Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/31

 from the East. From Mosul, on the banks of the Tigris, whence the material we call muslin takes its name, was brought a fine silk gossamer, something like our crêpe de Chine. This was used for the finely plaited underdress seen at the neck and foot of mediæval costume. Perhaps the best representation of this, although stone seems hardly the most favourable medium for the delineation of so delicate a fabric, can be seen in the long slim figures of the queenly ladies standing in the niches on either side of the west door of Chartres Cathedral.

But when we have contemplated this gorgeous and dainty apparel, and all the other personal luxury that accompanied it, such as enamelled and jewelled gold circlets for the head, jewelled girdles with each jewel chosen for its own special virtue, carved ivory combs, tablets and hand-mirrors, and the like, we are forced to wonder how all this refinement and beauty could go hand in hand with so much that is unpleasing. If we turn to consider the manners of the men, we find the same contrasts—on the one hand the maximum of gallantry and courtesy, and on the other a corresponding churlishness and brutality. Metaphorically and actually, the lance and the battle-axe were still rivalling each other in the warfare of daily life. Although the battle-axe must eventually yield to the lance,