The Cravates or Croates soldiers had a band of stuff round their throats to support an amulet they wore as a charm to protect them from sabre-cuts. What began in superstition ended in fashion.
These were, in France, Guibray, Beaucaire, and Bordeaux; in Germany, Frankfort; in Italy, Novi.
All articles of luxury were to be met with at the provincial fairs. When, in 1671, Catherine of Braganza, the Duchess of Richmond, and the Duke of Buckingham, visited Saffron Walden fair, the Queen asked for a pair of yellow stockings, and Sir Bernard Gascoyne, for a pair of gloves stitched with blue.
10 Hen. III., Devon's Issues of the Exchequer.
"No lace-woman," says Ben Jonson, "that brings French masks and cut-works." That lace was sold by pedlars in the time of Henry VIII., we find from a play, "The Four P's," written in 1544, by John Heywood. Among the contents of a pedlar's box are given "lasses knotted," "laces round and flat for women's heads," "sleeve laces," etc.