The shoes were, as usual to the last two reigns, rather blunt at the toe, and generally fitting without buckle, button, or strap round the ankle, where they were rolled back. Above the waist the tied girdle was still worn, but this was being supplanted by a broad belt of silk or ornamented leather, which fastened by means of a buckle. The tongue of the belt was made very long, and when buckled hung down below the knee. The cloaks, from the light way in which they are held, appear to have been made of silk or some such fine material as fine cloth. They are held on to the shoulders by a running band of stuff or a silk cord, the ends of which pass through two fasteners sewn on to the cloak, and these are knotted or have some projecting ornament which prevents the cord from slipping out of the fastener. In this way one sees the cloak hanging from the shoulders behind, and the cord stretched tight across the breast, or the cord knotted in a second place, and so bringing the cloak more over the shoulders. The effigy of the Queen at Fontevraud shows her dress covered with diagonal bars of gold, in the triangles of which there are gold crescents placed from point to point, and no doubt other ladies of her time had their emblems or badges embroidered into their gowns. RICHARD THE FIRST Reigned ten years: 1189-1199. Born 1157. Married, 1191, to Berengaria of Navarre. THE MEN [Illustration: {A man of the time of Richard I.; a hood; a shoe}] The King had but little influence over dress in his time, seeing that he left England as soon as he was made King, and only came back for two months in 1194 to raise money and to be crowned again. The general costume was then as plain as it had ever been, with long tunics and broad belts fastened by a big buckle. The difference in costume between this short reign and that of Henry II. is almost imperceptible; if any difference may be noted, it is in the tinge of Orientalism in the garments. There is more of the long and flowing robe, more of the capacious mantle, the wider sleeve. No doubt the many who came from the Crusades made a good deal of difference to English homes, and actual dresses and tunics from the East, of gorgeous colours and Eastern designs, were, one must suppose, to be seen in England. Cloth of gold and cloth of gold and silks--that is, warf of silk and weft of gold--were much prized, and were called by various names from the Persian, as 'ciclatoun,' 'siglaton.' Such stuff, when of great thickness and value--so thick that six threads of silk or hemp were in the warf--was called 'samite.' Later, when the cloth of gold was more in use, and the name had changed from 'ciclatoun' to 'bundekin,' and from that to 'tissue,' to keep such fine cloth from fraying or tarnishing, they put very thin sheets of paper away between the folds of the garments; so to this day we call such paper tissue-paper. Leaf-gold was used sometimes over silk to give pattern and richness to it.