es. would appear from Spenser that it was worn by both sexes, the women, as Riche describes them, wearing deep smock sleeves, like herald maunch"Linnen shirts," says Campion, "the rich doe weare for wantonnes and bravery, with wide hanging sleeves, playted, thirtie yards being little enough for one of them. They have now," he continues, “left their saffron, and learne to wash their shirts foure or five times in a yeare."* The Celts had, in very early ages, attained celebrity for the perfection to which they carried the growth of flax and manufacture of linen. The Iberians of Tarraconia excelled in its fineness, and those in the army at Cannæ were clad in shirts of linen, worked with purple, after the manner of their country.t The use of linen appears to have been more common among the Gallic and German females, than among the men. Beyond the Rhine, the females thought themselves most grand when dressed in fine linen.‡ The vests of the German ladies were embroidered with purple.§ Whittaker says, the skiurd, or shirt, was derived from the Romans; but surely these linen vestments were shirts, to all intents and purposes. Lein is the Gaëlic for this part of apparel. By the Cadurci, Caletes, Rutene, Bituriges, Morini, and throughout all Gaul, linen cloth and canvass for sails were manufactured. The Gauls and Britons pounded the flax, when spun, in a stone mortar with water; and, when woven, it was beaten upon a smooth stone with broad clubs. The more frequently and forcibly, the whiter and softer it became; and, to make the water more efficacious in cleansing, some put into it the roots of wild poppies and other herbs. This mode of bleaching, or whitening linen, by beating it, is still practised in Scotland and Ireland, where it is called beetling, from the wooden implement with which it is struck. The Scots' women, both single and married, have generally good store of sheets and blankets. The hardihood of the Celtic race has been before noticed. Their dress inured them to the vicissitudes and severity of the climate. The lusty youth, says Marcellinus, had their limbs hardened with frost and continual exercise. Pelloutier relates an anecdote which shows how little these people regarded exposure to cold. One morning that the snow lay deep on the ground, one of their kings, who was well clothed, perceiving a man laying down naked, asked if he was not cold? "Is your face cold? "replied he. "No," said the king. "Neither, then," returned the man, "do I feel cold, for I am all face. "T The Highlanders, before the subversion of their primitive institutions, were indifferent to the severity of a winter night, resting with content in LAWS TO RESTRAIN ITS USE. 183 the open air, amid rain or snow. With their simple breacan they suffered "the most cruel tempest that could blow, in the field, in such sort, that under a wreath of snow they slept sound." The advantage of this vesture was almost incalculable. During rain it could be brought over the head and shoulders; and, while other troops suffered from want of shelter, the Highlander carried in his mantle an ample quantity of warm covering. If three men slept together, they were enabled to spread three folds of warm clothing under, and six above them. The 42nd, 78th, and 79th regiments, who marched through Holland in 1794, when the cold was so severe as to freeze brandy in bottles, suffered incomparably less than other corps who wore plenty of warm apparel. O'Leary, contrasting the ancient state of his countrymen with their degeneracy, and, alluding to their practice of sleeping in the woods, observes that "the uprising combatant had not the ringlets of his hair bound with frost." Breeches formed no part of their ancient costume; and, even in 1712, Dobbs tells us that they went bare-legged most part of the year. From constant exposure to a cold and inconstant climate, the Gaël were inured and indifferent to hardships. They were so habituated to wet, that it had no effect on their constitutions. However rude and unpolished the ancient Gaël were, according to our ideas who live in an age of so high refinement, they were certainly in possession of many curious and useful arts. Giraldus Cambrensis is convicted of falsehood, in saying that the Irish had no manufactures, it being evident, even from his own testimony, that they had knitters, weavers, dyers, fullers, tailors, &c. If they had not the art of making cloth, where did they procure the braccæ, the phalangium, or sagum, with caputii of various colors, which he says they wore? While the Highlanders were able to produce cloth of many brilliant and permanent colors, the inhabitants of other countries were less skilful manufacturers. I believe it is Camden who relates, that at the time of the Spanish Armada invasion, the people of England were generally obliged to wear white cloth, because they could not send it to the Low Country to be dyed. That the Franks and Saxons retained, for a long time, the manufactures of their Celtic ancestors, has been shown. Charlemagne, adhering to the primitive costume, dressed like the Scots' Highlanders; and, from Windichind's description of a Saxon, he closely resembled a Caledonian.* The costume of the Gaël, like their language, being so different from that of the other inhabitants of the British islands, was fondly retained as a national distinction, and a memorial of their independence. This strong predilection led to repeated enactments. By an act of the fifth of Edward IV. the Irish were ordered to dress like the English, under the pain of a forfeiture of goods; and a similar law was passed in the tenth of Henry VII. These statutes had little effect, for, in the twenty * Camden's Britannia. eighth of Henry VIII. another enactment prohibits, under a severe penalty, all persons from shaving above their ears, wearing cromeal on their lips, or glibes on their heads; or from dressing in any shirt, smock, kerchor, bendel, neckerchor, mochet, or linen cap, colored or dyed with saffron; or to wear in their shirts or smocks more than seven yards of eloth, according to the king's standard.* The Irish, notwithstanding these peremptory statutes, which were strictly enforced by Queen Elizabeth, had not entirely laid aside their ancient garb, in the middle of the seventeenth century. It was, however, confined to the peasantry, the dress of others being assimilated to the prevailing fashion in England, although, in some parts, an adherence to ancient custom was apparent. The costume of the gentry, at the above period, is described as consisting of a leather quilted jacke, long-slieved smocks, half-slieved coats, silken fillets, and riding shoes of costly cordwaine.† The Highlanders were prohibited from carrying their arms by the first parliament of George I., 1716. In 1747, a similar act was passed, with these more oppressive and absurd additions, that "neither man nor boy, except such as should be employed as officers and soldiers, should, on any pretence, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland clothes, viz. the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, trowse, shoulder belts, or, any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland garb; and that no tartan or party-colored plaid, or stuff, should be used for great coats or for upper coats." In 1782, the Duke of Montrose brought forward a bill, by which "so much of the above, or any other acts, as restrain the use of the Highland dress, is repealed." The costume of the Gaël is no longer deemed a mark of disloyalty, and an object of legal prohibition. The harsh and unnecessary law which denounced the use of tartan has been expunged from the statute book; and one of the most popular objects of the Highland Societies of London and Edinburgh, with their various branches, is to cherish and promote an attention to this honorable and manly costume, so appropriate a concomitant to the peculiar language and manners of the Scotish Gaël. The Highland dress is universally admired and respected. On the Continent, where the bravery and moral worth of the Scots is known and appreciated, it is not merely an object of interest: it is a passport to the best society, and a uniform that can rank with the proudest of orders. Our gracious Sovereign, when he visited the capital of his northern dominions, personally fixed it as the court dress of Scotland. Harris's ed. of S. J. Ware's Antiquities of Ireland, ii. 178. + Spenser. OF THE ARMS AND MILITARY ACCOUTREMENTS OF THE CELTS. THE armor of the Celts may not inappropriately be considered their dress, inasmuch as they seldom laid aside their arms of defence, and never appeared abroad without some part of their military weapons. Respecting these, we have to express the same regret that was occasioned by the subject of the preceding Chapter: there are few monuments of antiquity that can, with certainty, be pronounced Gallic, and of these few, scarcely any display the military attire; the Romans, according to Montfaucon, repressing any desire to represent a subjugated people as independent warriors. It was a particular honor conferred on two Celtic legions, and a tribute to their unparalleled bravery, that statues of them in their arms were set up at Edessa, as before recited. The Gauls, in general, sought no other defence than what nature supplied, despising artificial means of protecting their bodies;* but, when fully accoutred, they had both helmets and shields, breast-plates, and coats of mail, the common use of which was, apparently, confined to the nobles; the vassals, or clients, being unable to procure these articles, or, perhaps, denied the privilege of wearing them. The German foot, in the days of Tacitus, were either naked, or dressed in light cassocks, having few coats of mail, and fewer helmets. The ancient Britons are described as going generally almost naked, disregarding all defensive armor, except the shield.† It does not appear whether the plates of iron with which they covered their necks and bellies, were used as ornaments or for protection. Mela says, the Britons wore the same armor as the Gauls, but, like • Diodorus. + Herodian, iii. + Dio. them, they relied on their dexterity and physical strength rather than on any defensive armor, which they considered as an incumbrance, if not an indication of cowardice. "I wear no armor, ́ "said an Earl of Stratherne, at the battle of the Standard, 1138; "yet they who do, will not advance beyond me this day." Giraldus Cambrensis says, the Welsh fought naked, or used very light armor, that it might not impede their exertions, the Irish despising it altogether. At the battle of Telamon, the Gesatæ stripped off their dresses and stood before the army naked, carrying their weapons only, that they might not be entangled by the bushes or otherwise obstructed. Polybius describes it as terrible, and astonishing to see those men marching naked, and to observe the motion of their big bodies; conduct, however, more fool-hardy than discreet, for they were dreadfully galled by the Roman archers, and, finally, beaten back with dreadful slaughter. On other occasions, we find this practice of denuding themselves noticed. The Gaël retained the same custom until almost the last century, the chief being the first to set the example. However creditable this was to their heroisin, and however advantageous it might be in allowing a perfect freedom of action, the want of defensive armor must have, on many occasions, been severely felt. The people of the Low Country were, in this respect, superior to the Highlanders, who, as the song says, "Had only got the belted plaid, While they were mail-clad men." Or as was observed of their scanty covering in a later age, "The Highland men are clever men, at handling sword or bow, However much the Celts may have valued themselves on their contempt for armor, they were not ignorant of its utility, nor deficient in its fabrication. They were dexterous in the manufacture of military weapons, and careful, even to nicety, of their warlike accoutrements. Their greatest delight was in the excellence and beauty of their arms; the ancient Irish appearing, from Solinus, to have been remarkable for this attention to their appointments. To the Gauls the honor of inventing CHAIN MAIL appears due, which, from being at first made of leather, according to Varro,* acquired the name of Lorica. It is called, in Gaëlic, luirich, and was the usual body covering of the Scots and Irish, who wore armor, the plate being almost unknown among them; and it seems to have been worn of considerable length. "The armor wherewith they cover their bodies," says the old Chronicle before quoted," in time of war, is an iron bonnet and an habergion side almost even to their heels." Throughout Scotland, the jaque de maill was chiefly worn, according to a French author, who describes it in the sixteenth century; and the person who furnished Holinshed with his account of Scotland seems to prefer it, as he regrets that his countrymen should use heavy armor. The Irish full armed troops, in the seventeenth *De lingua Latina. |