mons; but the fair
ladies, invulnerable to all such criticisms, were not to be deterred
from indulging their pet follies. One of the first references to the
prevailing style was that made by John de Meun in his poem called
the _Codical_: "If I dare say it without making them [that is, the
ladies] angry, I should _dispraise_ their hosing, their vesture,
their girding, their head-dresses, their hoods thrown back with their
_horns_ elevated and brought forward, as if it were to wound us.
I know not whether they call them _gallowses_ or _brackets_, that
prop up the horns which they think are so handsome; but of this I am
certain, that Saint Elizabeth obtained not Paradise by the wearing of
such trumpery." But this style of hair dress was not made by the hair
after all, but by the wimple, which was raised on either side of the
head and supported by a frame or by pins. John de Meun flourished
at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and had he lived in the
fifteenth, when the horned headdress _par excellence_, made up of
prongs of hair protruding forward from the forehead, was in vogue,
he would have been still more aghast. These horns were carefully
constructed with the aid of rolls of linen. Sometimes they had two
long wings on either side, and received the name of "butterflies."
The high, pointed cap which was worn was covered with a piece of fine
lawn, which hung to the ground, and the greater part of which was
tucked under the wearer's arm. By a writer of the day we are told that
the ladies of the middle rank wore caps of cloth which consisted of
several breadths or bands twisted round the head, with two wings on
each side "like asses' ears." As one wanders through the mazes of
description of the hair dress of the period, he is prepared to agree
with the author to whom we have just referred, that "it is no easy
matter to give a proper description in writing of the different
fashions in the dresses of the ladies"; and so we shall submit the
case in terms of still another writer's description; Philip Stubbs
says: "Then followeth the trimming and tricking of their heads, in
laying out their hair to the show; which, of force, must be curled,
frizzled, and crisped, laid out in wreaths and borders, and from one
ear to another; and, lest it should fall down, it is underpropped with
forkes, wires, and I cannot tell what; then, on the edges of their
bolstered hair, for it standeth crested round about their frontiers,
and hangi