Part 7

As early as the seventh century a ring was among the distinctive insignia of a bishop, and one was found on the finger of Bishop Agilbert of Paris (who lived at this time) when his coffin was opened. The ring was of gold and, as is usual, had a jewel set in it, on which, in the particular case mentioned, was a likeness of Christ and of St. Jerome. The origin is no doubt to be found in the fact that in Roman times rings were used as an insignia of rank.

The episcopal ring proper was only one of many other rings which a bishop might wear as ornaments. It was borne on the third finger of the right hand, above the second joint, and was usually kept in place with a plain guard ring.

The Greeks and Romans used betrothal rings as pledges, but not wedding rings. There is a good deal of interesting symbolism in connection with rings, and it is said that the third finger of the left hand was chosen because in old times it was thought that a vein came to that finger direct from the heart. The practical point is that the finger in question is not very much used, and on it the rings would not be so liable to be worn out as on some of the others.

It is also supposed that the left hand was chosen as it was the less important, and the wearing of a ring on this hand signified servitude. An interesting form of early wedding rings was that called the gimmal ring, which consisted of two links, each having a hand upon it, which when brought together formed a single ring with the hands clasped together. The ring was used at betrothal, and the man and woman each kept a half until their wedding day. Perhaps the old custom of breaking a coin upon engagement so that each of the contracting parties may have half, is a relic of the same custom. In Ireland the peasantry still use a ring, though a solid one, bearing clasped hands. We have possibly a survival of the interesting posey rings in those which bear the word Mizpah. This originally signified "a watch-tower," but it is now taken as expressing the following sentiment: "God watch over thee and me when we are apart." In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the couplet or line was, as in the case mentioned, put on the outside of the ring, while later, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the words were engraved inside the ring. Occasionally we see a necktie held in place with a ring, and this may well be connected with the custom of wearing rings round the neck on a ribbon. It is recorded that the Duke of Burgundy, who died in 1476, carried his signet ring in this way.

A custom is still sometimes followed which dates back to the sixteenth century. It is that of choosing stones on account of the first letters of their names and setting them in a ring in such an order that the initials spell a word or words. For instance, the following--Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby, and Diamond, indicate REGARD; while a lover's exhortation is produced by such a combination as Lapis-lazuli, Opal, Verdi-antique, Emerald, Malachite, Emerald.

Many of the Egyptian rings are made of blue pottery or faïence, and some of them show highly ornamental and pierced work. The lotus flowers and other figures upon them point to their being symbolical. Others bear the sacred eye in the place where the seal would be in a signet ring, and were probably used as amulets; but of ornaments worn on account of their supposed virtues we will speak in a moment.

An ornament for the head, with which we will deal, is the crown. Mr. Elworthy, in a paper to the British Association at Ipswich in 1895, derived the crown from horns of honour. He maintained that the symbols found on the head of the god Serapis were the elements from which were formed the composite head-dress called the crown, into which horns entered to a very great extent. The panache in heraldry is derived from the horn, and it may be recalled that the deer-skin cloaks worn by the Bronze Age people over the woven dresses that have been described on pages 18 and 73, bore the horns of the animal from which they were taken.

Though the comb used as an ornament in the hair is also worn on the head, it is on a very much lower plane than the crown, and has presumably a very much less exalted origin. Professor Boyd Dawkins[11] has expressed the opinion that the old loom comb (see Fig. 106), such as one found in the prehistoric lake dwellings which have been excavated at Glastonbury, is the ancestor of the comb worn as a head-dress at the present day (see Fig. 107). Combs were used to push down the weft on a hand loom, the warp being kept taut by means of weights. The long hair-combs used by the natives of the West Carolines are also of very much the same shape as the old loom combs.

Already in the safety-pin and scarf-pin we have had instances of fastenings which at times are ornamental. The button and its relative the stud afford another case in point. A stud is in reality a button which appears on both sides of the stuff through which it is put. It is obvious that it is most convenient to use when the material to be fastened is of a stiff texture. At present we use studs in our starched linen, and they are also adopted for fastening parts of leather accoutrements, as they evidently were in the times of the later bronze folk. This will be seen from Figure 108. One of these is adorned with the triskele, which is allied to the swastika, and no doubt gave rise to the three-legged charge on the coat of arms of the Isle of Man and of Sicily.

Buttons have from time to time done a great deal in the way of decorating clothes, in addition to the part which they have played as fastenings. We saw in an earlier chapter how many of our buttons, which are now only ornamental, were once of use, and any history of costume which goes into details will show how largely, superfluous buttons have figured as ornaments. The older Quakers, of course, refused to wear any buttons that were not needful, and brought down upon them the criticisms of Cobbett, who referred to other things which they lacked besides buttons. Although at the present time we may be inclined to appreciate some of our purposeless buttons, on account of their historic associations, we cannot say the same for many of those which now appear on ladies' dresses. There is little sense in having on the front of a bodice a series of buttons of which the first member is very large and the last very small, with the others graduated in size between them, while there seems to be no rhyme nor reason in many other individual buttons or patches of them which are dotted here and there over the costume. It is not as if these additions were really handsome. Not long ago they looked as if the wearer had saved up all her old glove buttons, and then had sewed them to her frock, for they were quite tiny and made of brass. Now, though they are larger, they are merely covered with the cloth of which the dress is made and are usually quite plain.

In some cases buttons show great beauty of design, and for this reason, if not on account of the material of which they are made, may be exceedingly valuable.

Bearing on the antiquity of buttons, we may say that they are found among prehistoric remains in this country, and though they were foreign to the ancient Egyptians, we learn (through the kindness of Professor Flinders Petrie) that engraved buttons or seals were usual from the sixth to the nineteenth dynasty, probably among foreign immigrants, for the designs are never true Egyptian. In the present year, 1907, Professor Petrie found a cornelian button with a copper shank which belongs to the twelfth dynasty.

The use of flowers, whether artificial or natural, on the person, and more particularly the wearing of feathers, also takes us back to the primitive instinct of early or uncivilized man.

In our own country the custom of wearing feathers is an exceedingly old one. The single upright specimens worn by the knights of the fourteenth century have been characterized as being preposterous in size. The plumes afterwards worn in helmets in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were also immense. In 1606, according to Nichol's "Progresses," on the occasion of the visit of Christian IV, some of the knights "wore strange feathers of rich and great esteem which they called Birdes of Paradice," and, unfortunately, ladies of the present day wear them still. In the reign of Edward IV, we learn, only men, practically speaking, wore feathers. They still survive in the army, but otherwise in the twentieth century, with the exception of an occasional small and modest instance amongst civilians, the wearing of plumes is confined to ladies.

Many flowers and feathers are exceedingly beautiful, and from an artistic point of view there seems little reason why we should allow civilization to sweep them away. We are quiet and colourless in our clothing, and if we are not careful the same element of dulness may creep into our lives. At the same time, however, to wear feathers which can only be obtained at the cost of cruelty or of depriving others of the sight of beautiful birds, or, again, of bringing any species to extinction, savours too much of barbarousness and thoughtlessness to be in any way condoned.

Ostriches are reared for their feathers, and the plumage of many birds that are killed for food is always at hand.

Men have much less opportunity now of showing any great individuality in their dress than heretofore, but sometimes they may be known by always wearing a buttonhole, even if that does not always consist of the same kind of bloom. The language of flowers, though now seemingly considered to be a dead letter, was hardly invented for nothing.

Of the brooch and its connection with the safety-pin we have already spoken. In many ornaments we find remnants of religious ideas; for instance, all brooches showing a crescent pattern or bearing the design of a hand are connected with the old phallic worship. The cross, it may be mentioned, is of much more ancient origin than Christianity, and is connected intimately with the swastika or fylfot.

The locket and other pendant ornaments must in many, if not all, cases be the descendants of amulets. The Arab women at the present day wear a little metal box containing a written talisman. An ancient Egyptian buried, with his mummies, many amulets and charms so that the soul, in obedience to various precepts, might enter into complete union with Ra, the solar god, and so accompany him on his journey round the world, and secure his everlasting protection.

It is due to these ideas that we owe the beautifully modelled figures of glazed pottery found in the Egyptian tombs. Many of them depict the various gods and goddesses acknowledged in Egypt, and they are usually pierced for attachment to the person. These were also carried on the person during life, and children especially were accustomed to wear them.

Old religious beliefs and superstitions that have not yet died out, have elsewhere given rise to the wearing of charms, and it is interesting to note that flint arrow-heads, under the name of "elves' arrows," were made into pendants by races who had reached the metal stage of culture.

Precious stones, upon which a word may be said here, no doubt at first were prized for their beauty alone, and then imagination gradually endowed many of them with fictitious properties and virtues, though doubtless the supposed attributes of some and the value and beauty of others have kept many precious stones in favour until the present day. Fashion is now particularly fickle as regards them, and craftsmen who deal with gems, feel her decrees[12] more keenly perhaps than any one else. Some half-dozen kinds of stones--such as diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, opals, and turquoises--never go completely out of fashion, but even among these, one or other becomes paramount from time to time.

The topaz and chrysolite were reported to lose their brilliancy when placed in liquid that contains poison. To the amethyst was attributed the power of warding off the effects of drunkenness. The diamond, it was believed, gave to the wearers magnanimity, virtue, and courage. The ancients supposed that the opal shared the charm of every stone of which it reflected the colour, but when it was stolen, the thief became invisible, and was allowed to escape scot free. Mr. Claremont[13] has made an interesting suggestion as to the reason why the opal has been considered unlucky. The notion, he says, is not nearly so ancient as many of the superstitions relating to other stones, and probably does not date further back than the Middle Ages. The old name "ophal" was used as late as the time of Queen Elizabeth, and came from the Greek for "eye"-stone, and as eyes are unlucky even in peacocks' feathers, perhaps the explanation of the superstition lies in the name of the stone.

Such walking-sticks as those garnished with "sylver" and "golde," which are described as being at the Royal Palace at Greenwich in the reign of Henry VIII, may well be considered as ornaments. The same may be said of the be-ribboned canes of the exquisites of Charles II's and later times. We mention them because, within the last two or three years, there has been a talk of seeing "the nice conduct of a clouded cane" more generally considered, and some men have appeared at the theatre with long, gold-knobbed and tasselled canes.

The buckle, which may be ornamental or useful, or both, is well worthy of our attention. It consists in its simple form of a ring and a pin, and the latter is hinged on to the former. It is, in fact, much like a brooch, but without a hasp, and used in a different way. There are brooches, however, at the present day, which are even simpler in construction than the buckle, and they are used[14] even now by blacksmiths in Kirkudbrightshire, in the form of the iron ring and a horseshoe nail, with which they fasten their aprons. Similar pin-ring brooches were used in Ireland until quite recently and are known from early times. Mr. Edward Lovett[15] thinks that such a fastening may well have been derived from two bones of the sheep or deer, the garment being pulled through the ring formed by half the hip girdle, and speared through with the pointed heel bone.

A still more primitive pin was no doubt a thorn, and fish-hooks are to this day used on the coasts of Essex, which are made from the same natural object.

XIII

HAIR DRESSING

HEAD SHAVING--WIGS THAT ARE STILL WORN--ROMAN CURLS AND FRINGES

The styles in which hair is dressed are so intimately connected with fashions in costume that no excuse is needed for dealing with the question here. Moreover, there are certain vestiges in costume occasionally to be met with which owe their origin to the way in which hair was once arranged. Hair can be treated in all sorts of manners without injuring the person in any way, and usually without causing pain, though some fashions in hair arrangement had results that were far from pleasant, and must have caused considerable discomfort.

In addition to the styles in which hair is allowed to grow, there are others which lead to its removal from one or more of the places which it normally covers, and almost every change that could be rung is met with. In addition to the hair on the head, women have only their eyebrows and eyelashes to consider, though it is the fashion to remove any "superfluous" hair from their faces and arms. Men have also to consider moustaches, whiskers, and beard. Nowadays it is decreed that women's hair should be long and that men's should be short; but even now men with long hair do not necessarily look effeminate, as is shown by the cowboys from the Wild West who have taken part in various exhibitions in this country, and whose hair reaches on to their shoulders. The shaving of the whole head is carried out by many savage nations, and this is perhaps surprising, seeing that the process cannot but be laborious and even painful when carried out with flint knives or pieces of shell. The Chinese leave the hair that grows from one small spot in order to make their pigtail.

In this country it might be thought that the tonsure of priests was the only remnant of shaving the head; but we need go no farther than the East End of London to find Jewesses who upon marriage shave their head and put on wigs. It appears that the custom is still universal in the remote villages of Russia, where every Jewess on her marriage shaves her head. The wig that is worn is of a very plain pattern, and the hair of which it is composed is parted down the middle. The object which seems to underlie the custom is the destruction of the charm of the women when once they have found husbands. In London the younger women do not seem to be keeping up the practice, and it is mostly in the case of those who are over forty years of age that shaved heads and wigs are to be found.

There may be, however, another explanation. In many countries where great value was attached to a profuse head of hair a variety of superstitions arose, and emblematic observances were followed with regard to it. Parents dedicated the hair of their infants to gods, as did young women theirs at their marriage, warriors after a successful campaign, and sailors after deliverance from a storm. The Egyptians of all classes, as well as their slaves, shaved their heads and wore wigs. By this habit they ensured greater cleanliness, and the structure of the wig not only allowed the heat from the head to escape, but protected the latter effectively from the sun.

It does not happen that both sexes always follow the practice of shaving their heads, for, contrary to what prevails amongst civilized nations, Fijian women are usually closely cropped, while the men spend much time and attention on cultivating and elaborately arranging a luxuriant mass of hair.

The tendency nowadays is to cultivate eyebrows and eyelashes, but if we go back in our history to the reign of Richard II we find that it was thought necessary to pull out the eyebrows, and at the present day in some parts of Africa it is one of the requirements of female beauty to eradicate the eyebrows. Special pinchers for this purpose are to be found among the appliances of the native toilet. A man may of course remove all the hair, speaking in the ordinary way, from his face, or he may retain only his moustache or his whiskers or his beard, or a combination of any two of these. At the present day we meet with all sorts of styles, though one may be the fashion for the moment among the younger generation or those who wish to be considered smart. One cannot alter the disposition of one's hair as easily as one can change one's clothes, and this, perhaps, taken in conjunction with the objection to change on the part of a man and his relatives, gives the variety that has been mentioned. For instance, if it were customary when a man was young for his fellows to wear beards or only a moustache, then he continues to wear a beard or only a moustache.

Perhaps no other fashions come round again more regularly than those which govern the amount of hair on a man's face, and it may be interesting to indicate very briefly some of the changes which have taken place during the last two thousand years or so in this country.

The inhabitants of England at the time of the Roman invasion either did not shave at all or wore only a moustache. The Romans often cut their beards (see Plate VII, Figure F.), and the Saxons parted their beards into double locks or neatly trimmed them. When the Normans came into this country they were closely shaved, but afterwards they went to the opposite extreme.

In the fourteenth century old men wore beards and the younger generation shaved. Edward III had a long beard, Edward II two small tufts on his chin, and in Edward IV's time the beard was closely shaven. Afterwards we find that a tax was put on beards, and once more, in Elizabeth's and the following reigns, we have a number of extraordinary fashions in connection with the hair on the chin. When we get to 1798, among the upper classes beards were again no longer worn, and there have been several changes since that time.

Apart from the prevailing fashion, there is, under the conditions which we have seen to govern the matter, considerable scope for the indulgence of individual taste, and often an effect is produced which is much more striking than otherwise would be the case. A man may choose, for instance, to grow a large pair of bushy whiskers, and he may thereby give character and importance to his face, which without them would be very insignificant. Curly hair is effective and has its advantages, therefore we find that it is carefully imitated both in the case of real hair and of wigs. The effect is now usually produced artificially only in connection with ladies' hair. When dealing with this branch of the subject, once more we might allude to the monstrous toilets which have been built up in defiance of all laws of proportion and, we might add, of comfort and cleanliness also.

To utilize the hair from the heads of others is an ancient practice still to be met with, and all sorts of means for making the most of one's own hair in the shape of pads and so on are still adopted.

When speaking of footmen, we shall find that those who dress in the costume that was in fashion when hair powder was in vogue still wear it, and the custom has been traced to the days of Rome, when gold dust was put upon the head. It has been suggested that our Saxon forerunners used coloured hair powder or else dyed their hair, but the evidence comes from Saxon drawings in which the hair is often painted blue, and this may be due merely to the caprice of the artist. It is well to be wary also in studying the colour of clothes at early periods, by looking at pictures, to remember that the illuminators may have followed their own fancy, and made garments of such colours as fitted in with their own ideas of ornament.

Though the use of wigs is extremely ancient, the origin, which is customarily ascribed to the peruke, is interesting. Many curious fashions have arisen through royal peculiarities or temporary indispositions, the courtiers having imitated their royal master or mistress, out of compliment. Louis XIV had, when a child, remarkably beautiful hair, which fell in curls on to his shoulders, and to imitate this, his courtiers put on false hair, while later in life the king himself adopted the fashion which they had set.

The obvious use of artificial additions to the hair has now been discontinued for very many years except in a few cases. Judges and barristers with a few Parliamentary and other officials still wear wigs, as do also certain coachmen and footmen, but these we shall consider elsewhere.

It will prove of no small interest after recalling the various modes of doing the hair which ladies have adopted during the last twenty or thirty years, to compare them with the fashions in Egypt in Roman times about two hundred years before the Christian era.