time openly proclaiming himself the personal enemy of his Maker.
Contrast between Rufus and his father.
Old and new fashions of dress.
The pointed shoes.
It is with regard to his daily life and to the beliefs
and objects which his age looked on as sacred that
William Rufus stands out in the most glaring contrast
to his father. William the Great, I need hardly repeat,
was austere in his personal morals and a strict observer
of every outward religious duty. His court was decent;
the men who stood before him kept, we are told, to the
modesty of the elder days. Their clothes were fitted
to the form of their bodies, leaving them ready to run or
ride or do anything that was to be done.[1] They shaved
their beards—all save penitents, captives, and pilgrims—and
cut their hair close.[2] But with the death of William,
of Pope Gregory, and of other religious princes,
the good old times passed away, and their decorous
fashions were forgotten through all the Western lands.[3]
Then vain and foppish forms of attire came in. The
gilded youth of Normandy and of Norman England
began to wear long garments like women, which hindered
walking or acting of any kind; they let their
hair grow long like women; they copied the walk and
mien of women.[4] Above all, their feet were shod with
shoes with long curved points, like the horns of rams
or the tails of scorpions. These long and puffed shoes
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 682 C. "Illi modestis vestiebantur indumentis optimeque coaptatis ad sui mensuram corporis. Et erant habiles ad equitandum et currendum et ad omne opus quod ratio suggerebat agendum."
- ↑ Ib. "Olim pœnitentes et capti et peregrini usualiter intonsi erant, longasque barbas gestabant, judicioque tali pœnitentiam, seu captionem, vel peregrinationem spectantibus prætendebant."
- ↑ Ib. "Post obitum Gregorii papæ et Guillelmi Nothi aliorumque principum religiosorum, in occiduis partibus pene totus abolitus est honestus patrum mos antiquorum." Yet, unless we go as far north as the sainted Cnut of Denmark, it is not easy to find any specially devout princes who died about the same time as Gregory and William.
- ↑ See Appendix G.
