Every wealthy woman loaded herself with jewels. They wore pearl necklaces, jacinths, diamonds, gowns with long trains, mantles, tunics, hoods, veils, and casques; earrings, bracelets, necklets, and rings; stomachers and belts of woollen, linen, or silk. Their dresses on festive occasions sparkled with gold and jewels. St. Gregory of Nazianzen rebuked them for their innumerable perfumed plaits of hair, yet they knew of one pommade only—“suint,” an animal grease which proceeds from the skin of the sheep and clings to its wool. Such a perfume would be nauseous to the women of our day, but it was much liked by the Frankish women, either for its novelty, or from its efficaciousness in giving smoothness to the skin. A MS. of 660 gives the picture of a Merovingian lady wearing her hair smoothly parted on the brow and hanging down in two thick plaits, lessening in size as they fall over her shoulders. A fluted diadem of gold, placed like a crown on the head, confines the hair, and imparts to the pictured form a certain air of majesty. Young girls, with whom it was customary to wear their hair flowing loosely, were permitted no ornaments on the head. This was so general a custom that if as they grew older they remained unmarried, they were said to “wear their hair.” The beautiful Radégonde, after the murder of her brother by her husband Clotaire I., received permission from the tyrant to withdraw from the world. As a mark of humility she placed on the altar her diadems, bracelets, clasps of precious gems, fringes, and golden and purple tissues. Then she broke in twain her belt of massive gold. The sacrifice was consummated; Radégonde belonged to God alone. She died in the odour of sanctity at the monastery of Sainte-Croix, which she had founded at Poitiers. One of the councils forbade married women to cut their hair, as a symbol of their subjection to their husbands. But this prohibition did not cure them of their vanity; they might still plait their hair with ribbons, and wear it parted in the middle and falling in two wide plaits, like that of Swiss peasants at the present day. Numerous statues have preserved for us this Merovingian fashion, which was not wanting in grace, while it conferred on women an appearance of severe simplicity, less majestic than that of the figure I have described in speaking of a manuscript of the seventh century. [Illustration: CAPETIAN COSTUMES 1100 to 1364 CARLOVINGIAN COSTUMES 9th and 10th Centuries] CHAPTER III. THE CARLOVINGIAN PERIOD. 752 TO 987. Reign of Charlemagne—The women of the tenth century wear two tunics—Judith’s belt—A veil is obligatory—Miniatures in the Mazarin Library—Charles the Bald’s Bible—Shoes—Dress of Queen Lutgarde—Dress of Rotrude and Bertha—Gisla and other kinswomen of the Emperor—The successors of Charlemagne—Cannes—Adelaide of Vermandois—The dress of widows.