[Illustration: Fig. 406 and 407.--Costume of the Prelates from the Eighth
to the Tenth Centuries--After Miniatures in the "Missal of St. Gregory,"
in the National Library of Paris.]
We have before stated (see chapter on Private Life) that Charlemagne, who
always was very simple in his tastes, strenuously set his face against
these novel introductions of luxury, which he looked upon as tending to do
harm. "Of what use are these cloaks?" he said; "in bed they cannot cover
us, on horseback they can neither protect us from the rain nor the wind,
and when we are sitting they can neither preserve our legs from the cold
nor the damp." He himself generally wore a large tunic made of otters'
skins. On one occasion his courtiers went out hunting with him, clothed in
splendid garments of southern fashion, which became much torn by the
briars, and begrimed with the blood of the animals they had killed. "Oh,
ye foolish men!" he said to them the next day as he showed them his own
tunic, which a servant had just returned to him in perfect condition,
after having simply dried it before the fire and rubbed it with his hands.
"Whose garments are the more valuable and the more useful? mine, for which
I have only paid a sou (about twenty-two francs of present money), or
yours, which have cost so much?" From that time, whenever this great king
entered on a campaign, the officers of his household, even the most rich
and powerful, did not dare to show themselves in any clothes but those
made of leather, wool, or cloth; for had they, on such occasions, made
their appearance dressed in silk and ornaments, he would have sharply
reproved them and have treated them as cowards, or as effeminate, and
consequently unfit for the work in which he was about to engage.
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