Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/30

 hitherto mere personal badges, became attached to noble families. By the thirteenth century, when the bourgeoisie had become rich, they were worn by the sumptuously attired wife of the lord to distinguish her from the equally sumptuously attired wife of the wealthy burgher.

Such, in mere outline, was the daily life of the mediaeval lady. Descriptions of the lady herself seem to be mere replicas of an admired and fixed type, for there is in them such a sameness of delineation, that we can only imagine that poets sang of qualities that pleased, and did not attempt to individualise. All are good and gracious, beautiful, and slight of figure, with delicate hands and tapering fingers, small feet, fine and glossy hair, and grey eyes, laughing and bright. Only occasionally are these attractions varied and enhanced by the telling of beauty unaided by paint and hair dye.

It is hardly necessary to speak, save very generally, of woman's dress, for much has already been written on the subject. For everyday use, garments of wool or linen, according to the season, and with much fur in winter, were worn. At weddings or tournaments, or on any other kind of fête-day, the ladies vied with each other in rich cloth of gold and silver, in silks woven with threads of gold and patterned with conventional design, and in all kinds of iridescent silken stuffs