Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxons brought their Beards with them which they preferred of the forked shape, and this again might be either two-pronged, or three-pronged, or plutonian and neptunian.
St. Augustine is figured with his Beard on his appearance to convert these Islands in the sixth century. His followers must soon have shaved, because a writer of the seventh century, complains that "the Clergy had grown so corrupt as to be distinguished from the Laity less by their actions than by their want of Beards." The illustrious Alfred was so careful of the Beards of his subjects, that he inflicted the then heavy fine of twenty shillings on any one maliciously injuring the Beard of another. The Danes who invaded this country were Bearded. Fosbrooke says, some of them wore Beards with six forks, and history mentions Sueno the fork-beard.[1]
During this period, the French monarchy was growing. Its first kings held the Beard as sacred, and ornamented
- ↑ Many princes have borne the title of Boarded—as the Greek Emperor Constantine Pogonatns. Count Godfrey, the Emperor Barbarossa, and Ebovlard Duke of Wirtemberg in the reign of Maximilian, whose wisdom might truly be said to have grown with his Beard, and on whom the following verse was made:—
"Hic situs est ow barba dedit cognomina Princops.
Princeps Tentonici gloria magna, soli."
(Here is a Prince whose Beard gave his surname.
A Prince the glory of the land Almayne.)
