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A kind of cap worn in the 16th century, and copied in modern fashions; -- called also toquet. His velvet toque stuck as airily as ever upon the side of his head. Motley.

A headdress of a high or towerlike form, fashionable about the end of the seventeenth century and until 1715; also, any high headdress. Lay trains of amorous intrigues In towers, and curls, and periwigs. Hudibras.

The fourteenth century, when applied to Italian art, literature, etc. It marks the period of Dante, Petrarch, and boccaccio in literature, and of Giotto in painting.

tfulness; trickish. "My tricksy spirit!" Shak. he tricksy policy which in the seventeenth century passed for state wisdom. Coleridge.

One of a school of poets who flourished from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, principally in Provence, in the south of France, and also in the north of Italy. They invented, and especially cultivated, a kind of lyrical poetry characterized by intricacy of meter and rhyme, and usually of a romantic, amatory strai…

f a school of poets who flourished in Northern France from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.

reast, or attached to the gown at the neck, forming a part of a woman's dress in the 17th century and later.

e five orders of architecture recognized and described by the Italian writers of the 16th century, or characteristic of the order. The original of this order was not used by the Greeks, but by the Romans under the Empire. See Order, and Illust. of Capital.

ownstrokes usually have a slight inclination. These letters were used as early as the 1st century b. c., and were seldom used after the 10th century a. d., being superseded by the cursive style.

k alphabet, a vowel having originally the sound of oo as in room, becoming before the 4th century b. c. that French u or Ger. ü. Its equivalent in English is u or y.

A Turkish tribe which about the close of the 15th century conquered, and settled in, that part of Asia now called Turkestan. [Written also Uzbecks, and Uzbeks.]

who receives the eucharist in both kinds; esp., one of a body of Hussites who in the 15th century fought for the right to do this. Called also Calixtines.

The skin of the squirrel, much used in the fourteenth century as fur for garments, and frequently mentioned by writers of that period in describing the costly dresses of kings, nobles, and prelates. It is represented in heraldry by a series of small shields placed close together, and alternately white and blue. Fairhol…

One of a school of Judaizing Gnostics in the second century; -- so called from Valentinus, the founder.

Of or pertaining to Valsalva, an Italian anatomist of the 17th century. Valsalvian experiment (Med.), the process of inflating the middle ear by closing the mouth and nostrils, and blowing so as to puff out the cheeks.

tic, the most barbarous and fierce of the northern nations that plundered Rome in the 5th century, notorious for destroying the monuments of art and literature.

One of the Northmen who founded a dynasty in Russia in the 9th century; also, one of the Northmen composing, at a later date, the imperial bodyguard at Constantinople.

, or designating, certain secret tribunals flourished in Germany from the end of the 12th century to the middle of the 16th, usurping many of the functions of the government which were too weak to maintain law and order, and inspiring dread in all who came within their jurisdiction. Encyc. Brit.

The ornament of woodwork upon the gable of a house, used extensively in the 15th century. It was generally suspended from the edge of the projecting roof (see Verge, n., 4), and in position parallel to the gable wall. Called also bargeboard.

d strings and keys, but only one wire to a note. The instrument was used in the sixteenth century, but is now wholly obsolete. It was sometimes called a pair of virginals.