up the thigh. Some are buttoned all the way down the front,
and others only with two or three buttons at the neck.
Round the hips of every man is a leather belt, from which hangs a
pouch or purse.
Some of these purses are beautiful with stitched arabesque designs;
some have silver and enamel clasps; some are plain black cloth or
natural-coloured leather; nearly all, however, are black.
The hoods over the men's heads vary in a number of ways: some are very
full in the cape, which is jagged at the hem; some are close about the
neck and are plain; some have long liripipes falling from the peak of
the hood, and others have a liripipe of medium length.
There are two or three kinds of hat worn, and felt and fur caps of the
usual shape--round, with a rolled-up brim and a little peak on the
top. Some of the hats are tall-crowned, round hats with a close, thick
brim--these have strings through the brim so that the hat may be
strung on the belt when it is not in use; other hats are of the long,
peaked shape, and now and again one may see a feather stuck into them;
a third variety shows the brim of a high-crowned hat, castellated.
Among the knights you will notice the general tendency to
parti-coloured clothes, not only divided completely into halves of two
colours, but striped diagonally, vertically, and horizontally, so
giving a very diverse appearance to the mass of colour.
Here and there a man is riding in his silk surcoat, which is
embroidered with his coat of arms or powdered with his badge.
Here are cloth, velvet, silk, and woollen stuffs, all of fine dyes,
and here is some fine silk cotehardie with patterns upon it gilt in
gold leaf, and there is a magnificent piece of stuff, rich in design,
from the looms of Palermo.
Among the merchants we shall see some more sober colours and quieter
cut of clothes; the archers in front are in leather tunics, and these
quiet colours in front, and the respectable merchants behind, enclose
the brilliant blaze of colour round the King.
Behind all come the peasants, minstrels, mummers, and wandering
troupes of acrobats; here is a bearward in worn leather cloak and
hood, his legs strapped at the ankle, his shoes tied on with thongs;
here is a woman in a hood, open at the neck and short at the back: she
wears a smocked apron; here is a beggar with a hood of black stuff
over his head--a hood with two peaks, one on either side of his head;
and again, here is a minstrel with a
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