Volume 1

A complete view of the dress and habits of the people of England ... / By Joseph Strutt.

  • Strutt, Joseph, 1749-1802.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A complete view of the dress and habits of the people of England ... / By Joseph Strutt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/500 (page 46)
    Ruth/ ; and the attendant circumftances prove it to have been of a confiderable fize, and ftrong enough to contain a large quantity of barley “: in all probability it covered the whole of the body, and was chiefly ufed in cold, or wet, weather. There was alfo another mantle^ or vail^ appertaining to the Jewifh women, that reached to the feet; and it is called ,by the Septuagint (but for what reafon I know not) a Jum~ mer garment ^: it was certainly an external .covering, and worn by them when they went abroad ; but the materials of which it was compofed are not fpecified. There are feveral words in the Hebrew language ex- preflive of the vail, or covering for the head and face ; and, probably, every one of them denoted fome elTential difference with refpedl to the form and texture of this part of the female drefs. The firfl that 1 fhall mention was a covering for the head and face, if not for part of the body alfo; and was ufed for the fake of modefty : when Rebecca firfl: faw Ifaac at a diftance, fhe took a vair, and covered herfelf: and it was alfo fufficiently opake to conceal effedlually the features of the wearer ; for, when Tamar had covered hey'felf with this vail\ her father-in-law Judah did not difeover her perfon, though it is exprefsly faid, that he had carnal intercourfe with her, conceiving her to be a harlot, becaufe Ihe fat with her face concealed by the road fide. The word, by which this vail is expreffed, occurs only in the early part of the Jewifh hiftory : the garment itfelf v/as probably changed in the fucceeding ages for others more thin and tranfparent; and for them new names of courfe were invented. . * The Hebrew name is /inDJOS from nSIO Xo fpread out, or extend; it is called a vail in our verlion; but the word man- tle leems much more applicable to it. Ruth, chap, iii, verfe 15 ; iiaiah, chap.iii. verfe 22. * Six mtafiiresfull. Ruth, ut fupra. 3 j and by the Vulgate/>«///»;« 3 and iherifira: the Hebrew word is from mi to defeend. Canticles, chap. V. verie 7; Il’aiah, chap, iii, verfe 23. 4 rendered by the LXX ; but it doe& not by any means appear, that the ufe of it was conlined to the /wot- mer» Genefis, chap, xxiv, verfe 65. 5 Genefis, chap, xxxviii, verfes 14. 19,