FURS AND
30
famous glass
was not made
slipper
but simply lined with
ver
of glass at all, or miniver, wrongly in-
terpreted as verve (glass).
The epoch immediately
preceding the Renaissance
was a golden age for the fur trade. The rage for wearing fur-lined and trimmed garments spread to the North. The Crusaders had brought back with
them many
skins and furs of animals
little
known
and the wardrobes of our kings and queens, from the Conqueror down, show an to our ancestors
scale
increasing
the
in
Thus we know
furs.
the
wife
of
with
ermine
with
dyed
wife of
but
;
it
is
not
that
the
our
national
rarer
had
Conqueror,
the
possibly
one
had " many
II.,
until
kinds
the
period
of
wardrobe
mantle
white
Eleanor of
but
tails
Henry
popularity of the use of that Matilda of Flanders,
furs
Brittany
rat,
Aquitaine,
the
fur-lined
of
are
accounts,
lined
the
robes
" ;
Crusaders
mentioned,
in
in
any great Margaret of Anjou is represented in her memorial portrait, in the great chancel window numbers.
of the cathedral at Angiers, wearing a tight-fitting looks as if it were made of closelyit
jacket
knitted, St.
the
corded silk edged with ermine. Bernard on one occasion preached against
extravagance
of
the
clergy
in
the
matter