Dress was carried to a pitch of costliness and vanity in the time of Edward III. Men holding dignities, parsonages, prebends, benefices with cure of souls, treated the tonsure with scorn, and allowed their hair to hang down over their shoulders. They imitated the dress of soldiers, having an upper jump remarkably short and wide, and long hanging sleeves not covering the elbows. Their hair was curled and powdered. They wore caps with tippets of great length, rings on their fingers, long beards, costly girdles, to which were attached purses enamelled with figures, and sculptured knives hanging at their sides to look like swords. Their sleeves were chequered with red and green, exceedingly long, and pinked with various colours. They had also ornamented cruppers to their saddles, and baubles like horns hanging down from their horses' necks, and their cloaks were furred at the edge, though this was contrary to canonical rules. TELLING FORTUNES BY THE BIBLE. In the sixth century an abuse crept into religious circles of using the Bible, like a book of fate, to discover future events. Cæsarius, Bishop of Arles, warned his people against many of the current superstitions, such as a superstition against sneezing, considering Friday an unlucky day, etc. He told them not to return anybody's salutation on the way, but on starting merely to make the sign of the cross and trust the rest to the Lord. One abuse, however, withstood all his efforts, and that was the practice of seeking for oracles in the Bible. St. Augustine also, a century before, had observed on this pagan practice. He said the custom displeased him of wishing to use the Word of God, which speaks in reference to another life, for worldly concerns and the vain objects of the present life. Even among the clergy the abuse prevailed. In doubtful earthly concerns persons would lay down a Bible in a church upon the altar, or especially on the grave of a saint, would fast and pray and invoke the saint that he would indicate the future by a passage of Scripture, and sought for the answer on the first passage which met the eye on opening the Bible. Against the practice a decree of the Council of Agde, in 508, was made, to the effect that since many persons, both of the clergy and laity, practised divination under the semblance of religion, or promised a disclosure of the future by looking into the Scriptures, all who advised or taught this were to be excluded from Church communion. CHAPTER V. _DIFFICULTIES WITH PAGANS, JEWS, IMAGE WORSHIPPERS, AND CIVIL POWERS._ THE NAME OF CHRISTIAN.