As we have learned from a preceding passage, the "shaven and shorn" knights of the Conqueror's time had, in the reign of his successor, fallen into disrepute as models of fashion. Long hair came into vogue, called down the anathemas of the Church, suffered a temporary discredit, and again rose into favour. Malmesbury has a curious sketch of this fluctuation of fashion. In the twenty-ninth regnal year of Henry I., he tells us, "a circumstance occurred in England which may seem surprising to our long-haired gallants, who, forgetting what they were born, transform themselves into the fashion of females, by the length of their locks. A certain English knight, who prided himself on the luxuriancy of his tresses, being stung by conscience on the subject, seemed to feel in a dream as though some person strangled him with his ringlets. Awaking in a fright, he immediately cut off all his superfluous hair. The example spread throughout England; and, as recent punishment is apt to affect the mind, almost all military men allowed their hair to be cropped in a proper manner without reluctance. But this decency was not of long continuance; for scarcely had a year expired, before all who thought themselves courtly relapsed into their former vice, vying with women in the length of their locks, and whenever they were defective, supplying their place with false tresses[206]." In 1102, at a council held in London by Archbishop Anselm, it was enacted that those who had long hair should be cropped, so as to shew part of the ear and the eyes. Compare also the well-known passage of Ordericus Vitalis, where he tells us how Bishop Serlo, preaching before Henry I. and his court, inveighed so successfully against the iniquity of long locks, that his audience saw the folly of their ways; and the prelate, seizing the favourable moment, produced a pair of scissors from his sleeve (_de manticâ forcipes_), and cropped the king and many of his courtiers with his own hand[207]. From Wace and the Bayeux tapestry we have found that the Beard was not worn by the Normans at the time of the Conquest, though in fashion among the Anglo-Saxons:-- "Li Normant * * * N'unt mie barbe ne guernons, Co dist Heraut, com nos avons."--_Line_ 12,252.