Hereupon When A Great Company Of Such Gentlewomen Ride Together, And Are Beheld A Far Off, They Seem To Be Souldiers With Helmets On Their Heads Carrying Their Launces Vpright:

For the said Botta appeareth like an helmet with a launce ouer it.

Al their women sit on horsebacke bestriding their horses like men: and they bind their hoods or gownes about their wastes with a skie coloured silke skarfe, and with another skarfe they girde it aboue their breasts: and they bind also a piece of white silke like a mufler or mask vnder their eyes, reaching down vnto their breast These gentlewomen are exceeding fat, and the lesser their noses be, the fairer are they esteemed: they daube ouer their sweet faces with grease too shamefully: and they neuer lie in bed for their trauel of childbirth.

De officio mulierum, et operibus earum, ac de nuptijs earum. Cap. 9.

Officium foeminarum est ducere bigas, ponere domus super eas et deponere, mungere vaccas, facere butirum et griut, parare pelles, et consuere eas, quas consuunt filo deneruis; diuidunt enim neruos in minuta fila, et postea illa contorquent in vnum longum filum. Consuunt etiam soculares et soccos et alias vestes. Vestes vero nunquam lauant, quia dicunt quod Deus tunc irascitur, et quod fiant torotrua si suspendantur ad siccandum: Imo lauantes verberant et eis auferunt. Tonitrua supra modum timent: tunc omnes extraneos emittunt de domibus suis; et inuoluunt se in filtris nigris, in quibus latitant, donec transierit. Nunquam etiam lauant scutellos, imo carne cocta alueum in quo debent ponere eam lauant brodio bulliente de caldaria, et postea refundunt in caldariam; faciunt et filtrum et cooperiunt domos.

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