The Trousseau.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 July 1910, Page 4

The Trousseau.

The modern moralist may moan concerning the immense sums now spent over a trousseau, but the wealthiest of latter-day American millionaires would pause before spending the sums which a mediaeval father thought reasonable in this connection. On the preli-u----inaries of a marriage in whic/h the high contracting .parties, though belonging to the great nobility, were unalliad with royalty, nlo kss a sum than twenty thousand pounds was disbursed in a small Italian city. In Italy also a. great artist was generally commissioned to decorate the chests in wh'iciln the bride's house linen and personal belongings were to be stored, and some of these boautifiul works of art survive, to this day in the old Italian palaces to which they w, j re buought by ancestors of the present owner. Mmih fantasy was spent in devising a suitable scheme of decoration, and often the painter went to the Scriptures or to the Greek mythology for his subjects. However simple had been the life c.f the mediaeval maiden, however austerely she had been brought up, her marriage was also the .Mgnai for a. splendour of apnnron fowl',Hi t.h<> modern world has • o

paiallel (says a writer in a .id', s' .journal). She mis provided .< ;h mad l of cloth of gold one 1 silver, -richly ombioidered with gems, and it is rer-orded th.'it on the bri'Vil costume of one mediaeval bride three- thousand' real nevls had been worked into the design. Dealers in precious stones and in marvellous silken wvi's of which the secret l of manufacture \v->s still unknown to Europe came joiwn-evirng in caravans from tho Far East ,and were eagcrlv welcomed wiVn a marriage was in pvo^poct.