The Customs of Old EnglandSnell, F. J. (Frederick John)
History
The Customs of Old England
Snell, F. J. (Frederick John)
England -- Social life and customs -- 1066-1485
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 Commissary against one of the members who had
declined to contribute to the finding of candles, vulgarly called
"Coke-Lyght," in the church of St. Mary-the-Virgin, and to a certain
accustomed feast on the day of the Cooks' Riding in the month of May. A
day was appointed for investigating the matter, when the defendant did
not appear, but several witnesses were produced to confirm the
plaintiffs' assertions. Robert, the cook of Hampton Hall, deposed that
all the cooks of Colleges and Halls had been used to contribute to the
annual feast; that he had been a cook for six years, and that the cooks
had always nominated two of their number to gather contributions. His
testimony was corroborated by Stephen, the cook of Vine Hall, as also by
Walter, another cook, and John, the cook of "Brasenos." It is worthy of
note that in the record of these proceedings the names are entered as
"Stephanus Coke," "Walterus Coke," and "Johannes Coke," thus throwing
light on the formation of one of our commonest surnames.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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