Great sums were spent on dress by both sexes, and the courtiers'
doublets, or jackets, were of the most costly silks and velvets,
elaborately puffed and slashed. During the latter part of the period
the pointed shoes, which had formerly been of prodigious length,
suddenly began to grow broad, with such rapidity that Parliament
passed a law limiting the width of the toes to six inches.
At the same time the court ladies adopted the fashion of wearing horns
as huge in proportion as the noblemen's shoes. The government tried
legislating them down, and the clergy fulminated a solemn curse
against them; but fashion was more powerful than Church and Parliament
combined, and horns and hoofs came out triumphant.