If we now turn to female attire, we shall find represented in it all the component parts of male dress, and almost all of them under the same names.  It must be remarked, however, that the women’s coats and surcoats often trailed on the ground; that the hat—­which was generally called a couvre-chef, and consisted of a frame of wirework covered over with stuff which was embroidered or trimmed with lace—­was not of a conical shape; and, lastly, that the chaperon, which was always made with a tippet, or chausse, never turned over so as to form a cap.  We may add that the use of the couvre-chef did not continue beyond the middle of the fourteenth century, at which time women adopted the custom of wearing any kind of head-dress they chose, the hair being kept back by a silken net, or crepine, attached either to a frontlet, or to a metal fillet, or confined by a veil of very light material, called a mollequin (Fig. 420).

With the aid of our learned guide we have now reached a period (end of the thirteenth century) well adapted for this general study of the dress of our ancestors, inasmuch as soon afterwards men’s dress at least, and especially that of young courtiers, became most ridiculously and even indecently exaggerated.  To such an extent was this the case, that serious calamities having befallen the French nation about this time, and its fashions having exercised a considerable influence over the whole continent of Europe, contemporary historians do not hesitate to regard these public misfortunes as a providential chastisement inflicted on France for its disgraceful extravagance in dress.

[Illustration:  Fig. 421.—­Costumes of a young Nobleman and of a Bourgeois in the Fourteenth Century.—­From a painted Window in the Church of Saint-Ouen at Rouen, and from a Window at Moulins (Bourbonnais).]

“We must believe that God has permitted this as a just judgment on us for our sins,” say the monks who edited the “Grande Chronique de St. Denis,” in 1346, at the time of the unfortunate battle of Cressy, “although it does not belong to us to judge.  But what we see we testify to; for pride was very great in France, and especially amongst the nobles and others, that is to say, pride of nobility, and covetousness.  There was also much impropriety in dress, and this extended throughout the whole of France.  Some had their clothes so short and so tight that it required the help of two persons to dress and undress them, and whilst they were being undressed they appeared as if they were being skinned.  Others wore dresses plaited over their loins like women; some had chaperons cut out in points all round; some had tippets of one cloth, others of another; and some had their head-dresses and sleeves reaching to the ground, looking more like mountebanks than anything else.  Considering all this, it is not surprising if God employed the King of England as a scourge to correct the excesses of the French people.”