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William is said to have attempted to compel the sturdy
Saxons to shave, but many of them left the kingdom
rather than part with their Beards. In this, as in other
matters, Anglo-Saxon firmness ultimately conquered the
conquerors, and the Norman sovereigns gave in to the
national custom. As early as Henry I, that is only 44
years from Williams landing, we learn that Bishop Serlo
met that monarch on his arrival in Normandy, and made
a long harangue on the enormities of the times, especially
long hair and bushy Beards, which he said they would not
clip, lest the stumps should wound the ladies faces. Henry,
with repentant obedience, submitted his hairy honors to
the Bishop, who with pious zeal, taking a pair of shears
from his trunk, trimmed king and nobles with his own
hand. This conduct of the Bishop is curiously illustrated
by a cotemporary decree of the Senate of Venice, of the
year 1102, commanding all long Beards to be cut off in
consequence of a Bull of Pope Paschal II, denouncing
the vanity of long hair, founded on a misinterpretation of
1st Corinthians, xii, 14,* which applies only to the hair of
the head. On this text a sermon might be written though
scarcely preached, which would " a tale unfold, would
harrow up the soul."f
* A writer in Dickens' Household Words says Pope Anacletus,
(query 1st or 2nd) was the first who introduced the custom of shav-
ing.
f In this and in other places I am obliged to leave under a veil
of obscure allusion, arguments of thrilling force, not only from
