“for Poules without”: Beards as Costumes and their Sumptuary Restrictions

Evan Kennedy

1000065378

Professor: M. Sergi

Due Date: April 1^st, 2014

Keywords: Beard, Costume, St. Paul’s, Sumptuary, Tudor 

“for Poules without”: Beards as Costumes and their Sumptuary Restrictions

The Ecclesiastical London volume of the Records of Early English Drama (REED) provides unique information on the use of beards, whether real or fake, as an element of costume.  Unlike other volumes, which primarily acknowledge faux beards through the purchase of hair, the records of Ecclesiastical London exhibit multiple manuscripts that designate whether an actor is to be bearded or clean-shaven based on the location of a production.  Specifically, St. Paul’s Cathedral is frequently indicated as a beard-free zone, meriting significant commentary in character lists and stage directions within a script.  In this paper I will attempt to rationalize this remarkable relationship between facial hair and venue by acknowledging its relevance within a country subject to sumptuary law. Furthermore, I will demonstrate how records of faux beards throughout the REED collection are largely exhibitive of the widespread ineffectiveness of these aesthetic restrictions.

Two manuscripts are featured in the records for their reference to this clean-shaven convention.  The first, Arabia Sitiens, dated to 1601, includes a description of the character Mahomet as,

“Mahomet: With Alcoran [under his arme] and Syluer crescent on his Turbant and all in   greene, vicegerent of Heaven, without Mustach if for Poules and bare faced”

(Ecclesiastical London, 283).

Poules, or St. Paul’s Cathedral, is indicated as a location where a beard and moustache would be unsuitable.  This restriction is further enforced within the script itself, as a marginal note in act 1 scene 1 provides the direction, “He held him by the Bearde, or clawd him by the face if for Poules” (Ecclesiastical London, 284).  It is apparent that clean-shaven faces are a significant convention that merits specific changes to performance when at a certain venue. The second manuscript, The Aphrodysial, dated to 1602, also includes a list of characters at the beginning of the manuscript and specifies whether or not they should have a beard.  Among these instructions is the phrase, “for Powles without” (Ecclesiastical London, 288-9).  While it remains unclear whether productions of these manuscripts actually occurred at the cathedral, both texts still clearly designate St. Paul’s as a venue in which beards would not be suitable, though neither contribute satisfactory indication as to why.  I believe sumptuary law provides a possible explanation.

Sumptuary laws were constraints on apparel established by the ruling monarch to differentiate between classes.  These legal restrictions indicated specific class levels and articles of clothing prohibited to each (Hooper, 433).  Monarchs of the Tudor line were not the first to enforce such restrictions, but they may have been unique in their attempts to incorporate facial hair into the law’s jurisdiction.  In 1546, Henry VIII made efforts to include long beards in these regulations, which is notable given his own blond beard in most portraits.  These restrictions continued into the reign of his daughter Elizabeth, who in 1558 attempted to tax beard length “according to the age and social standing of their proprietors” (Reynolds, 218-219).  Those who failed to keep their faces shaved lost the “liberties and freedom of his city as long as he does wear such beard” (Reynolds, 216).  If these aesthetic restrictions were considered essential in the production of a play, the risk of punishment could have major ramifications on the use of costumes throughout all of England.

But were costume beards subject to the jurisdiction of sumptuary law?  Records from various guilds across counties document the longstanding purchase of hair for the construction of faux beards.  In Coventry, the Weavers’ Guild lists the yearly purchase of hair for faux beards from 1570 to 1579 (Coventry, 252), and in Chester the Painters’ Guild lists similar transactions (Chester, 166).  Initial evidence throughout the REED archive seems to support that the costumes were not restricted like their natural counterparts.

Still, the presence of faux beards in such records may instead reveal the notorious difficulty the monarchy had enforcing these restrictions.  Rather than suggest that the use of costume beards was irrelevant to the law, it is possible that most communities outside the immediate influence of central London found sumptuary law to be irrelevant to their every-day life, and so the regulations were largely ignored.  The law itself was continually under revision as fashions were ever changing in an economically stimulated London and administration was difficult to maintain with these shifting regulations (Hooper, 444). In his summation of Tudor Sumptuary restrictions, Hooper acknowledges, “Outside London and the universities, little activity was shown to enforce the dress regime.  Here and there offenders were occasionally presented or prosecuted for infringing the statutes, and a few provincial towns framed by-laws relating to apparel” (Hooper, 447).

Inside London, however, St. Paul’s Cathedral had the location and social environment essential to requisite these aesthetic designations. In the center of London, this highly social space presented a perfect situation for large populations to mingle.  St. Paul’s Cathedral offered a specific opportunity for gatherings that were inclusive of people of many different classes, and so the preservation of clearer distinctions between these classes would remain an imperative.  Furthermore, unlike the counties of Coventry and Chester, St. Paul’s Cathedral was in intimate vicinity to the court and would experience greater pressure to conform to these regulations.  Indeed, shaven faces were not the sole costumes requisite within a performance St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Arabia Sitiens also contains marginal notes designating highly specific angel costumes that, when at other venues, simply require actors to “at your best conformity be” (Ecclesiastical London, 283).

If sumptuary law effectively explains the need to annotate barefaced actors in performances at ‘Poules’, the significance of the Arabia Sitiens and The Aphrodysial manuscripts shifts dramatically.  Instead of only indicating adherence to sumptuary law, these texts also reveal that there were alternative performance venues available in London where these restrictions did not need to be observed.  Thus, the possibility of aesthetic leniency present in these manuscripts dated 1601 and 1602 is predictive of the prompt dissolution of sumptuary law in 1604 (Hooper, 448).  With this, small marginal notes, indicating the details of facial hair, can be seen as symptomatic clues, forecasting much larger legal shifts in the immediate future.

Whether or not they were actually performed, the Arabia Sitiens and The Aphrodysial manuscripts in the Ecclesiastical London volume of the REED display a uniquely specific relationship between costuming restrictions and venue.  While the texts themselves fail to explain the motivation behind these annotations, I believe one possible solution can be found by examining the influence of sumptuary law.  Consideration of this possibility suggests a venue, or at least an unnamed author, still necessarily sensitive to cultural restrictions that, on a broader scale, were quickly becoming ineffective and obsolete.

Work Cited

Hooper, Wilfrid. “The Tudor Sumptuary Laws.”  The English Historical Review, Vol. 30, No. 119. pp. 433-449. 1915.

Records of Early English Drama. Chester. Ed. Lawrence M. Clopper. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 1979. Print.

Records of Early English Drama. Coventry. Ed. R.W. Ingram. Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1981. Print

Records of Early English Drama. Ecclesiastical London. Ed. Mary C. Erler. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press, 2008. Print.

Reynolds, Reginald. Beards. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1949. Print.