After a long day of clipping, snipping, and ripping, the crimper arrives home covered in the hair of others. Slightly unsettling upon analysis, but still a fact of life, the stray hair of customers makes barbers and stylists around the world itch. A quick shower and a change of shirt makes the itch go away for another day, and the residue of an honest day's work is gone for good. But what if the choice to wear an undercoat of fur is made by a particularly ascetic sort? Then my friends we have a Cilice.
It's a hairshirt, literally a shirt made of hair that serves as a means of mortification and as a way to resist those pesky temptations of the flesh. To put it bluntly, if you wear a hairshirt, you will be uncomfortable and you will (most likely) not get laid. That is not to say that there isn't a community for those with a hairshirt fetish (there is), but still, a flea and mite infested vest of fur is usually not included in one of those 10 Ways to Spice Up Your Sex Life articles. So then why would one chose to slip into something a little less comfortable? Use of the cilice dates back thousands of years, not only among religious figures, but also among lay people. Fat cat landowners used to slide on a hairshirt under their fine clothing as a sartorial antithesis to their lives of luxury and comfort. That would be the modern day equivalent of one of the executives from Goldman Sachs wearing a cilice under a bespoke suit. Hairshirts sound uncomfortable because they are uncomfortable.
One of the most famous hairshirts in history was worn by Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Through one of the worst misunderstandings in British history, four knights sailed to England (they were in Normandy at the time) to carry out what they interpreted to be Henry II's call for Becket's assassination. On December 29, 1170, Thomas Becket was separated from his brain at the altar of the Canterbury Cathedral. When the mess was cleaned up, and monks were preparing his body for burial, they discovered that Becket was wearing a hairshirt. It was obvious that he had been wearing the cilice for a long time, because fleas poured out of it like lava when it was removed from his body. After a couple of miracles and some papal razzle-dazzle, Thomas Becket was cannonized by Pope Alexander III (they same Pope who issued the edict that started the whole barber-surgeon thing) and became henceforth known as St. Thomas of Canterbury. Henry II was furious about the assassination, and the knights were disgraced. To regain the favor of the Pope, King Henry donned the hairshirt and walked the streets of Canterbury bare foot while he was flogged by eighty monks. Then to cap off the evening, he spent the night with St. Thomas' corpse in the crypt. In lieu of a dozen roses, the Pope accepted the act of atonement, and forgave the King.
Thomas Becket is not the only historical figure known to have worn a hairshirt, St. Patrick, Charlemagne, Henry IV and Prince Henry the Navigator are all said to have been clad in the not so comfy garment at some point in their lives (or deaths). This makes a person wonder why there isn't at least a short unit on Great Hairshirts in History included in high school history curricula. According to Belinda Carlisle, heaven may be a place on Earth, but no one seems to be too important for a hairshirt. Next time you complain about alien hairs on your skin, remember, it could be a hell of a lot worse.
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