On each occasion of a court or national festivity, the apparel of the great was ponderous with gold and silver fringe, or thickly strewn with pearls--the characteristic _aljofar_ or _aljofar_-work (Arabic _chawar_, small pearls), for which the Moors were widely famed. Towards the thirteenth century unmarried Spanish women of high rank possessed abundant stores of bracelets, earrings, necklaces, gold chains, rings, and gem-embroidered pouches for their money. Their waist-belts, too, were heavy with gold and silver, and _aljofar_.[33] The poem of the Archpriest of Hita (1343) mentions two articles of jewellery for female wear called the _broncha_ and the _pancha_. The former was an ornament for the throat; the other, a plate or medal which hung to below the waist. An Arabic document quoted by Casiri, and dating from the reign of Henry the First of Castile, specifies as belonging to an aristocratic lady of that time, "Egyptian shirts of silk and linen, embroidered shirts, Persian shirts with silk embroidery, Murcian gold necklaces, ear-pendants of the same metal, set with gems; finger-rings and bracelets, waist-belts of skins, embroidered with silk and precious stones; cloaks of cloth of gold, embroidered mantles of the same, coverings for the head, and kerchiefs." [33] _Ibid_. For all the frequency with which they framed and iterated sterile and exasperating sumptuary pragmatics for their people, the Spanish kings themselves went even beyond the nobles in their craze for ostentatious luxury. Upon the day when he was crowned at Burgos, Alfonso the Eleventh "arrayed himself in gold and silver cloth bearing devices of the castle and the lion, in which was much _aljofar_-work, as well as precious stones innumerable; rubies, emeralds, and sapphires." Even the bit and saddle of the monarch's charger were "exceeding precious on this day, for gems and gold and silver covered all the saddle-bows, and the sides of the saddle and its girths, together with the headstall, were curiously wrought of gold and silver thread."