Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/139

 shoes came in, known as "duckbills." Leather was now used for boots and shoes, which were often double-soled, a distinct advantage, considering the deep mud of the uncleaned roads. So exaggerated and costly had dress become that in 1463 a petition was presented to Parliament against the "inordinate use of apparell and aray of men and women." The rising power and wealth of the middle classes made the nobles feel that their dignity was at stake when their fashions in dress were copied by the democracy. Laws were passed enforcing the social barrier, as far as dress was concerned. Only a lord and his wife might wear a stomacher worked in gold or sable; only a Knight of the Garter might wear velvet; small squires might not wear damask or satin; yeomen were forbidden to pad their doublets or to wear costly fur, while the labouring classes might not buy cloth above two shillings a yard, and were for the most part restricted to coarse flannel, fustian, and linen girdles.

Linen and woollen stuffs were largely used, and to encourage home manufactures Henry IV. prohibited the importation of foreign cloth. Linen sheets and blankets were used now for