In collecting materials for a History of Costume of more importance than the little Handbook which has met with so much favour as an elementary work, I was not only made aware of my own deficiencies, but surprised to find how much more vague are the explanations and contradictory the statements of our best authorities than they appeared to me when, in the plenitude of my ignorance, I rushed upon almost untrodden ground, and felt bewildered by the mass of unsifted evidence and unhesitating assertion which met my eyes at every turn.

During the forty years which have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of my ‘History of British Costume’ in ‘The Library of Entertaining Knowledge,’ archÆological investigation has received such an impetus by the establishment of metropolitan and provincial peripatetic antiquarian societies, that a flood of light has been poured upon us, by which we are enabled to re-examine our opinions, and discover reasons to doubt, if we cannot find facts to authenticate.

That the former greatly preponderate is a grievous acknowledgment to make after assiduously devoting the leisure of half my life to the pursuit of information on this, to me, most fascinating subject. It is some consolation, however, to feel that, where I cannot instruct, I shall certainly not mislead, and that the reader will find, under each head, all that is known to or suggested by the most competent writers I am acquainted with, either here or on the Continent.

That this work appears in a glossarial form arises from the desire of many artists who have expressed to me the difficulty they constantly meet in their endeavours to ascertain the complete form of a garment, or the exact mode of fastening a piece of armour, or the buckling of a belt, from their study of a sepulchral effigy or a figure in an illumination; the attitude of the personages represented or the disposition of other portions of their attire effectively preventing the requisite examination.

The books supplying any such information are very few, and the best confined to armour or ecclesiastical costume. The only English publication of the kind required, that I am aware of, is the late Mr. Fairholt’s ‘Costume in England’ (8vo. London, 1846), the last two hundred pages of which contain a glossary; the most valuable portion whereof are the quotations from old plays, mediÆval romances, and satirical ballads containing allusions to various articles of attire in fashion at the time of their composition. Twenty-eight years have expired since that book appeared, and it has been thought that a more comprehensive work on the subject than has yet issued from the English press, combining the pith of the information of many costly foreign publications, and in its illustrations keeping in view the special requirements of the artist to which I have alluded, would be, in these days of educational progress and critical inquiry, a welcome addition to the library of an English gentleman.