r rings, girdles, and helmets blazing in gold, of the
spears and sheaths studded thickly with diamonds? What riches are
displayed in your altar decorations! How beautiful are the reliquaries
set in pearls and gold! How magnificent your priests' vestments! What
riches in your sacristies!"

Dress received much attention. Women revelled in embroideries of gold
and silver, plaited skirts with expensive galloon borders, mantles of
ermine, sable and marten; crowns of gold and precious stones; pearl
embroidered smocks and the daintiest, finest linen ever woven. Even the
burghers' wives and daughters braided gold and silver into their back
hair and curls and wore gems of rare value.

At frequent intervals, sumptuary laws designed to lessen feminine
extravagance were passed, but, like all such laws since the days of
Eve's figleaf, they failed. The women invariably got the better of the
city fathers. In Mainz one of the most beautiful young dames of the
town, acting as the representative of a large number of society women,
appealed, personally, to Prince Albert, Archbishop of Brandenburg,
against a decree of the Council concerning feminine attire. That
handsome, Lothario-priest, Prince Albert, was not the man to resist the
pleading of a pretty woman. Dismissing his fair petitioner with a kiss
and the gift of a beautiful jewelled bracelet, he at once ordered the
repeal of the hateful law.

But the great sociological preacher, Geiler von Kaisersberg, was no
debonair voluptuary. The fairest woman's face could never persuade him
to look leniently upon feminine vanity. He shouts:

"The authorities ought to forbid the abominably short skirts that are
worn! Look at the belts which encircle their waists, sometimes they are
of silk, sometimes of gold, sometimes so costly that the jeweller
charges from forty to fifty florins for making them. They drag long
trains through the dirt without thinking of the nakedness of Christ
among his poor. Some have so many dresses that, during the week, they
have two dresses for each day, morning and afternoon. They have many
others for dancing, and they would rather see them eaten by moths than
give their cost to the poor. We see women letting their hair hang down
their backs in cues like men, and wearing cock's feathers in the
astoundingly ugly bonnets on their heads. What a shame and a sin! Do you
not see there is no one without donkey ears on her head? It is a shame
that women wear hats with ears.