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them is to see the fine lady attired in all her bewildering array
of beautiful stuffs. William de Lorris, in his celebrated poem,
the _Romance of the Rose_, has drawn the character of Jealousy, and
represents him as reproaching his wife for her insatiable love of
finery, which, he tells her, is solely to make her attractive in
the eyes of her gallants. He then enumerates the parts of her dress,
consisting of mantles lined with sable, surcoats, neck linens,
wimples, petticoats, shifts, pelices, jewels, chaplets of fresh
flowers, buckles of gold, rings, robes, and rich furs. Then he adds:
"You carry the worth of one hundred pounds in gold and silver upon
your head--such garlands, such coiffures with gilt ribbons, such
mirrors framed in gold, so fair, so beautifully polished; such tissues
and girdles, with expensive fastenings of gold, set with precious
stones of smaller size; and your feet shod so primly, that the robe
must be often lifted up to show them." And in a subsequent part of
the poem the ladies are advised, satirically, if their ankles be not
handsome and their feet small and delicate, to hide them by wearing
long robes, trailing upon the pavement. Those, on the contrary, who
were more favored in this respect were advised to elevate their robes,
as if it were to give access to air, that the passer-by might see and
admire their trim feet and ankles.

Such were some of the adornments of the fine ladies of the thirteenth
century. It is instructive to turn to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and
study the costumes of some of the characters as they are interpreted
by Strutt. This will afford a view of the dress of typical persons in
the ordinary ranks of life. The Wife of Bath is drawn by Chaucer at
full length as a shameless woman, pert, loquacious, and bold, whose
favorite occupation is gossiping and rambling abroad in search of
fashionable diversions, in the absence of her husband. She had the art
of making fine cloth. Her dress materials were expensive, for she had
kerchiefs, or head linen, which she wore on Sunday, so fine that they
were equal in value to ten pounds; and her stockings were made of fine
red scarlet cloth, and "straightway gartered upon her legs"; her shoes
were also new, and to them she had a pair of spurs attached, because
she was to ride upon horseback; she wore a hat as broad as a buckler
or a target; and she herself informs us that upon holidays she was
accustomed to wear gay scarlet gowns.