. Candles of wax or tallow were
unknown; a servant held a torch during supper. The clothes of men were
of leather unlined: scarcely any gold or silver was seen on their dress.
The common people ate flesh but three times a week, and kept their cold
meat for supper. Many did not drink wine in summer. A small stock of
corn seemed riches. The portions of women were small; their dress, even
after marriage, was simple. The pride of men was to be well provided
with arms and horses; that of the nobility to have lofty towers, of
which all the cities in Italy were full. But now frugality has been
changed for sumptuousness; every thing exquisite is sought after in
dress; gold, silver, pearls, silks, and rich furs. Foreign wines and
rich meats are required. Hence usury, rapine, fraud, tyranny," &c.[647]
This passage is supported by other testimonies nearly of the same time.
The conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou in 1266 seems to have been
the epoch of increasing luxury throughout Italy. His Provencal knights
with their plumed helmets and golden collars, the chariot of his queen
covered with blue velvet and sprinkled with lilies of gold, astonished
the citizens of Naples.[648] Provence had enjoyed a long tranquillity,
the natural source of luxurious magnificence; and Italy, now liberated
from the yoke of the empire, soon reaped the same fruit of a condition
more easy and peaceful than had been her lot for several ages. Dante
speaks of the change of manners at Florence from simplicity and virtue
to refinement and dissoluteness, in terms very nearly similar to those
quoted above.[649]

Throughout the fourteenth century there continued to be a rapid but
steady progression in England of what we may denominate elegance,
improvement, or luxury; and if this was for a time suspended in France,
it must be ascribed to the unusual calamities which befell that country
under Philip of Valois and his son. Just before the breaking out of the
English wars an excessive fondness for dress is said to have
distinguished not only the higher ranks, but the burghers, whose foolish
emulation at least indicates their easy circumstances.[650] Modes of
dress hardly perhaps deserve our notice on their own account; yet so far
as their universal prevalence was a symptom of diffused wealth, we
should not overlook either the invectives bestowed by the clergy on the
fantastic extravagances of fashion, or the sumptuary laws by which it
was endeavoured to restrai