The Fiend of Fashion, from an Ancient Manuscript.
In the French version of the same poem it is, we read, more fully expressed. It says, "They were richly habited and very tightly laced." The Lady Triamore is thus described:—
"The lady was in a purple pall,
With gentill bodye and middle small."
Wharton quotes from an ancient poem, which he believes to date as far back as 1200, in which a lover, speaking of the object of his admiration, thus throws down the gauntlet of challenge, and exclaims—
"Middle her she hath mensk small."
The word mensk or maint being used instead of very or much. Some differences of opinion have existed among writers as to the origin of the word corset. Some are of opinion that the French words corps, the body, and serrer (to tightly inclose or incase), led to the adoption of the term. Madame La Sante gives it as her opinion, however, that it is more probably a corruption of the single word corps, which was formerly written cors, and may be taken as a diminutive form of it. Another view of the matter has been that the name of a rich material called corse, which was at one time extensively used in the manufacture of corsets, may have been thus corrupted. This is scarcely probable, as the word corset was in use at too early a period to admit of that origin. Perhaps as early an instance of the use of the term corset as any in existence may be found as a portion of an entry in the household register of Eleanor, Countess of Leicester, which bears the date May 24, 1265:—
"Item: Pro ix ulnis radii. Pariensis pro robas æstivas corsetto et clochia pro eodem."[2]