PRELIM.]] DISOBEDIENCE REBUKED. 357 the king had on, saying, " Now see, if I did not tell the truth." The king, upon this, undertook the defence of Master Robert, and to save his honour as much as he could, declared the very great humility he possessed, and how kind he was to every one. After this conversation, the good king called to him my * Lord Philip, father to the king now on the throne, and King Thibaut, his son-in-law, and seating himself at the door of his oratory, he put his hand on the ground, and said to bis sons, " Seat yourselves here near me, that you may be out of sight." 4 4 Ah, sir," replied they, " excuse us, if you please ; for it would not become us to sit so close to you." The king, then addressing me, said, u Seneschal, sit down here," which I did, and so near him that my robe touched his. Having made them sit down by my side, he said, " You have behaved very ill, being my children, in not instantly obeying what I ordered of you ; and take care that this never happen again." They answered, that they would be cautious it should not. Then turning towards me, he said, that he had called us to him to confess to me that he had been in the wrong in taking the part of Master Robert ; " but," continued he, " I did so from seeing him so much confounded, that he had need of my assistance ; you must not, however, think or believe that I did it from the conviction of his being in the right ; for, as the seneschal said, every one ought to dress himself decently, in order to be more beloved by his wife, and more esteemed by his dependants.'' The wise man says, we ought to dress ourselves in such manner that the more observing part of mankind may not think we clothe ourselves too grandly, nor the younger part say we drees too meanly. You shall now hear a matter of information which the good king made me to understand. When returning from Asia, we a drew mantle, and a hat lined with ermines for the king, against the feast of the Star, &c. For the said surcoat, a fur lining of 346 ermines, for the sleeves and wristbands, 60, for the frock, 336/' &c. Isaacus Pontanus, in the description of Denmark, page 801, remarks, that among the Danes the word eerk signifies a woman's dress. It may be that the French have borrowed this term from the Normans, who frequently ravaged France ; bnt it is more probable that this dress was so called from being worn over the coat. This name was afterwards given to the robes of the men.