material. The wimple was a head-dress, worn with
or without an additional veil, usually linen, but occasionally of silk,
embroidered with gold. It was a species of veil, covering the head but
not the face, and fastened underneath the chin, or at the top of the
head, by a circlet of gold. The hair was worn loose and flowing, often
without any covering, but frequently bound by a chaplet of goldsmith's
work and flowers, or of the latter only. Boots and gloves were in the
inventory of necessaries, but, alas for comfort, stockings were rare,
white, black, or blue. With this faint sketch of an Anglo-Norman
wardrobe, as it furnished materials to add splendour to the glittering
field of sport, we bid farewell to the lists, not, however, without one
more word as to the honourable position awarded to the gentler sex in the
jousts, which were usually made in their especial honour, and over which
they presided as judges paramount; so that it behoved every true knight
to have a favourite fair one, who was not only esteemed by him as the
paragon of beauty and virtue, but supplied to him often the place of a
tutelary saint, to whom he paid his vows in the day of peril; for it was
then an established doctrine that "love made valour perfect, and incited
heroes to great enterprizes." Alas! for the good old times of chivalry,
when women were content to make _great warriors_; but as she did her
mission in that day, so may she, in this sober life of mental tiltings,
lend her meed of influence to people the world with _great men_. And so
farewell to tournaments; verily they are of the past, and their glitter
dazzles our senses, in this generation of moral _versus_ physical force,
when among the number of the people's favourite heroes is the champion of
Universal Peace Societies.

But we must not leave our sketch of the life in a feudal castle, without
one glance at the feminine employments that served to relieve the
monotonous existence of the isolated dames condemned to comparative
solitude within its walls; nor are we able to discover much, if any,
variety in their occupations. The embroidery frame, and an occasional
spindle and distaff, before the improvements in arts and science had
substituted factories and looms, were almost the only resources allowed
them; but these were inexhaustible, and the many elaborate specimens of
their skill that have survived the casualties of a hundred generations,
bear witness to the indefatigable p