Evening star., 1936-11-14

"Gallic Wars, "They stained them
selves Of a blue color with woad?"
Woad, for the information of 1885, Is
vegetable dye.
OF course. the great Julius was re-
ferring to the men. The women did
not count then, and for ages to come.
Yet we have every reason to believe
that the females possessed both deli
cacy and beauty.
Queen Boadicea, who led the Brit
ons to battle against a Roman over
lord in the following century, was
not at all the mannish type. She pos
sessed that most coveted of all wom-
anly attributes-'personal charm"
She belonged to the age of Nero, who
became Emperor of Rome in 81 AID.
Despite his reputation for cruelty, he
was the central figure in a court
where certain standards of refinement
ruled, and at which perfumes and
cosmetics were greatly in use. He
employed them lavishly himself and
so did his wife Poppaea, who also
popularized the craze for milk baths.
Would there had been an Ovid, a
Martial, or a Juvenal to leave an i'm
perishable record of Britain's beauty
battles in the first several centuries
of her historyl Unfortunately, Roman
Britain did not produce any out
standing literary figures, and after
the army was recalled to Rome,
around 500 AID, the invading Danes
and Saxons did little for the general
improvement of the people.
THERE is thus a hiatus in the history
Of cosmetics requiring a skip
Of several centuries for the next
chapter. 1t is resumed with intensified
interest along with the epoch making
movement known as the Crusades.
Forming the important cross-section
of history that they do, the Crusades
have been written and rewritten about
from religious, historical, political and
geographical angles. but their sig
nificance in the story of cosmetics
parallels that of the treasures founi
in the ancient Egyptian tombs. They
simplify history, always hard to read,
by translating it into terms of the
every day.
According to our standby, the
Encyclopedia, the Crusades are the
various campaigns undertaken by
Christians of Western Europe from
1896 to 1891 for the recovery of the
Holy Land from the Mohammedans.
The movement became vastly more.
To 1t can be traced the beginnings of
modern taxation. tariff and immigra-
ton systems. Comparisons are always
a bit risky. but the Crusades seem to
have been to the Middle Ages what
the Great War was to the twentieth
century. Affecting all the known
world, they resulted in the writing Of
new chapters in social and economic
history.
Tithes levied to carry on these
pilgrimages Of penitents to the Far
East anticipated today's taxes, while
the opening of new routes to Western
commerce foreshadowed trade agree
ments and tariff negotiations. AS for
the knights who Jared forth 10
Jerusalem under the sacred banner of
the Cross, they accomplished the dual
purpose of winning salvation and en-
joymg good scrap. Peace was still an
ideal farther of than the planets.
\ y
WHAT the West did for the East as
a consequence of the Crusades is
moot question, but there is no doubt
about what the East gave the West
strange fruits, such as lemons and
melons, a cool new cloth called cotton,
the lovely lilac shade and its purple
companion. and-cosmetic secrets.
ranging all the way from face powder
to glass mirrors.
History. does not hesitate to suggest
that it was often the ladies of the