"Tonsure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sacrament"—I quote Count Luetzow, but his conception of political economy allowed him to pay a large tribute in exchange for German interference and the remains of a saint. He lavished money on the Church, whereas strongholds were required in defence of Christendom, and finally he adopted the tonsure. This struck home to the family and made Boleslav's cup of bitterness o'erflow; he plotted more persistently than ever against Wenceslaus. Another habit of the pious Prince was that of attending Church dedication festivals and their anniversaries, in every part of his dominion. The ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... clusters or "peppercorn" bunches peculiar to negro races. The Negrito man and woman usually wear the hair short, cutting it more or less closely so that it resembles a thick pad over the head. Sometimes a tonsure on the back is cut away, and among still other Negritos a considerable part of the hair is removed from the head. In persons of mixed Negrito-Malayan blood the hair, if left uncut, grows into a great wavy or frizzly mop standing up well from ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... the parish, and the joke of the ungodly. Some said he had been a dancing-master before he entered the cloister, and it was no wonder he turned out a renegade and took to trading. Others declared that he had no right to the gray capote, and his tonsure was a natural loss of hair; in fact, that he never had been a friar at all. But in Kaskaskia nobody took him seriously, and Father Olivier was not severe upon him. Custom made his harlequin antics a matter of course; though Indians still paused opposite his shop and ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the bottom of the steps now stood out more distinctly. The man was wearing on his shabby infantry coat the white armlet with the red cross. He must have been a priest, for I could distinguish some traces of a neglected tonsure ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... to go to Delphi and offer firstfruits of their hair to the god, Theseus also went thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer says the Abantes did. And this sort of tonsure was from him named Theseis. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike people, and used to close fighting, and above all other nations, accustomed to engage ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... piece, and each with an appropriate insult malediction, may be stripped from him again. The sacred vessels are placed in his hands, that from him, "accursed Judas that he is," they may be taken again. There is some difficulty in erasing his tonsure; but this difficulty with a little violence and cruelty is overcome. A tall paper cap, painted over with flames and devils, and inscribed "Heresiarch," is placed upon his head. This done, and his soul having been duly delivered to Satan, his body is surrendered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing then. It's only a very little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest says it reminds her of a tonsure on the head of a fine-looking monk. Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of you and Antoun. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoun's. That day on the Enchantress Isis Sir ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... not told us, marquis, how the fanaticism of your brother liberated you from the tonsure?" ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... their approaches towards absolute wisdom, and as the realisation of this perfection is regarded as almost hopeless in a life devoted to secular cares, the priests of Buddha, on assuming their robe and tonsure, forswear all earthly occupations; subsist on alms, not in money, but in food; devote themselves to meditation and self-denial; and, being thus proclaimed and recognised as the most successful aspirants to ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... dress you think not, nor the worry Of meals e'er taken in a flurry, 70 And sleeping with my head so low My tonsure touched the ground, and no Comfort nor pillow for my head, And early mass, and late to bed. And I, your favour for to win, Served out-of-doors as well as in, Bought shell-fish in the market-place, To many an errand set my face —You know, sir, it is as I ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... with the scissors and I received the 'tonsure' for the third time, which left only a circle of hair around my head, and no Pinkerton detective, or even Bertillion ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... is dark, and not very evenly trimmed—for his wife or daughter has performed the tonsure with a pair of rusty shears; and the longer locks seem changed in hue, as if his dingy wool hat did not sufficiently protect them against the wind and rain. Over his shoulder he carries a heavy rifle, heavier than a "Harper's ferry ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... themselves. A very large part of England had been converted by the Celtic missionaries, and the Celtic missionaries, though their life and teaching was in the main the same as that of the Church of Canterbury and of the Churches of the Continent, differed from them in the shape of the tonsure and in the time at which they kept their Easter. These things were themselves unimportant, but it was of great importance that the young English Church should not be separated from the Churches of more civilised countries which had ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... begin; and when he had made a circular tonsure on the top of the head, had it sponged with ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... this, after a short delay, was granted. But Aimery, who dressed like a layman in 'divided and striped clothes' and wore a long beard, they refused to treat as a clerk, though it was afterwards alleged that the tonsure was plainly discernible upon his head until it was shaved by order of the Capitouls. Aimery was put to the torture, admitted his crime, and was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out by hanging, after he had had his hand cut off on the scene of ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... grow magniloquent. My object is attained if I can but show that when my friend took me under his wing at the Institute long years agone, when the innocent-looking lad with the fair hair, that might have had an incipient tonsure superimposed without incongruity, drifted away from text-books of mechanics, and sat down with Schiller, Ducoudray, and Carlyle, he little imagined how adventurous a spirit there boiled under that demure disguise of retiring scholarship—a spirit fired ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... overwhelmed them with reproaches, and strove by his violence against them to purge himself from complicity in their acts. The Poitevins lurked in sanctuary, fearing for the worst. Segrave forgot his knighthood, resumed the tonsure, and took refuge in a church in Leicester. The king's worst indignation was reserved for Peter of Rivaux. Peter protested that his orders entitled him to immunity from arrest, but it was found that he wore a mail shirt ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... crown of the head in those days was no trifling matter. It formed what is known as the tonsure, then the mark of the monastic orders. A man condemned to the tonsure could not serve as king or chieftain, but must spend the remainder of his days in seclusion as a monk. So Paul was disposed ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... garden was a summer-house, and on entering this we found it occupied by an old man, who sat reading therein. We were about to draw back, but he rose, leaning upon a stout stick, and very courteously invited us to be seated. His hooded black cassock, and the tonsure which was visible, as he had removed his cap, marked the priest. He was very feeble, as we could see, though his eyes, bright and piercing, contrasted strangely with the deadly pallor of his cheeks. A straggling ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... to attract attention. A short time afterwards we met two more horsemen, one of whom asked us if he was going right for the house we had been at. As he was speaking a gust of wind blew off his hat. I fetched it and gave it to him, and as he stooped to put it on I saw that a tonsure was shaven on the top of his head. The matter had already seemed strange to us; but the fact that one of this number of men, all going to a lonely house, was a priest in disguise, seemed so suspicious that my brother and myself determined ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... me very much better than they did Father Jogues, Father Breboeuf, and a good many others whom I could mention. There were times, it is true, when I was quite hopeful of martyrdom, especially when they thought my tonsure was too small, which was their merry way of putting it. But I suppose I was not worthy of it; indeed I know that I was not, so it only ended in just ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... doubt, of horror, and despair. Oh! Isidora, is thy virgin heart Thus mated to a wild apostate monk? The midnight reveller, and morning priest, At e'en the gay guitar, at noon the cowl; The holy mummer, tonsure and the missal, The world, our blessed Church, and Heav'n defied. To love this man, I surely have become That which a Guzman ought to scorn to be. Is he not, too, a Guzman, and my cousin? Yet must he be renounced. Here let ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... such as thou," answered the old man looking from him. "I could forgive this," he touched his battered tonsure, "and all thou hast done against me and mine. That is not little, for when I was a lad, a youth, before I took the priestly yoke upon me, I loved Maria Zerega—but that is nothing. What suffering comes upon me I can bear, but thou hast filled the cup of iniquity and must drain it to ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... "our foeman is under the stole and the vestment as much as under the helmet and plate of proof. We have as much to fear from the tonsure as from the hauberk. Strike at the noble and the priest shrieks, strike at priest and the noble lays his hand upon glaive. They are twin thieves who live upon ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Huss, yet he uttered one solemn appeal. Once and again he prayed for his enemies. Being clothed in his priestly robes, he was stripped of them by seven bishops, while he still persisted in holding fast his convictions, except as the truth of God could be shown to condemn them. The mark of his tonsure was next removed, and that with great cruelty. A cap daubed over with the figures of demons was then placed on his head, and thus the heroic martyr of Bohemia was led forth to be burned in the name ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... crossed in a ship provided by the King of Kent. Travelling together as far as Lyons, Wilfrid remained there for a time, and Benedict pushed on to Mont Cenis, and so to Rome, after a long and perilous journey. On a second visit he received the tonsure, and went back to work at Lindisfarne; but about two years afterwards he obtained a passage to Italy in a trading-vessel, and it was on this occasion that he received the Pope's commands. Four years elapsed before ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... looks at the chapter house, then goes over to the crucifix and stops in front of it. The last strophe of the choral service can be heard from across the courtyard. The CONFESSOR enters from the back; he is dressed in black and white; he has long hair and along beard and a very small tonsure ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... of children dying before they are named, or before the tonsure ceremony is performed on them, are buried, and those of other persons are burnt. In the grave of a small child some of its mother's milk, or, if this is not available, cow's milk in a leaf-cup or earthen vessel, is placed. Before a body is burnt cakes of wheat-flour are put on the face, breast ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... smoothed off, and all by one man. The Japanese are but indifferent sewers, all their seams exhibiting numerous "holidays." Pretty children, with their hair clipped around their heads like a priest's tonsure, sport around us, but are not intrusive. Each child has a little pouch attached to his girdle, which, we are informed, contains the address of the child's parents, and also an invocation to the little one's protecting god, in case of his straying ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... him, clad in a long dark-brown gown of coarse woollen, girt with a cord, to which hung a "pair of beads" (or rosary, as we should call it to-day) and a book in a bag. The man was tall and big-boned, a ring of dark hair surrounded his priest's tonsure; his nose was big but clear cut and with wide nostrils; his shaven face showed a longish upper lip and a big but blunt chin; his mouth was big and the lips closed firmly; a face not very noteworthy but for his grey eyes well opened and wide apart, at whiles lighting ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... they had come nearer, Robin saw who they were, and knew them. The first was the Bishop of Hereford, and a fine figure he cut, I wot. His vestments were of the richest silk, and around his neck was a fair chain of beaten gold. The cap that hid his tonsure was of black velvet, and around the edges of it were rows of jewels that flashed in the sunlight, each stone being set in gold. His hose were of flame-colored silk, and his shoes of black velvet, the long, pointed toes being turned ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... succeeded, in less than an hour, in setting Joe once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost, and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput. The operation was, indeed, of a mongrel description—somewhat between a complete tonsure and an imperfect scalping, to both of which denominations it certainly presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... religion of his wonderful earthly situation and prospect that speaks to him loudly, rather than the religion of the far-off Power whose hands he believes to hold the threads of his destinies? Even the tonsure is a psalm to some, and the robe and cowl a litany. The knotted cord is a mass and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... dahlias, and geraniums, and delicate tinted German stocks, which fill the air with fragrance; a place made only for young lovers:—certainly not for those black, petticoated worthies, each with that sham of a sham, the modern tonsure, pared down to a poor florin's breadth among their bushy, well-oiled curls, who sit at little tables, passing the lazy day "a muguetter les bourgeoises" of Sarrebruck and Treves, and sipping the fragrant Josephshofer—perhaps at the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... the ground round the stove, as close as they could get without scorching, and the atmosphere was quickly heavy with their presence. When they slipped back their hoods it was seen that two of the men wore the "tartar tonsure," after ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... students in the conciliar seminary of Manila in 1842 and 48 [sic; 43?]—namely, some twenty-five, counting priests, deacons, subdeacons, those who have taken the lesser orders, and those who have taken the tonsure—one may calculate that the four seminaries will contain about one hundred students; so that, adding these to the ninety-three preceding, belonging also to the secular clergy, the number increases to one hundred and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... great sickness; and my brother was slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying save he that stripped him of his gear; and my unwedded wife with whom I dwelt in love after I had taken the tonsure, and all men said she was good and fair, and true she was and lovely; she also is dead and gone from the earth; and why should I abide save for the deeds of the flesh which must be done? Truly, friend, this is but an old tale that men must die; and I will tell ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... that it was the custom at coming of age to tonsure the head and offer the hair to some god, and describes the young Theseus as adopting what we know as the Celtic tonsure, thenceforth ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... were no longer thought enough without a good life; and, as the Greeks said, that beard and cloak did not make a philosopher, so the Egyptians said that white linen and a tonsure would not make a follower of Isis. All the sacrifices to the gods had a secondary meaning, or, at least, they tried to join a moral aim to the outward act; as on the twentieth day of the month, when they ate honey and figs in honour of Thot, they sang "Sweet ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the ceremonies carried me back! To the mysteries of Eleusis; to the sacrificial rites of Phoenicia. The boys swung the censors as censors had been swung in the adoration of Bacchus. The girdle and cassock of the priests came from Persia; the veil and tonsure were from Egypt; the alb and chasuble were prescribed by Numa Pompilius; the stole was borrowed from the official who used to throw it on the back of the victim that was to be sacrificed; the white surplice was the same as described by Juvenal ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... understand it. The "Congregation of the son of the C[a]kyas"—such was the earliest name for the Buddhistic brotherhood—were required only to renounce their family, put on the yellow robe, assume the tonsure and other outward signs, and be chaste and high-minded. But the teachers were instructed in the subtleties of the 'Path,' and it needed no little training to follow the leader's thought to ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... and dark and full of a dreamy warmth. Don Ippolito's prevailing tint was that transparent blueishness which comes from much shaving of a heavy black beard; his forehead and temples were marble white; he had a tonsure the size of a dollar. He sat silent for a little space, and softly questioned the consul's face with his dreamy eyes. Apparently he could not gather courage to speak of his business at once, for he turned ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... instructed in Christianity by Wilfrid, a most learned man, who had first gone to Rome to learn the ecclesiastical doctrine, and spent much time at Lyons with Dalfinus, archbishop of France, from whom he had received the ecclesiastical tonsure, rightly thought this man's doctrine ought to be preferred to all the traditions ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... model regent, the Duke of Chou. His task was not an easy one. He had to suppress contending factions, to conciliate a hostile populace, and to capture many cities which refused to submit. In seven years he effected the subjugation of the eighteen provinces, everywhere imposing the tonsure and the "pigtail" as badges of subjection. Many a myriad of the Chinese forfeited their heads by refusing to sacrifice their glossy locks; but the conquest was speedy, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... of Mucio, the Duchess of Montpensier, carried the scissors at her girdle, with which she threatened to provide Henry with a third crown, in addition to those of France and Poland, which he had disgraced—the coronal tonsure of a monk. The convent should be, it was intimated, the eventual fate of the modern Childeric, but meantime it was more important than ever to supersede the ultimate pretensions of Henry of Navarre. To prevent that heretic of heretics, who was not to be bought with Spanish gold, from ever ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... a hill that rose out of green meadows. It was covered with dingy pine trees except the top that was bared like a tonsure. A trail ran through the woods; a trail singularly morose and unattractive. The pines looked shabby and black in comparison to the sun on the spring meadows. This was Break-Neck Hill. Perhaps Cuddy felt his rider stiffen in the saddle ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... own right anything whatever. On entering there, each one who was rich makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all. He who was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal of him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all. All undergo the same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on the same straw, die on the same ashes. The same sack on their backs, the same rope around their loins. If the decision has been to go barefoot, all ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... sooner gained the shore, Than on the wooden bartizan he stands, Within the city walls, a bridge that bore (Roomy and large) king Charles's Christian bands. Here many a scull is riven, here men take more Than monkish tonsure at the warrior's hands: Heads fly and arms; and to the ditch a flood Runs streaming from the wall ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... also of all the Christian churches were accustomed to shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in the former from what was practised in the latter. The Scots and Britons pleaded the antiquity of their usages; the Romans and their disciples, the Saxons, insisted on the universality of theirs. That Easter must necessarily be kept by a rule which comprehended both ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... be equal now before me, who am here below your goddess," replied Imperia, "otherwise one of these days I will have you delicately strangled between the head and shoulders; I swear it by the power of my tonsure which is as good as the pope's." And wishing that the trout should be added to the feast as well as the sweets and other dainties, she added, cunningly, "Sit you down and drink with us." But the artful minx, being up to a trick or two, gave the little one a wink which told him plainly ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Sasono." He died in the 68th year of his age, and was buried in S. Maria in Organo. He is called "prior" in a chronicle of the monastery under date 1511, and in the list of dead. In his portrait in the sacristy, by Caroto, he is represented with the tonsure and with the hood and cowl of the form which was proper to monks ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... notion we must place the authority of Erasmus, whose words plainly show that the martyr's head was displayed in the crypt: "hinc digressi subimus cryptoporticum: illic primum exhibetur calvaria martyris perforata (the martyr's pierced tonsure): reliqua tecta sunt argento, summa cranii pars nuda patet osculo." While Willis considers that the term corona was a common one for an apse at the end of a church, citing "Ducange's Glossary," which defines "Corona Ecclesiae" as Pars templi choro postica, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... head against the wall, both hands clasped under his beardless chin, and might have been taken for a monk repeating his prayers. The long, brown doublet fastened around his hips by a Hemp rope, instead of a girdle, made him resemble a Franciscan. But his thick, flaxen hair lacked the tonsure, the rope the rosary, and he wore coarse leather shoes on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... baked. This grain, called maize in the West-Indian Islands, is called Zara in the language of Peru[14]. The men wear a kind of shirts or jackets without sleeves, which only reach to the navel, and do not cover the parts of shame. They wear their hair short, having a kind of tonsure on their crowns, almost like monks. They have no other dress or covering, yet pride themselves on certain ornaments of gold hanging from their ears and nostrils, and are particularly fond of pendants made of emeralds, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... him come here," cried the Major, "or I'll let him know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec. A priest! After going round the world three times, to come home and be hailed as the father of a priest! Don't let him come near me, or ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... after making sure of his death, left the church; the monks took up his corpse, unwounded, save the crown of his head, which was shattered to pieces above his tonsure, and laid it out on the high altar, deeming that he had indeed been a sacrifice, and weeping as they beheld the beauty of his peaceful expression, as if he had calmly fallen asleep. They folded outward the haircloth shirt he had ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... by my merry mood impelled I kiss and dally night and morn And do the things I feel compelled To do—or else, with tonsure shorn, I'd seek ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... of his features, the elevation of his stature, and the freshness of his colour, made him appear much younger. His dress, from its colour and make, befitted his sacred profession, and his hair was so cut as to show the tonsure of the priest, so long covered by the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... that of the Church, to which, in England at any rate, all mediaeval students ipso facto belonged; the new student was admitted into the 'bosom' (matricula) of the University by receiving some form of tonsure, and for the first two centuries of University existence, no other ceremony was needed. Matriculation examinations at any rate were in those happy days unknown. Hence the authority which the cathedral chancellor, ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... the site of the ancient Domus Regis, close to the present S. George's Chapel. On one of the towers the inscription This made Wykeham may or may not be meant to convey a double meaning, but it is certainly true that his architectural successes furthered his fortunes. In 1357 he received the tonsure, and in 1360 was made Dean of S. Martin's Le Grand, Archdeacon of Lincoln, Northampton, and Buckingham, and Provost of Wells. In 1361 he commenced Queenborough Castle on the island of Sheppey; this important edifice, covering over three acres of ground, was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... as the kisses of a few who, although not old, were not sorry to be considered so for the sake of embracing a young man without impropriety. The curate of Saint-Samuel, the Abbe Josello, presented me to Monsignor Correre, Patriarch of Venice, who gave me the tonsure, and who, four months afterwards, by special favour, admitted me to the four minor orders. No words could express the joy and the pride of my grandmother. Excellent masters were given to me to continue my studies, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Rioc of Inis-bo-finde," said Eoghan. Patrick covered them over with the same garment, the hands of each being clasped round the other. They slept thus, and afterwards awoke in the same form, with the difference of the tonsure. "I don't like my height," said Eoghan. "What size do you desire to be?" asked Patrick. Eoghan reached up his hand with his sword. "I should like this height," said he; and he immediately grew to that height. Patrick afterwards blessed Eoghan, with his sons. "Which of your sons is dearest to ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... tonsure does an undisciplined man who speaks falsehood become a Samana; can a man be a Samana who is still held captive by ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... explain why the legend grew up, above the name, why the name attached itself, in many instances, to the bravest work of other men. The Concert in the Pitti Palace, in which a monk, with cowl and tonsure, touches the keys of a harpsichord, while a clerk, placed behind him, grasps the handle of the viol, and a third, with hat and plume, seems to wait upon the true interval for beginning to sing, is undoubtedly Giorgione's. ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... was talking this day with Warbel. He has been about in the world. He has seen priests and monks accused of heresy the one by the other; and none are so fearfully persecuted as those who wear the tonsure, if men do but suspect them of ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... man, a trifle above thirty, clean shaven, with a square and obstinate chin. He wore no hat, and his close black hair showed a straight middle parting above his low and somewhat protuberant forehead. The parting widened at the occiput to a well-kept tonsure. At the back the head wanted balance; and this lent a suggestion of brutality—of "thrust"—to his abounding appearance of strength. He walked in his priestly black with the gait and carriage proper to a ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was sufficiently recovered to go out, I proceeded to a barber, and on the plea of continual headache, for which it had been recommended that I should shave my head, requested him to make me a false tonsure. In a few days it was ready, and being very well made, no difference could be perceived between the wig and my own hair, which was then removed. So far I had succeeded; but as the greatest caution was necessary in a proceeding ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... indeed, but oh! how changed. His plump, olive-coloured countenance had shrunk to that of a skeleton still covered by yellow skin, in which the dark eyes rolled bloodshot and unnaturally large. His tonsure and jaws showed a growth of stubbly grey hair, his frame had become weak and small, his soft and delicate hands resembled those of a woman dead of some wasting disease, and, like his garments, were clogged with dirt. The mail shirt he wore hung loose upon him; one of his shoes was gone, and the ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... the youngest and prettiest Faces for trading Girls; these are remarkable by their Hair, having a particular Tonsure by which they are known, and distinguish'd from those engag'd to Husbands. They are mercenary, and whoever makes Use of them, first hires them, the greatest Share of the Gain going to the King's Purse, who is the chief Bawd, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... word Church, since with them the Pope and Bishops are the Church, while they do according to their own pleasure whatever they choose, in virtue of the declaration, "The Church has forbidden it." Holiness is not that which consists in the estate of monks, priests and nuns,—the wearing of the tonsure and cowl; it is a spiritual word, meaning that there is an inward holiness in the spirit before God. And this is the reason specially why he said this, in order to show that there is nothing holy but that holiness which God produces ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... A knotted cord bound his waist, the ends depending toward the pavement and swinging with his rosary. His feet were shod with sandals, and his head was bare, though an ample cowl was at hand to shelter it. His head needed no tonsure for age had made him nearly bald. His shaven face was kind and strong and he was in genial touch with the by-standers, to whom no doubt such a figure was not novel. Incongruously enough, the friar held over ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... all the female domestics over the country, not on the strength of his personal charms, for Larry had a hanging lip, a snub nose, a low forehead, a large ugly head, whose scrubby grizzled hair grew round the crown somewhat in the form of a priest's tonsure. Not on the strength of his gallantry, for Larry was always talking morality and making sage reflections, while he supplied the womankind with bits of lace, rolls of ribbon, and now and then silk stockings. He always had ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... surprise of both boys, he carefully raised Pen into a sitting position, signed to Punch to hold him up, and then taking off his curiously fashioned hat and hanging it upon a broken branch of the tree, the boys saw that Nature had furnished him with the tonsure of the priest without the barber's aid, and they had the opportunity now of seeing that it was a pleasantly wrinkled rosy face, with a pair of good-humoured-looking eyes that gazed ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... with apparent industry, making their pens pass rapidly over the paper. The pale face of this priest was at once mild and grave, intelligent and venerable, its expression full of benevolence and serenity. A small black cap concealed his tonsure, and his long gray hair floated on the collar of his maroon-colored coat. Let us add that, from his simple credulity, this excellent priest had always been, and was still, the dupe of Jacques Ferrand's deep ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... followers; the magnificently robed Alexander VI. (Rodrigo Borgia), wearing the triple tiara, gives back the style in portraiture of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio; while the kneeling Jacopo Pesaro—an ecclesiastic in tonsure and vesture, but none the less a commander of fleets, as the background suggests—is one of the most characteristic portraits of the Giorgionesque school. Its pathos, its intensity, contrast curiously with the less passionate absorption of the same ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... When the red cross in Holy Land Led on the glorious strife. Oh! for the days of golden spurs, Of tournament and tilt, Of pilgrim vow, and prowess high, When minsters fair were built; When holy priest the tonsure wore, The friar had his cord, And honour, truth, and loyalty ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... read (a mark of great learning in those days of ignorance and her sister superstition) being accounted a clerk or clericus, and allowed the benefit of clerkship, though neither initiated in holy orders, nor trimmed with the clerical tonsure."—Blackstone's "Com.," iv. b. iv, ch. 28. We have already seen that the king and nobles in this play called in the aid of Friar Tuck to read the inscription on the stag's collar, though the king could ascertain that it was in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... is the heat and thick the dust. The Franks the flying Arabs thrust. To Saragossa speeds their flight. The queen ascends a turret's height. The clerks and canons on her wait, Of that false law God holds in hate. Order or tonsure have they none. And when she thus beheld undone The Arab power, all disarrayed, Aloud she cried, "Mahound us aid! My king! defeated is our race, The Emir slain in foul disgrace." King Marsil turns him to the wall, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... white marble, of the early part of the sixteenth century. The figures just mentioned are of white marble, kneeling upon cushions, beneath a rich canopy of Gothic fretwork. They are in their professional robes; their heads are bare, exhibiting the tonsure, with the hair in one large curl behind. A small whole-length figure of St. George, their tutelary saint, is below them, in gilded marble: and the whole base, or lower frieze, of the monument, is surrounded by six delicately ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to the episcopate, inasmuch as the great rubricists only contemplated bishops in laying down the rules for the removal and assumption of the zucchetto; others again maintained that any priest might wear one; and others limited the honor to regulars, who habitually wore the tonsure. The chairman, however, stopped the discussion peremptorily, and again asked (this time a very aged priest) the question he had put to Father Delany. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... well a miscellaneous assortment of ghosts. A monk with tonsure and cowl walks in at one window of the Priest's House, and out at another. There is also a little old man, dressed in the antique garb of a green cut-away coat, knee breeches, and buckled shoes: he ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... in Esmond, "all disguises are fair, you say; and all uniforms, say I, black or red,—a black cockade or a white one—or a laced hat, or a sombrero, with a tonsure under it. I cannot believe that St. Francis Xavier sailed over the sea in a cloak, or raised the dead—I tried, and very nearly did once, but cannot. Suffer me to do the right, and to hope for the best ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... in my thoughts as I waited, breathless, for the outcome of this strange situation. My eyes wandered round the circle of barbarians, and I noted with some wonderment that numbers of the men wore their crowns shaven, after the manner of a priest's tonsure. ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... and England, what do we find? Those who have vowed themselves to the service of the Church walking gaily in the dress of soldiers, engaged in carnal matters, letting their hair hang down their shoulders curled and powdered, and thinking scorn of the tonsure, which is the mark of the Kingdom of Heaven. And does not God see? Will He not recompense to His people their sins? Yea, verily He will; and in an hour when they little think it, the wrath of God shall fall upon them. It is even now upon its way. I have ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... friars came from the colour of their friars' gowns. The Carmelites used undyed cloth, which was white in comparison with the black of the Dominicans. The Benedictine monks of St. Mary's Abbey wore black garments. Their heads were shaved on the crown, the technical term for which was the tonsure. ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson |
