Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/181

164 arms for the sake of their vanity, such as a gate, a head of a wolf or of a dog, a ladder, or half a horse, or a trumpet, or a knife, or a pork sausage, or something of that sort. In such coats of arms lies the value and dignity of noble birth. And this nobility has the same glory as the arms from which they derive the value of their nobility. But if money did not fall to them as well as noble birth, hunger would soon make them ready to abandon their coats of arms and seize the plough! . . . Therefore he who can prove that he is well born, and has (in his arms) a ladder or half a horse, receives letters (i.e. patents of nobility) declaring that he is better born than Abel, the second son of Adam, and he obtains such consideration that he is always considered as being good; should he even commit the worst actions, his coat of arms does not permit that he should be bad."

These attacks on the nobility continue during three chapters. The following passage contains a curious description of the dress worn by the nobles of Bohemia in the fifteenth century. Chelčicky writes: "The men wear copes reaching to the ground, or they wear a short round jacket and a hood which reaches down to the saddle of their horse, and with it a monk's cowl and a neckerchief, or a short cloak, and with it long hair reaching down to their shoulders, and on it a small rough hat like a cone; they look out from under it as from a dovecot, for verily they do not know what monsters they make of themselves. The abominable women also deck themselves out with so many petticoats that they can hardly drag themselves along in them, and