A number of articles, both useful and ornamental, were suspended from the girdle. For practical purposes the housewife carried at her side, besides a knife, such objects as small scissors in a case, a purse, and also her keys. Cases or étuis for knives were attached either by silken cords or by chains. When cords were employed the cover of the étui was furnished with loops on each side through which the cords slid. Open quiver-like sheaths for knives hung by chains were often worn, in order to display the rich decoration of the knife-heads.
PLATE XXXVIII
renaissance girdles
The Italianate costume, such as is found in the type of "Vanity" in emblem books of the age, and which made its way everywhere, favoured the addition of many other accessories to the girdles, such as fans, gloves, looking-glasses, books, watches, scent-cases, and pomanders. Mirrors, besides being worn from the neck, formed, as did miniature-cases, a frequent pendant from the girdle. These were either in a frame of ivory or goldsmith's work, or inserted in the fan. Stubbes, the censor of the follies of his day, speaks of the looking-glasses which ladies carried with them "wheresoever they go." Etienne (Stephanus) Delaune has left eight engraved designs for hand mirrors of great beauty. Their handles terminate with small rings for attachment by a chain to the girdle. In the Louvre is an interesting pendent mirror-case, or rather back of a mirror, formed of an oval plaque of glass encrusted with designs in enamel on gold (émail en résille sur verre),[169] bearing the inscription "Grace dedans, le lis-ha."
Small books, mainly devotional, were also worn at the girdle. It appears to have been a common practice for ladies to carry such books, and in Lyly's Euphues mention is made of "the English damoselles who have theyr bookes tyed to their gyrdles." Queen Elizabeth had several. Amongst the "juelles given to her Majestie at Newyere's-tyde," 1582, was "a litle boke of golde enamuled, garnished and furnished with smale diamondes and rubyes, with claspes, and all hanging at a chayne of golde." The inventory of the jewels of the Duchess of Somerset, widow of the Protector, in 1587, likewise contains "a booke of golde inamyled blacke." Two drawings for small pendent books intended to be executed in niello or black enamel appear amongst Holbein's designs for jewellery in the British Museum; and the Earl of Romney possesses a small manuscript Prayer Book in binding of enamelled gold of the same style.
The most magnificent book-cover in existence, provided with loops for hanging by a chain to the girdle, is one preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is of enamelled, repoussé gold, and has been ascribed to Cellini. Of less beauty, though of great interest as an example of English work, is the gold binding of a pendent Prayer Book in the British Museum. The subjects on the sides, raised and enamelled, are the Brazen Serpent, and the Judgment of Solomon, with English inscriptions around. It is said to be the work of George Heriot of Edinburgh;[170] and there is a tradition that it was worn by Queen Elizabeth. Whatever associations this object may have had with Elizabeth, there is better authority for such with regard to the small book of prayers, the property of Lord Fitzhardinge, and one of the Hunsdon heirlooms. This very interesting English jewel, measuring 2¼ by 2 inches, is of gold, inlaid with black enamel, with a rosette of white enamel at each corner. The centre of one cover is decorated with translucent red and green enamel, that of the other with a shell cameo. It contains the last prayer of King Edward VI in MS. written on vellum. The title runs: "The Prayer of Kynge Edward the VI which he made the vj of Julij, 1553, and the vij yere of his raigne, iij howres before his dethe, to him selfe, his eyes being closed, and thinkinge none had herd him, the xvj yere of his age." The book was worn by Queen Elizabeth at her girdle, and came into the Berkeley family through her cousin, Lord Hunsdon (Pl. XXXV, 7).
The Earl of Leicester, it is recorded, presented Queen Elizabeth on New Year's Day, 1581, with a long gold chain set with diamonds and "hanging thereat a rounde clocke fullie garnished with dyamonodes, and an appendante of diamondes hanging thearat." Though occasionally worn thus suspended from the neck-chain, watches appear to have been more frequently carried at the girdle—a position somewhat similar to that which they subsequently occupied upon the chatelaine.
The honour of the invention of portable timepieces is probably due to Peter Henlein, of Nuremberg, in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, but it was not till a century later that they came into anything like general use. The cases, which received the same beautiful enrichment in the way of enamel-work and precious stones as was bestowed on other personal ornaments of the time, were made à jour to emit the sound of the ticking and striking, and the lid was pierced with an aperture over each hour, through which the position of the hand might be seen.