Necklaces or neck-chains worn by both sexes are a prominent feature in Renaissance jewellery. Just as in primitive times the neck was encircled by a torque, so at this later period it was the custom to carry heavy chains of pure gold, which were worn in different ways, either round the throat, or else upon the shoulders and low down over the breast. Sometimes one long chain was wound several times round the neck so that the uppermost row closely encircled the throat. Not satisfied with one, women in particular occasionally wore as many as half a dozen chains of different design covering the body from neck to waist. From the fifteenth until the middle of the seventeenth century neck-chains were a frequent adjunct to male costume, and allusion is made to them in Barclay's _Ship of Fools_ (printed by Pynson in 1508):-- Some theyr neckes charged with colers, and chaynes As golden withtthes: theyr fyngers ful of rynges: Theyr neckes naked: almoste vnto the raynes; Theyr sleues blasinge lyke to a Cranys wynges. Men's necklaces, apart from the chains and collars of distinction belonging to particular orders or guilds, seem to have been mostly of pure gold, and in the reign of Henry VIII the fashion of wearing them was carried to a most unreasonable excess. Hall speaks of the "nombre of chaynes of golde and bauderickes both massy and grate" worn at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and of the "marveilous treasor of golde" thus displayed. References to the extraordinary dimensions of these chains show that they must have been extremely inconvenient to wear. Henry VIII's Book of Payments records the payment in 1511 of £199 to the goldsmith Roy for a chain of gold weighing no less than 98 ounces. This is actually surpassed in Elizabeth's time, when Her Majesty received as a New Year's gift in 1588 "one cheine of golde, weing one hundred threescore and one ounce." Queen Mary had a heavy chain of gold made by her jeweller, Robert Raynes, out of the angels received as New Year's gifts;[155] and the curious custom of converting bullion into chains is further exemplified in the case of Sir Thomas Gresham, the bulk of whose wealth on his death in 1579 was found to consist of gold chains. [155] Nichols (J.), _Illustrations of the manners and expenses of ancient times in England_, Pt. III, p. 26. Pictures without number exhibit these ponderous neck-ornaments, while contemporary wills teem with references to them. That they were very much worn in Shakespeare's time would be apparent had we no other authority than his frequent allusion to them, as for instance in the _Comedy of Errors_, where there is a great ado about a chain. Indeed, no gentleman was considered properly equipped unless he had his chain of gold upon his shoulders.