two channels--military and ecclesiastical; and even the castle was as yet a very simple edifice. The various buildings which occupied its outer ward were mere huts of wood or rubble; and the stone wall of the keep itself, though of enormous thickness and solidity, was often nothing more than a shell, the space inside it being divided by wooden partitions into rooms covered with lean-to roofs of thatch. Even where the keep was entirely of stone, all thought of accommodation or elegance was completely subordinated to the one simple, all-important purpose of defence. It is this stern simplicity which gives to the remains of our early castles a grandeur of their own, and strikes the imagination far more impressively than the elaborate fortifications of later times. But it left no scope to the finer fancies of the architect. His feeling for artistic decoration, his love of beauty, of harmonious light and shade, had free play only in his work for the Church; while the more general taste for personal luxury and elegance had to find expression chiefly in minor matters, and especially in dress. During the last reign the extravagance of attire among the nobles had been carried to a pitch which called forth the energetic remonstrances of serious men; prelate after prelate thundered against the unseemly fashions--the long hair curled and scented like a woman’s, the feminine ornaments, the long pointed shoes and loose flowing garments which rendered all manly exercises impossible.[170] After the Red King’s death a reforming party, headed by the new sovereign and his friend Robert of Meulan,[171] succeeded in effecting a return to the more rational attire of the ordinary Norman knighthood; a close-fitting tunic with a long cloak, reaching almost to the feet, thrown over it for riding or walking.[172] The English townsfolk, then as now, endeavoured to copy the dress of their neighbours from beyond the Channel. Among the rural population, however, foreign fashions were slow to penetrate; and the English countryman went on tilling his fields clad in the linen smock-frock which had once been the ordinary costume of all classes of men among his forefathers, and which has scarcely yet gone out of use among his descendants. [157] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, vol. i. pp. 2, 5. [158] _Ib._ p. 16. [159] Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. v. c. 407 (Hardy, p. 636). [160] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, vol. i. p. 13. [161] _Ib._ pp. 2, 15. [162] _Ib._ p. 5. [163] _Ib._ p. 16. [164] _Ib._ p. 10. [165] Ed. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 357. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 4. [166] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, pp. 8, 17, 18. [167] According to Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii. p. 8), fires and drunkenness were the two plagues of London. [168] Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, p. xxvii. (introduction).