Note 899 — KNITTING NETS AND STOCKINGS. STOCKING-LOOM.

“The king and some of the gentlemen had the upper parts of their hosen, which was of blue and crimson, powdered with castels and sheafes of arrows of fine ducket gold, and the nether parts of scarlet, powdered with timbrels of fine,” &c.... There is reason however to suppose that the upper and nether parts of the hose were separate pieces, as they were of different colours. This description stands in the third volume of Hollingshed’s Chronicles, p. 807, where it is said, speaking of another festival, “The garments of six of them were of strange fashion, with also strange cuts, everie cut knit with points of fine gold, and tassels of the same, their hosen cut in and tied likewise.” What the word knit here signifies might perhaps be discovered if we had an English Journal of Luxury and Fashions for the sixteenth century.