Men of the non-clerical classes had abandoned the gown for divided legs clad in tights. They were generally clean-shaven, although chin beards and mustaches came in and out of fashion. Knights and courtiers had adopted a fashion of excessively long pointed shoes called poulaines—which often had to be tied up around the calf to enable the wearer to walk—and excessively short tunics which, according to one chronicler’s complaint, revealed the buttocks and “other parts of the body that should be hidden,” exciting the mockery of the common people.
Men of the non-clerical classes had abandoned the gown for divided legs clad in tights. They were generally clean-shaven, although chin beards and mustaches came in and out of fashion. Knights and courtiers had adopted a fashion of excessively long pointed shoes called poulaines—which often had to be tied up around the calf to enable the wearer to walk—and excessively short tunics which, according to one chronicler’s complaint, revealed the buttocks and “other parts of the body that should be hidden,” exciting the mockery of the common people.
