Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/63

Rh We may add that a good feeling of veneration for local antiquities prevails in the island, especially among the clergy:—the people are not naturally destructive nor desirous of change; they are proud of their isolation, yet they are courteous and obliging to strangers who will come to explore their remote parochial edifices; they are full of old traditions, and they can point out the scene of many an interesting event, preserved chiefly in the recollection of those living on the spot.

As yet Rowland's Mona Antiqua is the only work of authority on the antiquities of Anglesey. It is a book of much learned research as well as of good common sense, and fully deserving the attention of a new and careful editor. The medieval remains of the island are however worthy of description as well as those of the Cymric period; and it is with this view that the present survey is carried on.

 

study of costume is of considerable importance to the antiquary, as affording the means of fixing the age of sculptures or paintings which bear no other certain indications of date. We in the first instance derive the knowledge of costume itself from the study and comparison of monuments of different ages, and especially of the illuminations of manuscripts. Knowing the date of these monuments, we are enabled to say with certainty what costume was in use at a certain period; but we are too apt in this and other things to take the silence of writers, or the absence of pictured representation, as a negative assertion, a proof that a certain thing did not exist. It is the object of the following observations to point out an example of the danger of this practice.

No portion of medieval costume underwent more frequent changes than the head-dress of ladies. In the fifteenth century the female coiffure was made to take the form of two horns, a fashion which excited the indignation and mirth of contemporary moralists and satirists. This horned head-dress appears