Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
History
Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies. Vol 1
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille
Erotic literature
Then you have that English Lord in the _Cent Nouvelles_ of the Queen of
Navarre, which did in like wise wear his mistress’ glove by his side,
and that so richly adorned. Again I have known many gentlemen which,
before donning of their silk stockings, would beg their fair ladies and
mistresses to try on the same and wear them the first a week or ten
days, more or less; after which themselves would wear them in great
respect and high content of mind and body.
I knew once a Lord of the great world, who being at sea with a very
great lady and one of the fairest of womankind, had the happiness,
seeing he was travelling with her through his country and as her women
were all ill of seasickness and so in very ill case to serve her, to
be obliged to put her to bed with his own hands every night and get her
up in the morning. But in so doing and in putting on of her foot-gear
and taking off the same, he did grow so much enamoured as to be well
nigh desperate, albeit she was his near kinswoman. For verily the
temptation herein was too exceeding great, and there doth not exist the
man so mortified in spirit but he is something moved by the same.
We do read of the wife of Nero, Poppæa Sabina, which was the favourite
of all his wives and mistresses, how that, beside being the most lavish
of women in all sorts of superfluities, ornaments, embellishments,
gawds and costly weeds, she did wear shoes and slippers all of pure
gold. This luxury was not like to make her hide her foot and leg from
Nero, her cuckold mate; nor yet did he enjoy the sole delight and
pleasure of the sight, for there was many another lover had the same
privilege. Well might she display this extravagance for herself, seeing
she was used to have her horses’ hoofs, which did draw her chariot,
shod with shoes of silver.
Saint Jerome doth reprove in very severe terms a lady of his time which
was over careful of the beauty of her leg, using these exact words:
“With her little brown boot, well fitting and well polished, she doth
decoy young men, and the tinkle of her shoe-buckles is a snare unto
them.” No doubt this was some dainty fashion of foot-gear in vogue in
those days, that was over luxurious and ill becoming to modest women.
The wearing of foot-gear of the sort is to this present day in use
among Turkish ladies, and those the best-born and most virtuous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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