Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/246

 234 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE finger-rings were worn. 1 A study of the inventories- still extant of the wardrobes of well-to-do citizens will give us some idea of the luxury and variety of the dress of the Middle Ages. In the will of the wife of. George Winter, of Nuremberg, dated 1485, there is mention, among other things, of four mantles of Malines silk, six long over-skirts, three smock frocks, three under-dresses, six white aprons, one black, two white bath cloaks. Along with other jewels we find thirty rings mentioned. A citizen of Breslau contributed to his daughter's trousseau (1490) a fur-lined mantle and dress, four dresses of different values, several caps, sashes, and armlets, a bodice embroidered with pearls, and a betrothal ring worth twenty-five florins. We read of another citizen's daughter receiving in 1470 from her guardians, as an inheritance from her mother, thirty- six gold rings, besides several chains, buckles, and cinctures. The pictures of headgear both of men and women are very diverse and extraordinary. Women wore pointed lace caps a yard high, or head-dresses formed of coloured stuff pressed and ornamented with gold and precious stones. The head-dress of the unmarried women of the bourgeois class in the city was particu- larly remarkable, consisting of a muslin handkerchief laid in folds on a wire frame, and having ribbon strings to tie under the chin. The shapes of men's hats and caps were quite as remarkable. On some of the illu- minated parchments of the city regulations of Hamburg we find patterns of hats and caps, some high and some low ; some with wide, and others with narrow brims, 1 Jewellery in those ages possessed great artistic value, and much taste was displayed in armour.