Item it is statut that na yeman na comonner to landwarts wer hewyt clathes siddar na the kne na yit ragyt clathes bot allenarly centynal yemen in lords housis at rids with gentill men thar masters the quhilks sal haf narow slewis and litil poks.[10] The introduction of printing naturally tended to produce and to preserve many descriptions of the Highland dress written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by Scottish historians and by travellers from other countries. Of the more important of these, the earliest in chronological order is John Major (1469-1550), whose work was originally published in Latin in 1521. He writes:— Just as among the Scots we find two distinct tongues, so we likewise find two different ways of life and conduct. For some are born in the forests and mountains of the north, and these we call men of the Highland, but the others men of the Lowland. By foreigners the former are called Wild Scots, the latter householding Scots. The Irish tongue is in use among the former, the English tongue among the latter. One half of Scotland speaks Irish, and all these as well as the Islanders we reckon to belong to the Wild Scots. In dress, in the manner of their outward life, and in good morals, for example, these come behind the householding Scots.... From the mid-leg to the foot they go uncovered; their dress is, for an over garment, a loose plaid, and a shirt saffron-dyed. They are armed with bow and arrows, a broadsword, and a small halbert. They always carry in their belt a stout dagger, single-edged, but of the sharpest. In time of war they cover the whole body with a coat of mail, made of iron rings, and in it they fight. The common folk among the Wild Scots go out to battle with the whole body clad in a linen garment sewed together in patchwork, well daubed with wax or with pitch, and with an over-coat of deerskin. But the common people among our domestic Scots and the English fight in a woollen garment.[11] From these and other passages in Major’s work it may be inferred that the chiefs and upper classes of the Highlands alone wore the plaid, or any woollen clothing whatever, and that the lower orders were prevented by poverty from obtaining luxuries of this sort. Writing of the clan battle at Perth in 1396, Major states:— Thirty men, naked but for a doublet that hung from one side, made for the field of battle, armed with bow and double-axe; and these forthwith met the encounter of a like number, armed in the same fashion.... One of the combatants made his escape from the fight.... And there was not found any man who would take the place of the runaway; and ’twas no marvel, since to fight for your life, naked but for a plaid, is no trifle.[12] In his account of the revolt of Alexander, Lord of the Isles, against the king, describing the Wild Scots, and particularly Clan Chattan and Clan Cameron, Major observes:—