"An anlas and a gipser al of silke
Heng at his gerdul white as morne mylke."
Chaucer.
KNIGHTLY PASTIMES: HAWKING, 1575.
The trunk-hose are, according to Stubbes ("Anatomy of Abuse"), of three kinds—the French, the Gallic, and the Venetian hosen. The French hose "are of two divers making; the common sort contain length, breadth, and sideness sufficient, and they are made very round; the other sort contain neither length, breadth, nor sideness proportionable, being not past a quarter of a yard on the side, whereof some be paned or striped, cut and drawn out with costly ornaments, with canions adjoined, reaching down beneath the knees.
"The Gallic hosen are made very large and wide, reaching down to the knees only, with three or four gardes apiece laid down along the thigh of either hose. The Venetian hosen reach beneath the knee to the gartering-place of the leg, where they are tied finely with silken points, and laid on also with rows or gardes, as the other before. And yet notwithstanding, all this is not sufficient, except they be made of silk, velvet, satin, damask, and other precious stuffs besides; so that it is a small matter to bestow twenty nobles, ten pounds, twenty pounds, forty pounds, yea, an hundred pounds, upon one pair of breeches; and yet this is thought no abuse neither."
It has been stated by various writers that silk hose, i.e., stockings of silk, were unknown in England prior to the middle of the sixteenth century. However this may be, silk stockings were, in the reign of Edward VI., considered as a gift worthy of a king's acceptance; it is recorded that Sir Thomas Gresham (whose portrait appears on [p. 121]) presented this monarch with a pair of long Spanish silk hose.
