“Many were the complaints, like that of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1342, that the clergy were dressing like laymen, in checkerboard squares of red and green, short coats, “notably scant,” with excessively wide sleeves to show linings of fur or silk, hoods and tippets of “wonderful length,” pointed and slashed shoes, jeweled girdles hung with gilt purses. Worse, . . . they wore beards and long hair to the shoulders contrary to canonical rule. . . .”

—Barbara W. Tuchman, from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, 1978.