[Illustration: Fig. 409.--Costume of a Scholar.
Fig. 410.--Costume of a Bishop or Abbot.
Fac-similes of Miniatures in a Manuscript of the Ninth Century ("Biblia
Sacra"), in the Royal Library of Brussels.]
We cannot find that any very decided change was made in dress before the
end of the eleventh century. The ordinary dress made of thick cloths and
of coarse woollen stuffs was very strong and durable, and not easily
spoiled; and it was usual, as we still find in some provinces which adhere
to old customs, for clothes, especially those worn on festive occasions
and at ceremonials, to be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, to
the third or fourth generation. The Normans, who came from Scandinavia
towards the end of the tenth century, A.D. 970, with their short clothes
and coats of mail, at first adopted the dress of the French, and continued
to do so in all its various changes. In the following century, having
found the Saxons and Britons in England clad in the garb of their
ancestors, slightly modified by the Roman style of apparel, they began to
make great changes in their manner of dressing themselves. They more and
more discarded Roman fashions, and assumed similar costumes to those made
in France at the same period.
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