measurements. Let the herren töchter (gentlemen’s daughters, meaning probably burghers) not make the use of gold braids over-common, but content themselves with honorable fringes. The serving-girls shall go absolutely without fringes, nor may they buy silk cords of three yards’ length, else these will be taken from their head and nailed against the church wall.
“9. Among the women are beginning to creep in gold rings which cover the half-finger ad formam et normam nobilium—after the fashion of nobles; let these be completely forbidden.”
The worthy prelate who issued all these stern injunctions appears to have been so uncommonly well versed in all the intricacies of female costume as to make us wonder whether he had not missed his vocation as a man-milliner. It must have been a decidedly nervous matter for the women to attend service at his cathedral, with the consciousness that this terrible eagle-glance was taking stock of their clothes all the time, mentally appraising the value of each head-pin, and gauging the breadth of every ribbon. Most likely he succeeded in his object of keeping poor human vanity in check for a time, though not in rooting it out, for scarcely a hundred years later we find a new set of dress rules delivered from another pulpit:
“First of all, it is herewith forbidden to both sexes to wear anything whatsoever which has not been manufactured in Transylvania. Furthermore, it is prohibited to the men—
“1. To wear the so-called broad summer foreign hats.