With this head-dress the hair was worn tightly drawn back from the forehead.
The ladies of the middle class did not adopt these extravagant fashions. They wore caps of cloth “with two wings at the side like apes’ ears.”
By the sumptuary laws, wives of persons whose income was less than £40 a year were forbidden to wear girdles ornamented with gold and silver work, or any “corse of silk” made out of the realm, or any coverchief exceeding a certain price, or the furs of certain animals.
PLATE 38.
(Fig. 1): Joice, Lady Tiptoft, from the brass in Enfield Church, Middlesex, 1446 A.D. She is shown wearing a horned head-dress of very moderate proportions and very elaborately made. She wears a côte-hardi and gown trimmed richly with ermine. The brass, which is one of the finest of the kind in England, shows the armorial bearings upon the cloak also. (Fig. 2): 115-116 Head-dress of a lady in the reign of Henry VI., with a veil or kerchief attached to it. (Harl. MS., 6,431.) (Fig. 3): Head-dress of a lady in the reign of Henry V., from the effigy of Catherine, Countess of Suffolk, showing the golden caul at the sides of the head. (Fig. 4): Female costume of the reign of Henry V., showing the horned head-dress covered with a kerchief, the short waist, and the gown with very wide trailing sleeves and high collar called the houppelande. (Fig. 5): Brass of Margaret, wife of William Cheyne, 1419 A.D., at Hever, in Kent, showing the horned head-dress, the close-fitting dress, and the mantle fastened across the bosom. (Fig. 6): Horned head-dress of the fifteenth century, from the effigy of Beatrice, Countess of Arundel, in the church at Arundel. This is considered to be the finest illustration of the horned head-dress in existence. (Fig. 7): A turban head-dress. (Harl. MS., 2,278.) (Fig. 8): Butterfly head-dress, from the brass of Lady Say, in Broxbourne Church, Herts, 1473 A.D. (Fig. 9): Heart-shaped head-dress. (Froissart’s Chronicles, Harl. MS., 4,379.) (Fig. 10): A forked head-dress with small hanging veil. (Harl. MS., 2,278.) (Fig. 11): Female costume of the reign of Edward IV., showing the steeple head-dress, with kerchief fastened to the apex. The gown is very full, and both it and the train are edged with ermine. The turn-over collar is also shown, and the square-shaped under garment with lacing. (Harl. MS., 4,379.) (Fig. 12): Head of a lady, from a brass at Sawtrey, Hants, 1404 A.D., showing the crespine or golden net caul worn by ladies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with a small veil hanging down by the side of the face.
[PLATE ARMOUR.]
The various modifications in plate armour were such as were found necessary for greater ease or for more perfect protection, and were of a progressive character. In order to prevent confusion it is customary to divide this period of 200 years into five lesser periods, the first three being roughly coincident with the Lancastrian and Yorkist Periods, the remaining two with the Tudor Period.