They wore
cloaks, when necessary, over these. But both the clothes and the cloaks
were of the same colour. The colour of each of them was either drab or
grey. Other people who followed the fashions, wore white, red, green,
yellow, violet, scarlet, and other colours, which were expensive,
because they were principally dyed in foreign parts. The drab consisted
of the white wool undyed, and the grey of the white wool mixed with the
black, which was undyed also. These colours were then the colours of the
clothes, because they were the least expensive, of the peasants of
England, as they are now of those of Portugal and Spain. They had
discarded also, all ornaments, such as of lace, or bunches of ribbands
at the knees, and their buttons were generally of alchymy, as this
composition was then termed, or of the same colour as their clothes.
The grave and religious women also, like the men, had avoided the
fashions of their times. These had adopted the cap, and the black hood
for their headdress. The black hood had been long the distinguishing
mark of a grave matron. All prostitutes, so early as Edward the third,
had been forbidden to wear it. In after-times it was celebrated by the
epithet of venerable by the poets, and had been introduced by painters
as the representative of virtue.
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