In the early Dark Ages there was some prejudice against these rich embroideries. In the sixth century the Bishop St. Cesaire of Arles forbade his nuns to embroider robes with precious stones or painting and flowers. King Withaf of Mercia willed to the Abbey of Croyland "my purple mantle which I wore at my Coronation, to be made into a cope, to be used by those who minister at the holy altar: and also my golden veil, embroidered with the Siege of Troy, to be hung up in the Church on my anniversary." St. Asterius preached to his people, "Strive to follow in your lives the teachings of the Gospel, rather than have the miracles of Our Redeemer embroidered on your outward dress!" This prejudice, however, was not long lived, and the embroidered vestments and garments continued to hold their popularity all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It has been said on grave authority that "Woman is an animal that delights in the toilette," while Petrarch, in 1366, recognized the power of fashion over its votaries. "Who can see with patience," he writes, "the monstrous fantastical inventions which people of our times have invented to deform rather than adorn their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes, their caps with feathers, their hair twisted and hanging down like tails,... their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion!" And yet who shall say whether a "dress-reform" Laura would have charmed any more surely the eye of the poet? Chaucer, in England, also deplores the fashions of his day, alluding to the "sinful costly array of clothing, namely, in too much superfluity or else indisordinate scantiness!" Changing fashions have always been the despair of writers who have tried to lay down rules for aesthetic effect in dress. "An Englishman," says Harrison, "endeavouring some time to write of our attire... when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travail, and onely drue a picture of a naked man unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end that he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no garment that could please him any while together: and this he called an Englishman."