Manners were still rough and cruel, for the Crusades had not tamed the ferocity of the European heroes. We hear that, when Saladin refused to pay the enormous ransom demanded for the town of Acre, Richard Coeur de Lion put to death the two thousand six hundred captives whom he held as hostages, and the Duke of Burgundy did likewise with his captives. But in France there was getting to be less and less opportunity for the display of wanton cruelty toward the lower orders of society. The seigneur still believed in the truth of the old proverb:
"Oignez vilain, il vous poindra;
Poignez vilain, il vous oindra."
(Stroke a villain, and he will sting you; sting a villain, and he will stroke you); but the number of serfs was constantly diminishing. The great communal movement emancipated the bourgeois of the towns; whole villages bought their freedom; the monarchy favored enfranchisement and gave the example in freeing serfs here and there, till, in 1315, all the serfs of the royal domain were set free, and the great doctrine was proclaimed: Selon le droit de nature, chacun doit nattre franc--"according to the law of nature, everyone should be born free."
The general improvement in conditions affected more visibly the bourgeois class. We find, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, that the members of this class are beginning to build large, solid houses of stone, with ogival windows, and sometimes with lofty towers and crenelated battlements. As a class they become richer and obtain recognition. When Philippe Auguste contemplated paving some of the streets of Paris--they had been mere roads of mud--he sent for the rich citizens to ask their assistance. One of these, Richard de Poissi, is said to have contributed eleven thousand marks in silver. Then the guilds of the tradesmen become wealthy and exercise considerable political power. It is in the reign of Saint Louis that the trade guilds of Paris become so numerous that Etienne Boileau compiles a Livre des métiers, containing the statutes of the greater number of them.
In the dress of all classes above the abjectly poor there was a tendency toward greater show, vainly repressed during part of the thirteenth century, but continuing to increase even under repression. The standard costume during the whole period of the Crusades was indeed plain, and very similar for men and for women. On their heads ordinary women wore only a sort of coif, or the cowl attached to the long robe or gown, though there were a few ladies of fashion who scandalized the community by wearing tall, pointed bonnets, sometimes cone-shaped, sometimes with two horns, and with a veil hanging from the tip to form a sort of wimple. The chief article in the dress of both sexes was the garment called a cotte-hardie, consisting of a long robe reaching to the feet and confined at the waist by a girdle. The sleeves of the cotte-hardie were, among sober-minded dames, rather close fitting and plain; fashion had them made absurdly large, flaring at the wrist to many times the dimensions of the upper part, and sometimes so long as not only to cover the whole hand, but to trail upon the ground. Over the cotte-hardie was worn the surcot, a sort of tunic, shorter than the undergarment, and either without sleeves or with elbow sleeves. On grand occasions a handsome mantle was worn, but the use of this was generally restricted to noble ladies. The shoes were usually simple, lacing higher on the leg than what we now call shoes; sometimes, however, they were made of gaily colored leathers, richly embroidered, or even of cloth of gold, damask, or the like. The days of high heels had not yet come, and women's shoes seem never to have been quite so outrageous as those long pointed shoes worn by the dandies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
It was at the other end of the costume, the headgear, that women displayed their extravagance. Fearfully and wonderfully were the headdresses made, judging from the pictures in manuscripts and from the indignation of the satirists. The modest bonnet sprouted horns of alarming shape and proportions. "When ladies come to festivals," says a thirteenth century satirist, "they look at each other's heads, and carry bosses like horned beasts; if any one is without horns, she becomes an object of derision." Not content with having betrayed man by her flirtation with Lucifer in Eden, Eve must now wear on her head the very mark of the beast. No text served as the basis for sermons with more frequency or more delight than one attacking the horns of the ladies. One preacher advised his hearers to cry out: Hurte, bélier!--"Beware the ram!" when one of these horned monsters approached, and promised ten days' absolution to those who would do so. "By the faith I owe Saint Mathurin," exclaims the monkish satirist, "they make themselves horned with platted hemp or linen, and so counterfeit dumb beasts; they carry great masses of other people's hair on their heads." The author of the Romance of the Rose describes with great unction the gorget, or neckcloth, hanging from the horns and twisted two or three times around the neck. These horns, he says, are evidently designed to wound the men. "I know not whether they call those things that sustain their horns gibbets or corbels,... but I venture to say Saint Elizabeth did not get to heaven by wearing such things. Moreover, they are a great encumbrance (owing to the hair piled up, etc.), for between the gorget and the temple and horns there is quite enough room for a rat to pass, or the biggest weasel 'twixt here and Arras."
Neither ridicule nor threats of eternal damnation, however, made any impression on the daughters of Eve, and the horns continued to adorn their fair heads. The other parts of the costume, as we have said, were usually simple. The robe, or cotte-hardie, and the surcot were generally of plain cloth of solid color; but as wealth increased, the use of expensive materials became more and more common, and silk, cloth of gold, and velvet appeared on various parts of the dress, as well as a profusion of jewels. A short passage from the description of the costume of the queen in Philippe de Beaumanoir's La Manekine may serve to show the utmost that imagination could devise in the way of dress, for, of course, the costume of the heroines of romance is always some degrees more elegant than that to which the fair readers are accustomed.
"The queen arose early in the morning, well dressed and richly jewelled. (Her costume) was laced with a thick gold thread, with two big rubies to every finger's breadth: no matter how dark the skies, one could see clearly by the light of these jewels. She clothed her beautiful body in a robe of cloth of gold, with fur sewn all about it. So fine was the cloth of her girdle that I can scarcely describe it. There were upon it many little platines of gold linked together with emeralds beautiful and costly, and one sapphire there was in the clasp, worth full a hundred marks in silver. Upon her breast she wore a brooch of gold set with many precious stones. Over her shoulders and about her neck she had fastened a mantle of cloth of gold, no man ever saw more beautiful. Her furs were no common, moth-eaten things, but sable, which makes people look beautiful. At her girdle she wore a purse, in all the world there is none more elegant. Upon her head rested a crown whose like was not to be found; for one gazed at it in wonder and admiration of the beautiful stones in it, stones of many virtues: emeralds, sapphires, rubies, jacinths,... never was a more beautiful one seen."
Though the number of jewels is probably magnified, the essential features of the costume correspond to what a lady of fashion would have liked to wear in the year 1250. The mantle, being regarded as suitable for full dress occasions, was much ornamented. In the Roman de la Violette (about 1225) we find this description of a lady's mantle: "She wore a mantle greener than the leaves and trimmed with ermine. Upon it were embroidered little golden flowerets, cunningly worked; each one had attached to it, so hidden as to be invisible, a little bell. When the wind blew against the mantle, sweetly sounded the bells. I give you my word that nor harp nor rote nor vielle ever gave forth so sweet a sound as these silver chimes."