"Their kirtles were of rede cendel,[1] I laced smalle, jollyf, and well, There might none gayer go."
[Illustration: THE FIEND OF FASHION, FROM AN ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT.]
In the French version of the same poem it is, we read, more fully expressed. It says, "They were richly habited and very tightly laced." The Lady Triamore is thus described:--
"The lady was in a purple pall, With gentill bodye and middle small."
Wharton quotes from an ancient poem, which he believes to date as far back as 1200, in which a lover, speaking of the object of his admiration, thus throws down the gauntlet of challenge, and exclaims--
The word _mensk_ or _maint_ being used instead of very or much. Some differences of opinion have existed among writers as to the origin of the word _corset_. Some are of opinion that the French words _corps_, the body, and _serrer_ (to tightly inclose or incase), led to the adoption of the term. Madame La Sante gives it as her opinion, however, that it is more probably a corruption of the single word _corps_, which was formerly written _cors_, and may be taken as a diminutive form of it. Another view of the matter has been that the name of a rich material called _corse_, which was at one time extensively used in the manufacture of corsets, may have been thus corrupted. This is scarcely probable, as the word corset was in use at too early a period to admit of that origin. Perhaps as early an instance of the use of the term corset as any in existence may be found as a portion of an entry in the household register of Eleanor, Countess of Leicester, which bears the date May 24, 1265:--
"Item: Pro ix ulnis radii. Pariensis pro robas æstivas corsetto et clochia pro eodem."[2]
[2] Item: For nine ells, Paris measure, for summer robes, corsets, and cloaks for the same.
The persons for whom these garments were made were Richard, King of the Normans, and Edward, his son, whose death occurred in the year 1308. So that corsets were, even in those early days, used by gentlemen as well as ladies.
The term kirtle, so often referred to, may not clearly convey to the mind of the modern reader the nature of the garment indicated by it, and therefore it may not be amiss to give Strutt's description of it. He says, "The kirtle, or, as it was anciently written '_kertel_,' is a part of the dress used by the men and the women, but especially by the latter. It was sometimes a habit of state, and worn by persons of high rank." The garment sometimes called a "_surcol_" Chaucer renders _kirtle_, and we have no reason to dispute his authority. Kirtles are very frequently mentioned in old romances. They are said to have been of different textures and of different colours, but especially of green; and sometimes they were laced closely to the body, and probably answered the purpose of the bodice or stays--_vide Launfal_, before referred to:--