376 JODÎVILLB'S MEMOIRS OF SAINT LOUIS IX. [FT. IL that shortly after this King Louis held a great and open court at Saumur in Anjou, which I shall speak of, having been present I can assure you that it was the grandest sight I ever witnessed, the best ornamented and prepared. A t the king's table were seated the count de Poitiers,* whom he had knighted on the last St. John's day; the connt John de Dreux,t whom he had lately knighted ; the count de la Marche, J and the count Peter of Brittany. At another table, before that of the king on the side where count de Dreux was seated, the king of Navarre dined. He was most richly dressed in cloth of gold, in coat, mantle, girdle, clasp,§ and cap of fine gold, to whom I was the carver. The count d'Artois|| served the king, St. Louis, and his bro ther, and the count de Soissons cut up the meat Sir Ymbert de Beljeu, who was afterwards constable of France, Sir Honourat de Coucy, and Sir Archibald de Bourbon were the guards of the king's table ; and there were behind these barons, full thirty of their knights in cloth of silk, to serve under them. There were likewise behind these knights a great many ushers of arms, and of the apartments, who bore the arms of the count de Poitiers, worked on fendal. The king was dressed as magnificently as it was possible, * Alphonso, brother to St. Louis, who had been created a knight by the king on the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, in the year 1241, at which time he likewise gave him the county of Poitou.—See Bf. Paris, p. 313. t Son of Robert III., count de Dreux, by d'Aènor de St. Valéry, the first who bore the name of John. He died at Cyprus. t Hugh X. , surnamed le Brun, count de la Marche and d'Angoulème. § Clasp or fermati waa a sort of medal or ornament, like the diamond ornaments now in fashion, which was fastened not only to the shoulder where the folds of the mantle met, in like manner to the latus clama of the Romans ; but also to the front of the cap, as diamonds are now worn. In war it was fastened to the hood, on the coat of arms, or in some other conspicuous place. Women wore them on their breast. Froissait, in the 154th chapter of the 2nd volume, says, " he received, as the prize, a clasp of precious stones, which the duchess of Burgundy detached from her breast." It is for this reason, that the Latin and French MS. Glossary translates the word monile clasp or fermail. Elsewhere redimiculum a female ornament, as a clasp, chaplet, or girdle. Johannes de Janna calls it " Fibularium." But I suspect be intended to have called it flbulatorium, which the Greek and Latin Glossary defines to be the diminutive of flàuto. U Robert, brother to the king.