OR, The Turn Out. SI 



WKen the feudal system, which was founded upon military 

 eervice, was introduced, the use of carriages was for a time 

 prohibited, as it was considered to have an effeminating 

 tendency, which rendered the people who used them less fit 

 for military purposes. So early as the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century there were covered carriages ; but their 

 use was restricted to ladies in the highest ranks of society 

 onl3r — it being considered effeminate for gentlemen to ride 

 in them. In 1474, however, the Emperor Frederick III. 

 visited Frankfort in a close carriage ; and in the following 

 year he returned in a still more magnificent covered carriage. 

 At a tournament held at Ruppin in the year 1509, the 

 Electress of Brandinburg appeared in a carriage gilded all 

 over, while that in which the Duchess of Mecklenburg rode 

 was hung with red satin. When Cardinal Dietrichsten 

 entered Vienna, no fewer than 40 carriages went forth to 

 meet him. That same year the Consort of the Emperor 

 Matthias made her entry in a state carriage covered with 

 perfumed leather. The carriage of the first wife of the 

 Emperor Leopold was said to have cost 38,000 florins. The 

 panels of the Emperor's coach were of glass. Pepys, in his 

 diary, relates a curious accident that occurred to Lady Peter- 

 borough through her lad3^ship using a carriage with glass 

 windows. He saj^s — "Lady Peterborough being in her glass 

 coach with the glass up, and seeing a lady pass by in a coach 

 whom she would salute, the glass was so clear she thought it 

 was open, and so ran her head through the glass." We are 

 not informed that any such accident occurred to the Emperor 

 Leopold in his glass coach. At the magnificent Court of 

 the Duke Ernest Augustus at Hanover, in 1681, there were 

 50 gilt coaches with 6 horses each ; and shortly after that 

 grand display, carriages, despite the feudal laws, became 

 common all over Germany. 



Carriages were used in France at a very early age. So 

 far back as the year 1294, an ordinance of Philip the Fair 

 forbade citizens' wives from using them. If one might 

 judge from Chaucer's poem, entitled *' The Squyre of Low 

 Degree," it would appear they were used in England in his 

 day (1328-1400), for he says :— 



"To-nioiTow ye shall ride on liimting fare, 

 And ride my daughter in a chare ; 

 It shall be covered with velvet red, 

 And cloth of gold all aJt»out your head, 

 "With damask white and azure blue, 

 Well dispers'd with lillies new." 



