Or else, if that unanimity which became obligatory in the latter part of the fourteenth century had not been secured, the itinerant justices, in order to get it any way, {115} were free to place the twelve men in carts and carry them about wherever they went, until the twelve chose to agree.[117] When monks came out of the cloister and travelled, they wilfully modified their costume, and it became difficult to distinguish them from the great. I saw, writes Chaucer: “I saugh his sleves purfiled atte hond With grys, and that the fynest of a lond, And for to festne his hood undur his chyn He hadde of gold y-wrought a curious pyn, A love-knotte in the gretter end ther was.”[118] But the councils are still more explicit, and do more than justify the satire of the poet. Thus the Council of London in 1342, reproaches the religious with wearing clothing “fit rather for knights than for clerks, that is to say short, very tight, with excessively wide sleeves, not reaching the elbows, but hanging down very low, lined with fur or with silk.” They made themselves conspicuous by their long beards, rings on their fingers, costly girdles, purses or bags whereon figures were embroidered in gold, knives resembling swords, boots red or party-coloured, or slashed long-pointed shoes (the Polish-born poulaine); in a word, all the luxury of the magnates of the land. Later, in 1367, the Council of York renewed the same criticisms; the religious have “ridiculously short” clothing; they dare publicly to wear those coats “which do not come down to the middle of the legs, and do not even cover the knees.” Severe prohibitions were made for the future, though on a journey tunics shorter than the regulation gown were tolerated.[119] [Illustration 24. A COOK ON A JOURNEY (CHAUCER’S COOK). (_From the Ellesmere MS._)]