Fashions in dress do not change around St. Aliquis so rapidly as in other ages, yet there are constant innovations. For example, the surcoat is coming in. Originally it was a longish woman's garment, but recently a fine knight riding down from Rheims wore one cleverly adapted to masculine necessities. It was a close, sleeveless jacket cut short at the hips and made with big armholes for easy movement. Conon must have one very soon. Inevitably too, at the king's court all kinds of new fashions, luxuries and ornamentations are to be observed. Women cover themselves with gold embroidery, wear gold buttons, and gold girdles set alternately with agates and sapphires. They protect their hands with chamois-skin gloves, and swing a silken alms purse from silver chains at their belts. Fine cavaliers load themselves with a dozen buckles set with sardonyx, and pieces of enamel, and even wear small emeralds in the embroidery on their mantles. Pointed shoes are coming much into style, with the use of colored thongs to bind them to the feet. [Illustration: FELT SHOE Thirteenth century (various monuments).] Yet the St. Aliquis simplicity is hardly undermined. Except on fête days the seigneur is not much better clad than the upper servitors, and Adela never ceases to warn her sister-in-law against extravagance of dress. "Consider always your husband's rank and fortune, but never disgrace them by seeming to devote too much study to your costume or by constantly plunging into new fashions. Before leaving your room be sure your appearance is neat, and see especially to it that the collar of your gown is well adjusted and is not put on crooked."[25] The dress of the humbler folk is of the above nature, of course simplified, and of more sober hue. Blue is the color of the baronial house and nearly all its lord's followers wear bliauts of that color. This is their livery, because twice per year there is a distribution (a _livraison_) of garments to all whom Conon undertakes to clothe and feed. [Illustration: WINTER COSTUME IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY From a manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale (Viollet-Le-Duc).] Noble folk thus display their rank by wearing furs. They also show it by their headdresses. When the baron wishes to put on dignity he assumes a velvet bonnet in place of the ordinary cloth one. On formal occasions, however, this bonnet will be embroidered with gold thread and become his "cap of presence." Sometimes these caps are elaborated and made with a flattened square top. These are the _mortiers_, and in generations later great lawyers and doctors will wear the mortar-board as a professional badge long after the high barons have absolutely discarded the fashion.