Note 893 — KNITTING NETS AND STOCKINGS. STOCKING-LOOM.

In the Limpurg Chronicle, which may be found in Von Hontheim, Hist. Trevirensis, vol. ii. p. 1084, is the following passage: “The ladies wore new weite hauptfinstern, so that the men almost saw their breasts;” and Moser, who quotes this passage in his Phantasien, conjectures that the hauptfinstern might approach near to lace. I never met with the word anywhere else; but Frisch, in his Dictionary, says, “Vinster in a Vocabularium of the year 1492 is explained by the words drat, schudrat, thread, coarse thread.” May it not be the word fenster, a window? And in that case may it not allude to the wide meshes? Fenestratum meant formerly, perforated or reticulated; and this signification seems applicable to those shoes mentioned by Du Cange under the name of calcei fenestrati. At any rate it is certain that the article denoted by hauptfinstern belonged to those dresses mentioned by Seneca in his treatise De Beneficiis, 59. Pliny says that such dresses were worn, “ut in publico matrona transluceat.”