The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from TransylvaniaGerard, E. (Emily)
History
The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania
Gerard, E. (Emily)
Transylvania (Romania) -- Description and travel
“5. The women shall avoid all that is superfluous in dress, nor shall
they make horns upon their heads.[12] Rich veils shall only be worn by
such as are entitled to them, neither shall any woman wear gold cords
beneath her veil, not even if she be the wife of a gentleman.
“6. Silk caps with golden stars are not suitable for every woman. More
than two handsome jewelled pins shall no woman wear, and should a woman
require more than two for fastening her veil, let her take small pins.
Not every one’s child is entitled to wear corals round its neck. Let
no woman copy the dress of noble dames, for it is not suitable for us
Saxons.
“7. Peasant-maids shall wear no crooked (probably puffed) sleeves sewed
with braids, for they have no right to them. They may wear no red
shoes, and also on their best aprons may they have two braids only;
one of these may be straight and the other nicked out, but neither
over-broad. Let none presume to wear high-heeled shoes, but let them
conform to the prescribed measure under heavy penalty.
“8. Let the womenkind remember that such things as are forbidden
become them but badly. Let them wear the _borten_[13] according to
the prescribed measurements. Let the _herren töchter_ (gentlemen’s
daughters, meaning probably burghers) not make the use of gold braids
over-common, but content themselves with honorable fringes. The
serving-girls shall go _absolutely_ without fringes, nor may they buy
silk cords of three yards’ length, else these will be taken from their
head and nailed against the church wall.
“9. Among the women are beginning to creep in gold rings which cover
the half-finger _ad formam et normam nobilium_—after the fashion of
nobles; let these be _completely_ forbidden.”
The worthy prelate who issued all these stern injunctions appears to
have been so uncommonly well versed in all the intricacies of female
costume as to make us wonder whether he had not missed his vocation
as a man-milliner. It must have been a decidedly nervous matter for
the women to attend service at his cathedral, with the consciousness
that this terrible eagle-glance was taking stock of their clothes all
the time, mentally appraising the value of each head-pin, and gauging
the breadth of every ribbon. Most likely he succeeded in his object of
keeping poor human vanity in check for a time, though not in rooting
it out, for scarcely a hundred years later we find a new set of dress
rules delivered from another pulpit:
“First of all, it is herewith forbidden to both sexes to wear
anything whatsoever which has not been manufactured in Transylvania.
Furthermore, it is prohibited to the men—
“1. To wear the so-called broad summer foreign hats.
“2. The double-trimmed hats, with head of outlandish cloth; only the
jurymen and officials are allowed to wear them.
“3. Trousers of outlandish cloth, or trimmed with braids.
“To the womenkind let it be _completely_ forbidden to wear—
“1. Fine blue-dyed head-cloths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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