cture of the time in order to show a reason
for the simplicity of the dress, and to show how, enclosed in their
walls, the clergy were increasing in riches and in learning; how,
despite the disorders of war, the internal peace of the towns and
hamlets was growing, with craft gilds and merchant gilds. The lords
and barons fighting their battles knew little of the bond of strength
that was growing up in these primitive labour unions; but the lady in
her bower, in closer touch with the people, receiving visits from
foreign merchants and pedlars with rare goods to sell or barter, saw
how, underlying the miseries of bloodshed and disaster, the land began
to bloom and prosper, to grow out of the rough place it had been into
the fair place of market-town and garden it was to be.

Meanwhile London's thirteen conventual establishments were added to by
another, the Priory of St. Bartholomew, raised by Rahere, the King's
minstrel.

HENRY THE SECOND

Reigned thirty-five years: 1154-1189.

Born 1133. Married, 1152, to Eleanor of Guienne.

THE MEN

[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry II.}]

The King himself is described as being careless of dress, chatty,
outspoken. His hair was close-cropped, his neck was thick, and his
eyes were prominent; his cheek-bones were high, and his lips coarse.

The costume of this reign was very plain in design, but rich in
stuffs. Gilt spurs were attached to the boots by red leather straps,
gloves were worn with jewels in the backs of them, and the mantles
seem to have been ornamented with designs.

[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY II. (1154-1189)

He wears the short cloak, and his long tunic is held by a brooch at
the neck and is girdled by a long-tongued belt. There are gloves on
his hands.]

The time of patterns upon clothes began. The patterns were simple, as
crescents, lozenges, stars.

William de Magna Villa had come back from the Holy Land with a new
fabric, a precious silk called 'imperial,' which was made in a
workshop patronized by the Byzantine Emperors.

The long tunic and the short supertunic were still worn, but these
were not so frequently split up at the side.

High boots reaching to the calf of the leg were in common use.

That part of the hood which fell upon the shoulders was now cut in a
neat pattern round the edge.

Silks, into which gold thread was sewn or woven, made fine clothes,
and cloth cloaks lined with expensive f