deacons shall select two or three youths, "indigent scholars well grounded in Latin"--_juvenes indigentes scholares in grammatica notabiliter fundatos_--to be maintained, "as long as may seem fit," by the college alms, such poor scholars being bound to attend upon the master and fellows in church, on feast days and other ceremonial occasions, to serve the master and fellows at seasonable times at table and in their rooms. All meals were to be partaken in common; but it would seem that this regulation was intended rather to conduce towards an economical management than enacted in any spirit of studied conformity to monastic life, for, adds the statute, "the scholars shall patiently support this manner of living until their means shall, under God's favour, have received more plentiful increase."[28] An interesting feature in these statutes is the regulation with regard to the distinctive dress of the student, showing how little regard was paid at this period, even when the student was a priest, to the wearing of a costume which might have been considered appropriate to the staid character of his profession. "The Students," writes Mr. Cooper,[29] "disdaining the tonsure, the distinctive mark of their order, wore their hair either hanging down on their shoulders in an effeminate manner, or curled and powdered: they had long beards, and their apparel more resembled that of soldiers than of priests; they were attired in cloaks with furred edges, long hanging sleeves not covering their elbows, shoes chequered with red and green and tippets of an unusual length; their fingers were decorated with rings, and at their waists they wore large and costly girdles, enamelled with figures and gilt; to the girdles hung knives like swords." In order to repress this laxity and want of discipline, Archbishop Stratford, at a later period in the year 1342, issued an order that no student of the university, unless he should reform his "person and apparel" should receive any ecclesiastical degree or honour. It was doubtless in reference to some such order as this that one of the statutes of Peterhouse ran to this effect:-- "Inasmuch as the dress, demeanour, and carriage of scholars are evidences of themselves, and by such means it is seen more clearly, or may be presumed what they themselves are internally, we enact and ordain, that the master and all and each of the scholars of our house shall _adopt the clerical dress and tonsure_, as becomes the condition of each, and wear it conformally in respect, as far as they conveniently can, and not allow their beard or their hair to grow contrary to canonical prohibition, nor wear rings upon their fingers for their own vain glory and boasting, and to the pernicious example and scandal of others."[30] [Illustration: Peterhouse College]