"Of the military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts, complicated
chains and gorgets, huge churn-boots, and other riding and fighting gear
have been bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole has acquired somewhat
of a sign-post character,--I shall here say nothing: the civil and pacific
classes, less touched upon, are wonderful enough for us.

"Rich men, I find, have _Teusinke_ [a perhaps untranslatable article]; also
a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that when a man walks, it is
with continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, have a whole chime of
bells (_Glockenspiel_) fastened there; which, especially in sudden whirls,
and the other accidents of walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too how
fond they are of peaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. The male world
wears peaked caps, an ell long, which hang bobbing over the side
(_schief_): their shoes are peaked in front, also to the length of an ell,
and laced on the side with tags; even the wooden shoes have their ell-long
noses: some also clap bells on the peak. Further, according to my
authority, the men have breeches without seat (_ohne Gesass_): these they
fasten peakwise to their shirts; and the long round doublet must overlap
them.

"Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out behind and before,
so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives of quality, on the other
hand, have train-gowns four or five ells in length; which trains there are
boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with
a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a handbreadth thick, which
waver round them by way of hem; the long flood of silver buttons, or rather
silver shells, from throat to shoe, wherewith these same welt-gowns are
buttoned. The maidens have bound silver snoods about their hair, with gold
spangles, and pendent flames (_Flammen_), that is, sparkling hair-drops:
but of their mother's head-gear who shall speak? Neither in love of grace