cumbersome mantles were left only to women,
priests, kings, and nobles not "on active
service," as representatives of the idle classes of
society, with whom freedom of action was no
want.

As every man of the upper ranks was a warrior,
and as dandyism is an instinct with men, arms
and armour came in for the greatest number of
changes, and took the place of the later gowns
and tunics. No fine lady of later growth ever
went beyond those grave old mediæval knights in
restlessness of finery or gorgeousness of display.
They were never satisfied. Now the armour
was trellised, now mascled, now tegulated, now
scaled, now rustred, now of chain mail, now of
plate; the cap or helmet had now a nasal or
nose-piece, which fashion was discontinued after
the battle of Lincoln, when Stephen was seized
by his nose-piece and held prisoner without
being able to help himself; and then went on to
barrels and kettles and inverted saucepans, and
close-fitting nightcaps, and long beak-shaped
vizors with eye-slits and breathing-holes, and
little trap-doors for hearing, and a funnel at the
top to hold the long waving plume of feathers.
The offensive armour followed the same law of
change and ornamentation, even to the gadlyngs
on the steel gauntlets—mightily like our present
knuckle dusters—which gadlyngs were originally
spikes on the finger-joints, and then grew
into bosses in the shape of lions and leopards on
the hand; while the robe of idlesse, the house
dress, showed a wantonness of fancy in shape
and colour, and such a wantonness of
expenditure as called forth the severest sumptuary
laws, which, however, no one attended to. In
the time of Richard the Second, even the very
serving-men trailed about in scarlet robes twenty
yards wide, with sleeves "blazing like to cranes'
wings," sweeping to the ground; while the
nobles wore their mantles and loose sleeves of
cloth of gold, velvet, ermine, miniver, and all
other extravagant materials in such excess of
length and width as would startle the most
unconscientious court milliner living. The manner
was as strange as the material. Edged with a fine
bordering, leaf-shaped—which fashion of robe the
king disapproving for his subjects, declared
forfeit to himself, with imprisonment during the
royal pleasure for the unfortunate tailor who
devised and served such ungodly fancies—
sometimes parti-coloured, so that the body went into
a quartering of various hues, like an elongated
kaleidoscope—stiff with golden needlework, and
powdered with pearls—the family arms blazoned
on skirt and sleeve and tunic and mantle—always
fantastic in design, glaring in colour, and ruinous
in cost, the house dress of the noble in the middle
ages offers a wild variety of human costume, and
shows the milliners and tailors of the day in the
light of true inventors. But the boots—the feet
covering—they and the head-dresses went beyond
all else in extravagance and no-meaningness. The
old good soft shoes of untanned leather, which
must have been deliciously comfortable, were
soon set aside, and then came vagaries in scarlet,
and green, and blue, embroidered in gold and
precious stones; some, with a fretwork of gold,
and a golden lion or fleur-de-lis in each square;
some, with large rose-windows; some in
geometric patterns of various designs such as Mr.
Owen Jones would have loved; some, starred;
some, banded along and across; some, of one
simple colour bound with black; some, parti-
coloured; and others with one foot blue and the
other red; one white and the other black. The
shapes were as odd as the rest. From honest shoes
close fitting to the foot, they suddenly
abandoned their natural intention, and lengthened
out into peaks fashioned like a ship's prow—
ocrea rostrata, specially forbidden to the clergy;
then they grew into the likeness of a scorpion's
tail, pigacia; then a courtier in Stephen's time,
one Robert, stuffed his scorpion's tail toes with
hay, and hoisted them into the shape of a ram's
horn, for which feat he earned the title of
cornado; and then came the preposterous peaks
called crackowes or poulaines, by some termed
devils' claws, which were fastened by chains to
the wearer's knee. Even armed men wore these
crackowes under the name of sollerets, and
looped them up to their genouillères or steel
knee-caps, with links as big as a ship's cable.
Henry the Sixth patronised half-boots laced at
the sides, like our own; also shoes and clogs,
called galage, the parent both in name and form
of our goloshes; and then came the inevitable
reaction against the devils' claws, and the toes
widened out into broad purse-like forms, called
ducks' bills, all purpled and slashed and furbelowed,
till the foot was a monstrosity of another
kind, and quite as ugly as the former. The
enormous shoe roses of Elizabeth's time were
the next article of foot fashion; and then came
cork soles, about the most sensible things we have
met with yet. The shoe roses were sometimes
very costly; three, four, and five pounds the
pair being no uncommon price to pay; while
one gallant of the times paid thirty pounds for
his, to the distraction and envy of all beholders.
Eastern chopines, or high sandaled clogs, like
what they use in the Turkish baths at this day,
were for a time in vogue, but they never took
the lower public; and then burst out the full-
blown finery of the Cavalier age, when the roses
and laces and embroidery and fine leather made
the purchase of a pair of boots a matter of
anxious calculation, and a serious curtailment
of the family beef and mutton. Tailordom was
in the ascendant under the Charleses; and no
expense was held too great for a fit personal
adornment; so, when the young bloods spent a
pretty little fortune on their feet, it is to be
remembered that they had sunk a larger one on
every other part of their persons. We are all
familiar with this Charles boot, with its wide
soft top turned down to show the rich lace lining;
we all know the indescribable air of full dress and
rioting swagger which it gives; and, convenient
or inconvenient, extravagant or no, assuredly it is
the most beautiful form of masculine foot-covering
yet invented. Indeed, the whole dress of
that period was the most picturesque we have
ever had. It would scarcely do for our grave,