In England, artificial flowers were unknown till the reign of Edward
III., A.D. 1041.
Artificial flowers, those beautiful imitations of the “stars of the
earth,” are brought to such perfection that they almost rival the
blossoms they are intended to imitate.
In France, during the reign of Charles VIII., in 1483, it is recorded
that head-dresses were lowered considerably; but in the portrait of Mary
of Burgundy, we find that she still wore the favorite towering cap that
had been fashionable for two hundred years before her time, with the
veil hanging to the ground and a square piece lying upon the neck and
shoulders.
It is a hard thing to say, but the women might have carried the Gothic
building, this steeple head-dress, much higher had it not been for a
famous monk, Thomas Conects by name, who attacked it with great zeal and
resolution.
This holy man travelled around to preach down this monstrous style, and
succeeded so well, that, as the magicians sacrificed their books to the
flames upon the preaching of an Apostle, so many of the women threw down
their head-dresses in the middle of his sermon, and made a bonfire of
them within sight of the pulpit. He was so renowned, as well for the
sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, that he would often
have twenty thousand people at a time to listen to him. The men placed
themselves on one side of the pulpit and the women on the other, and
the latter appeared (to use the similitude of an ingenious writer) like
a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds, but, like
snails in a fright, drew their horns in, to shoot them out again as soon
as the danger was gone.
[Illustration: 21 1000, A.D. 22 1000, A.D. 23 1200, A.D.
France.
24 1200. 25