Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/236



the numerous valuable works recently published in Germany, in illustration of various subjects of archæological research, there are few which present more attractive features, or better deserve to be known and appreciated in England, than the publications here brought before the notice of our readers. In the detailed investigation of the usages of life in former times, and of the minor circumstances to which, at first sight, little importance may be attached, the student of middle-age antiquities constantly feels how requisite it is to be enabled to form a comparison of the fashions or peculiarities familiar to him in his own country, with those of neighbouring nations. By this means alone can a clue be gained to the real intention of many interesting details, which are now only to be traced imperfectly amongst the few examples preserved in England, but are fully illustrated by ancient memorials on the continent; by this means, also, can a just appreciation be formed of the distinctive conventional peculiarities exhibited in the decorative or artistic productions of various nations and periods. The influence of political relations with several countries of Europe operated not less than the spirit of mercantile enterprise, in giving to the arts, and fashions, and costume of our country, a complexion in which foreign peculiarities are continually to be traced. Whilst our forefathers received by way of Italy or the Low Countries, splendid tissues of eastern manufacture, or armour of proof and weapons wrought at Milan or in Spain, their frequent intercourse with France and Flanders, the long duration of the Crusades, and the wars which arose from the claim asserted by our sovereigns to the succession of Philip de Valois, still more, perhaps, the influence of foreign alliances, brought into England at different periods the elegancies and luxuries of other climes. In regard especially to costume it is obvious that numberless novelties must have been successively introduced under the influence of the Queens of England; thus, if we investigate the origin of the eccentric fashions of the close of the fourteenth century, the crackowe shoes, and jagged tippets of the times of Richard II., we should seek it in his alliance with a princess of Bohemia; as likewise we must attribute to the influence of Katherine of France, and Margaret of Anjou, the picturesque fashions of female attire, prevalent during the succeeding century. Costume, correctly understood, supplies the key to the Chronology of Art, and the utility of all works which, like the interesting publications produced at Dusseldorf and Mannheim, afford the means of comparing authentic examples in various countries of Europe, must be fully recognised.