heavy links twisted of gold or silver. From this time onward
neck chains, with or without pendant devices, were commonly worn by men
and women of the richer sort. The men abandoned them in the time of
Charles I.

Closely allied to the chain are the livery collars which appeared in the
14th century, worn by those who thus displayed their alliances or their
fealty. Thus Charles V. of France in 1378 granted to his chamberlain
Geoffrey de Belleville the right of bearing in all feasts and in all
companies the collar of the _Cosse de Geneste_ or Broomcod, a collar
which was accepted and worn even by the English kings, Charles VI.
sending such collars to Richard II. and to his three uncles. This French
collar, a chain of couples of broom-cods linked by jewels, is seen in
the contemporary portrait of Richard II. at Wilton. The like collar was
worn by Henry IV. on the way to his crowning. During the sitting of the
English parliament in 1394 the complaints of the earl of Arundel against
Richard II. are recorded, one of his grievances being that the king was
wont to wear the livery of the collar of the duke of Lancaster, his
uncle, and that people of the king's following wore the same livery. To
which the king answered that soon after the return from Spain (in 1389)
of his uncle, the said duke, he himself took the collar from his uncle's
neck, putting it on his own, which collar the king would wear and use
for a sign of the good and whole-hearted love between them, even as he
wore the liveries of his other uncles. Livery collars of the king of
France, of Queen Anne and of the dukes of York and Lancaster are
numbered with the royal plate and jewels which in the first year of
Henry IV. had come to the king's hands. The inventory shows that Queen
Anne's collar was made up of sprigs of rosemary garnished with pearls.
The York collar had falcons and fetterlocks, and the Lancaster collar
was doubtless that collar of Esses (or S S) used by the duke's son,
Henry of Bolingbroke, as an earl, duke and king. This famous livery
collar, which has never passed out of use, takes many forms, its Esses
being sometimes linked together chainwise, and sometimes, in early
examples, bestowed as the ornamental bosses of a garter-shaped
strap-collar. The oldest effigy bearing it is that in Spratton church of
Sir John Swinford, who died in 1371. Swinford was a follower of John of
Gaunt, and the date of his death easily disposes of the fancy that the
Esses