onsidering the dress of the women of England during the Middle
Ages, the sumptuary laws passed for its regulation are of interest in
themselves as affording a view of the dress of the several classes of
society, and they also serve to illustrate upon what simple lines the
distinctions of society were drawn.

In the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Edward III., a curious
complaint was submitted to Parliament by the Commons against general
extravagance in the use of apparel; whereupon an act was passed in
regulation of the matter. One of the provisions of this act, as it
related to women, prescribed that the wives and children of the grooms
and servants of the lords and of tradesmen and artificers should not
wear veils costing more than twelvepence each. The wives and children
of the tradesmen and artificers themselves should wear no veils
excepting those made with thread and manufactured in the kingdom; nor
any kind of furs excepting those of lambs, rabbits, cats, and foxes.
The cloth for their dresses was also to be of a prescribed kind.
The wives and children of esquires--gentlemen under the estate of
knighthood--might not wear cloth of gold, of silk, or of silver;
nor any ornaments of precious stones, nor furs of any kind; nor any
purfling or facings upon their garments; neither should they use
_esclaires_, _crinales_, or _trosles_--certain forms of hairpins, and
suchlike ornaments.

In the case of knights of a certain income, their wives and children
were prohibited from wearing miniver or ermine as linings for their
garments or trimming for their sleeves. The lower classes were
restricted to blankets and russets for their attire, and these were
not to cost more than twelvepence per yard, unless the income of
the man was above forty shillings. It is not probable that these
enactments were rigidly enforced, and when Henry IV. came to the
throne he found it necessary to revive the prohibiting statutes of
his predecessor. A number of such sumptuary laws were passed during
succeeding reigns, but it is not probable that they were ever really
effective. Nor were the satires and witticisms of the poets and other
writers of the day more effectual than legislation in correcting the
extravagances and vices of dress. Whether the poet or the moralist
pointed their shafts against them, the dames and the dandies of the
time continued to dress as pleased them.

Some of these criticisms so sum up the dress of the day, that to