"He prankt it up in Fardingals and Muffs, In Masks, Rebatos, Shapperowns, and Wyers, In Paintings, Powd'rings, Perriwigs, and Cuffes, In Dutch, Italian, Spanish, French attires; Thus was it born, brought forth, and made Love's baby, And this is that which now we call a Lady." Nor was it the fair sex only who were thus lampooned. The men also came in for their share, and were as much the objects of the satirist's wrath as were the women:-- "Your ruffs and your bands, And your cuffs at your hands, Your pipes and your smokes, And your short curtall clokes, Scarfes, feathers and swerdes, And their bodkin beards; Your wastes a span long, Your knees with points hung Like morrice-dance bels And many toyes els." SKELTON, _Elinor Rummin_, 1625. The Knight of La Tour Landry, writing towards the close of the fourteenth century, in order to deter his daughters from extravagance and superfluity of dress, recounts a story of a knight who, having lost his wife, applied to "an heremyte hys uncle" to know whether she was saved or not and how it "stode with her." The hermit, after many prayers, dreamed that he saw "Seint Michelle & the develle that had her in a balaunce, & alle her good dedes in the same balaunce, & a develle & alle her evelle dedes in that other balaunce. & the most that grevid her was her good & gay clothing, & furres of gray menivere & letuse; & the develle cried & sayde, Seint Michel, this woman had tenne diverse gownes & as mani cotes; & thou wost welle lesse myghte have suffised her after the lawe of God; ... & he toke all her juellys and rynges, ... & also the false langage that she had saide ... & caste hem in the balaunce with her evelle dedes." The "evelle dedes passed the good, & weyed downe & overcame her good dedes. & there the develle toke her, & bare her away, & putte her clothes & aray brennyng in the flawme on her with the fire of helle, & kist her doune into the pitte of helle; ... & the pore soul cried, & made moche sorughe & pite ... but it boted not." Lydgate, the famous monk of Bury, and one of the foremost poets of his time, was unwearying in his condemnation of the extravagances of dress, his pet aversion being the horned head-dresses which obtained during the York and Lancastrian period. In a "Ditty of Women's Horns," he unbosoms himself as follows:-- "Clerkys recorde, by gret auctoryté, Hornes wer yove to bestys for dyffence; A thing contrarye to femynté, To be maad sturdy of resystence. But arche wives, egre in ther vyolence, Fers as tygres for to make affray They have despit, and ageyn concyence Lyst nat of pryde, then hornes cast away."