y Henry VI. in the letter above cited.

Another trade closely associated with the University was that of the
barbers. In the twenty-second year of Edward III. (1348) the whole
company and fellowship of the barbers within the precincts of Oxford
appeared before the Chancellor and announced their intention of "joining
and binding themselves together in amity and love." They brought with
them certain ordinances and statutes drawn up in writing for the weal of
the craft of barbers, and requested the Chancellor to peruse and correct
them, and, afterwards, if he approved, attach to them the seal of the
University. The regulations having been seriously considered by the
Chancellor, the two proctors and certain doctors, it was resolved to
comply with the petition on the day following and constitute the barbers
a society or corporation.

The first article stipulated that the said craft should, under certain
penalties, keep and maintain a light before the image of our Lady in our
Lady's Chapel, within the precincts of St. Frideswyde's Church; the
second, that no person of the said craft should work on a Sunday, save
on market Sundays and in harvest-time, or shave any but such as were to
preach or do a religious act on Sunday all through the year; while a
third provided that all such as were of the craft were to receive at
least sixpence a quarter from each customer who desired to be shaved
weekly in his chamber or house. One shave per week does not coincide
with our modern notions of what is attractive and presentable in the
outer man, but the same rule prevailed at Cambridge. The statutes of St.
John's College in the latter university affirmed: "A barber is very
necessary to the college, who shall shave and cut once a week the head
and beard of the Master, Fellows, and Scholars, as they shall severally
have need."

In the statutes of New College, Oxford, there is an injunction against
the mock ceremony of shaving on the night preceding magistration. It is
called a _ludus_ (or play), and is believed to have been affined to the
ecclesiastical mummeries so popular in the Middle Ages, in one of which
the characters were a bishop, an abbot, a preceptor, and a fool shaved
the precentor on a public stage erected at the west end of the church.
There was also a species of masquerade celebrated by the religious in
France, which consisted in the display of the most formidable beards;
and it is recorded by Gregory of Tours that the Abbess