Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-09-12
SOMETHING ABOUT PLUMES
THEIR HIST DRY FIR IN EARLY TIMES
TO THE P2E5ENF.
How PIumeS were Used by the An.
cients-COming 20 the Front Again
for Pers 0naI AdOrnmcnt,

Feathers after a long period of CON-
parative neglect are again being gener-
ally used for personal ornament. They
are adapted to the purpose, for they are
graceful and snowy: Their natural col
ors are usually handsome, but where
nature has been niggardly in this respect,
art steps in and makes their neutral or
undesired hues correspond with the ar
bitrary tints demanded by fashion.
Ladies hats are richly ornamented with
plumes which either droop in willowy
way upon the shoulders, or point straight
toward the zenith in half-martial, half
coquettish fashion. They enter largely
into the material of dresses; fans are
made of them, and once more after the
lapse of several generations they reap.s
pear In a modest way in the female
coi1fure.
Like other articles of dress p1umes
have their history, which has been pic
turesque and romantic. 1t dates from
an early epoch. They were obviously
first used by those nations living
adjacent to the deserts where the
ostrich lives. In ancient Egypt they
were worn by certain officers of the
cavalry. The natives of Central and
Northern Asia, who almost lived on
horseback, ornamented their helmets
with horses tails. A horses tail fell
gracefully from the crown of the Thra-
clan helmet. The nodding plume that
frightened the babe of Hector is the mo-
tive of one of the most touching epi-
sodes of the Iliad. The Greeks used
feathers or horse-hair indiscriminately on
the crests of their helmets Tne use of
the horses tail has survived among the
Turks. not as a decoration of the helmet
but upon military standards to indicate
official rank. Plumes were not used on
the helmets of the Roman soldiers. The
ornaments of their warlikc uniforms
were solid like their batalions. Their
helmets were surmounted by crests.
Their standards were poles having at the
end some fgure-not waving banners of
textile fabrics like those which had been
from time immemorial in use by Eastern
armies. There was no reason for the
popularity, for the Roman legions whose
conquests were made in Asia and Africa
brought back among their spoils all
forms of warlike paraphernalia in use
among the conquered.
The Romans, not wearing plumed in
sigma, could not transmit them to the
Germans, Gauls and Brltons when they
extended their conquests northward and
westward through Europe. The Ger
mans. when the Romans penetrated their
forests, wore no head covering. The
Gauls had derived from Asiatic ancestors
war helmet, ornamented with horses
plume and name. The Britons and
other inhabitalts of their island had
herharic notions of color. The Scots
used pigments on their persons, and the
Britons wore bright colored feathers
plucked from the birds that frequented
their marshes at the vertex of the leather
caps which we're their headgear in war
time. Art there was none in Europe, and
the Romans were luxurious in ways that
did not cause special change either in
their own dress or that of those whom
they subjugated. During the first cen
turies of the Dark Ages there was little
knightly decoration. The improvement
Of arms and armor went on slowly.
Stalwart warriors dealing ponderous
blows with spears and battle axes made
it necessary that armor should be capable
of withstanding such terrible weapons.
Hence chain armor was first invented,
then greaves, cuisses, breastplates and
helmets. In time these were skillfully
made, and when the armor was FURNISHED
the knight wearing it was stately and
imposing object. These were the days OF
chivalry, of devotion to ladies, of noble de-
fense of the defenseless. The barbarous
chevaliers of Europe learned from the
Saracens during the crusades civiliza-
ton and refinement never before known
in their forests. They gained new skill
in the mechanic arts and fresh concep-
tions of beauty. Among other things
they adopted from the East was the use
of plumes, which were first known in
Western Europe in the thirteenth cen
tury.
These afterward became so common
that knights dress was not considered
complete unless they nodded from the
feathers, for feathers were not always
obtainable. For q hundred years OF
more they were made generally of horses
tails. Feathers gradually came into use
and the purchase and sale of them de-
veloped into an important branch o1
trade. Froissart says that the caps ol
the free companies thai infested Europe
in the fourteenth century were all
adorned with them, and that they gave
safe conduct to the feather merchants
that they might have the first chaice Of
their stock. Historians of costume note
the curious notifications they made in
England when brought there from the
continent in the reign of Edward III. In
the reign of Richa;d II. a single feather
seemed to sprout from the front
of the cavaliers chaperon. Fashions
in feathers, confined entirely to the men,
all of whom were warriors, present an
inconceivable variety as we see them in
pictorial illustrations of the period. They
we're remarkable, especially for their pro
fusion. A picture of Macmillan /. ir
the fifteenth century represents him with
his helmet surmounted by a cluster oI
plumes in bulk almost equal to his entire
person. They appear as feathery groves
on the knights of the epoch, some in
dividual feathers towering high above
the head, others dropping upon theil
shoulders and sometimes falling dowr
the back below the waist During these
years lived Henry of Navarro, whose his
torical plume is celebrated in one o.
Macaulays ballads:
Press where We see my white plume shine
along the ranks of war,
And be your orihamme to-day the helmet o
Navarro
Plumes were more fashionable on thu
continent than in England, according tC
a passage in Shakespeare's Henry VIII
They must leave these remnants
Of fool and feathar that they pot in FRANCE