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as he said,
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A curious custom of the Middle Ages was that of imbedding three hairs from the king's beard in the wax of the seal, in order to give greater solemnity to the document. Another instance of the value placed on this adornment of nature by some nations comes to us in the story of the Eastern potentate to whom the King of England had sent a man without a beard as his ambassador. The Eastern monarch flew into a passion when the beardless visitor was presented.
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Had my master measured wisdom by the beard, was the ready retort,
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and permit the crisp beard to grow. Taxing beards followed, and the amount was graduated according to the condition of the person wearing this hirsute adornment. An entry has often been reproduced from the Burghmote Book of Canterbury, made in the second year of the reign of Edward VI., to the effect that the Sheriff of Canterbury and another paid their dues for wearing beards, 3s. 4d. and 1s. 8d. During the next reign, Queen Mary does not appear to have meddled with the beard. She sent four agents to Moscow, and all were bearded; one of the number, George Killingworth, had an unusually long one, measureing 5ft. 2in. in length, the sight of which caused a smile to light up the face of Ivan the Terrible. It is described as a thick, broad, and yellow beard, and we are told that Ivan played with it after dinner as if it were a new toy. When Sir Thomas More laid his head on the block he carefully put his beard aside, saying,
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It hath done no treason. John Knox (born 1505 and died 1572), the famous Scottish reformer, whose name figures so largely in the religious annals of his country, was remarkable for the length of his beard. The Rev. John More was a native of Yorkshire, and after being educated at Cambridge settled at Norwich. He was one of the worthiest clergymen in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and gained the name of
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His beard was the largest and longest of any Englishman of his time. He used to give as his reason for wearing his beard of unusual size
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are among the best known, and if not of great poetical merit, they show considerable descriptive skill, and enable us to realise the fashions of his day. In his
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Superbiæ Flagellum,
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Now a few lines to paper I will put, Of men's beards strange, and variable cut, In which there's some that take as vain a pride As almost in all other things beside; Some are reap'd most substantial like a brush, Which makes a nat'rel wit known by the bush; And in my time of some men I have heard, Whose wisdom have been only wealth and Beard; Many of these the proverb well doth fit, Which says, bush natural, more hair than wit: Some seem, as they were starched stiff and fine, Like to the bristles of some angry swine; And some to set their love's desire on edge, Are cut and prun'd like a quickset hedge; Some like a spade, some like a fork, some square, Some round, some mow'd like stubble, some stark bare; Some sharp, stiletto fashion, dagger-like, That may with whisp'ring, a man's eyes outpike; Some with the hammer cut, or roman T, Their Beards extravagant, reform'd must be; Some with the quadrate, some triangle fashion, Some circular, some oval in translation; Some perpendicular in longitude; Some like a thicket for their crassitude; That heights, depths, breadths, triform, square, oval, round, And rules geometrical in Beards are found.
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Satirical Songs and Poems on Costume, edited by Frederick W. Fairholt, F.S.A., printed for the Percy Society, 1849. The piece which is entitled
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The Ballad of the Beard, is reprinted from a collection of poems, entitled
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Le Prince d'Amour, 1660, but it is evidently a production of the time of Charles I., if not earlier.
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The varied form of the beard, says Fairholt,
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Taylor, the Water Poet, has alluded to the custom at some length; and other writers of the day have so frequently mentioned the same thing, as to furnish materials for a curious (privately-printed) pamphlet, by J.A. Repton, F.S.A., on the various forms of the beard and mustachio. The beard, like