of Poitou was
accused of allowing one of these shows, called a _Barbitoria_, to be
held in her monastery.

The only men of religion permitted to wear long beards were the
Templars; and, speaking generally,[4] the presence or absence of hair
was one of the marks of cleavage between the clergy (_tonsi_) and the
laity (_criniti_). Even those privileged to wear long hair--we refer, of
course, to the male portion of the community--were required to be shorn
so far that part of their ears might appear, and that their eyes might
not be covered. At first it may seem strange that the question of
trimming the hair should come under the cognizance of the Church--the
person himself or his barber might have been deemed at liberty to
consult his own taste. The canon, however, which regulated the usage was
based on the apostolic challenge: "Doth not nature itself teach you
that, if a man hath long hair, it is a shame unto him?"

This ordinance applied a fortiori to priests, who had to be content with
very little hair. At a visitation of Oriel College by Longland, Bishop
of London, in 1531, he ordered one of the Fellows, who was a priest, to
abstain, under pain of expulsion, from wearing a beard and pinked shoes,
like a laic. It would seem that this spiritual person had been
accustomed to ridicule the Governor and Fellows of the college, since he
was commanded to abjure that bad habit also.

The correct explanation of the custom condemned by the New College
statutes is doubtless that already furnished. Hearne, however, had an
idea that it was a reflexion on the Lollards. Wiclif is always
represented with a beard, and, as most of his followers were lay-folk,
it was possibly a symbol of the sect, which may have recollected the
text: "Neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard."

The interest of the University in expert tonsure is now well understood,
but the craving for the subjugation of falsifying hair must have been
quite secondary to that for the sustenance of the bodily powers, and
accordingly the cooks stood very near to the purveyors of intellectual
aliment. Nor did the Chancellor concern himself merely with the
ratification of their ordinances; as the natural sequence, he, or his
deputy, saw to it that they were properly respected, and formed a court
of appeal for the settlement of internecine differences. Thus, on August
19, 1463, two persons, proctors of the craft of cooks of the University
of Oxford, petitioned the Co