garments. Their ladies were under the same
restrictions as those of the preceding class. All
knights with lands over the value of four hundred
marks and under one thousand pounds a year, and
their ladies, were restricted in nothing save the
use of ermine, lettice, and jewels not being
ornaments for the head. Clerks were to be dressed
in the same manner as knights of one of the
two classes above named, unless obliged to wear
furs on ecclesiastical vestments. All sumptuary
restraints were removed in the case of persons
whose income exceeded one thousand pounds
yearly.*
* Multiplication by fifteen will afford a rough
estimate of the foregoing amounts in modern values.

To ensure obedience to these ordinances without
any special machinery for enforcing it, a
provision was annexed enjoining the manufacturers
to make no cloths of any other prices
than those hereinbefore limited. The penalty
of disobedience was the forfeiture of the
garment. After the statute, however, had been in
operation for less than a year, it was found to
be so oppressive to the people, and so injurious
to trade, that the Commons prayed for and
obtained its repeal.

In an imaginary walk down Chepeside five
hundred years ago, the feature that must first
strike you in a general survey of costume, is the
prevalence of bright colours. A great variety of
costumes is worn contemporaneously in different
parts of the kingdom. The cotehardie, as
we call that tight garment buttoned in front
down to the hips, with its tippets or long
strips of cloth depending from the elbows, is
worn by yonder young nobleman and by the
lady with whom he is conversing. Both wear
similarly shaped capuchons or hoods buttoned
to the chin with liripipes or tails wrapped round
their heads. Both, too, have girdles and pouches
with daggers stuck through them. The women
wear fox-tails sewn inside their dresses to inflate
them, as the women of a later time wear crinoline.
Let us continue our examination of this noble pair
before they move away. The man is a knight,
as you may see by the belt fastened across
his hips with a circular gilt buckle, and by
his spurs. His cotehardie is made of the cloth
we call tars or tartan, which though here blue
is as often scarlet or sometimes white. The
length of the nap may strike you as unusual,
but the fashion is economical; for, when partly
worn the wool is reshorn, and the garment has
thus several leases of life. The elaborate
embroidery in silk and silver that adorns the long
mantle which he wears over the cotehardie is
all the rage. The mantle is fastened upon his
right shoulder by two or three large buttons, and
thrown over the left like a Spanish cloak: were it
loose, it would cover his whole person. Note
how quaintly the edges are cut into the shape of
leaves. The doublet, or linen vest, worn
beneath the cotehardie, is only visible at the
elbow, whence it is buttoned to the wrist.
There, his long gloves lap over it, made of
dressed sheepskin, broidered and purfled, or
edged, at the tops with silk. His peaked shoes
made of cordwain (Cordovan leather) have that
intricate broidery upon them which is popularly
known as " Paul's windows." Your
Highlander's dress-shoes somewhat preserve this
dainty fashion. His close-fitting chausses, or
hose—which answer to your trousers and stockings
in one—are in the newest vogue, parti-
coloured black and red.

That jealous youth who eyes the pair is
similarly dressed to his rival, save that in lieu of
a mantle he wears a hooded cloak of Spanish
silk called a paletoque, and instead of a
capuchon he has a Flanders cap of beaver with an
upright feather in front. He is somewhat
behind the fashion in wearing his beard pointed
like the old king. The late prince, our pink of
chivalry, had moustaches only. Flowing curled
hair, as worn by both these youths, is almost
universally in vogue.

The lady's cotehardie is of a scarlet cloth,
probably imported from Flanders, embroidered
and very richly purfled with fur. The pockets
in front are rather for show than use. The
kirtle, or gown, visible beneath, appears to
be made of sendale: a thin silken stuff from
the East, coarser than, but resembling, the
Saracenic material which we call sarcenet.
Her cyclas, or supertunic, is of green velvet
trimmed with grysoevere: an expensive grey
fur. Attached to her gold-tissued girdle she
carries a gypcerie, or pouch, made of fine
leather broidered with silk. Her hair is of the
fashionable colour, yellow—whether naturally,
or dyed with saffron, as is commonly the case,
we dare not pronounce. The lady on the opposite
side of the street is dressed in a somewhat
different fashion. Instead of the cotehardie she
wears over her kirtle a sort of armless jacket,
not unlike the ecclesiastical chasuble in that it
has no sides. Its rich trimmings are of miniver
fur. She wears a round cap of velvet
instead of a capuchon, and her hair is bound up
in a net of gold-wire called a crestine. When
her cap is removed in-doors, she will substitute
a contoise, or quintoise: a sort of scarf with
two streamers.

The gaily dressed figure coming towards
us is a priest. Of course at the church
services he will don his normal ecclesiastical
vestments, but abroad you cannot distinguish
clerk from layman. If our friend, however,
were to remove his cap, his tonsure would
discover him. He does not wear a cotehardie—
that garment, as a rule, distinguishing the higher
classes—but his green tunic, purfled with fur,
reaches to his knees. It is of good cloth, as
are also his scarlet chausses. His beaver cap,
gilt girdle, and long-toed boots, differ little, save
in quality, from those of the nobles. The man
with whom he has just stopped to converse is
also a priest, who must have recently left church,
as his dress is of the regular ecclesiastical type
—scarlet gown and hood. His only girdle is
of beads.

The two men who have just hurried past,
are vintners. Their tunics are made of a striped