G.K.
HEAD-DRESS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, IN ENGLAND.
In Wickliffe's Commentaries upon the Ten Commandments, in the midst of a moral exhortation, he manages, by a few bold touches, to give us a picture of the fashionable head-dress of his day:—
"And let each woman beware, that neither by countenance, nor by array of body nor of head, she stir any to covet her to sin. Not crooking (curling) her hair, neither laying it up on high, nor the head arrayed about with gold and precious stones; not seeking curious clothing, nor of nice shape, showing herself to be seemly to fools. For all such arrays of women St. Peter and St. Paul, by the Holy Ghost's teaching, openly forbid."
D.P.
SALADS.
Oil for salads is mentioned in the Paston Letters, in 1466, in which year Sir John Paston writes to his mother, that he has sent her "ii. potts off oyl for salady's, whyche oyl was goode a myght be when he delyv'yd yt, and schuld be goode at the reseyving yff itt was not mishandled nor miscarryd." This indicates that vegetables for the table were then cultivated in England, although the common opinion is, that most of our fruit and garden productions were destroyed during the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster. A good salad, however, had become so scarce some years afterwards, that Katharine, the queen of Henry VIII., is said, on a particular occasion, to have sent to the continent to procure one.