The celibacy of priests was enjoined; a point which it was still found very difficult to carry into execution; and even laymen were not allowed to marry within the seventh degree of affinity.[***] By this contrivance, the pope augmented the profits which he reaped from granting dispensations, and likewise those from divorces.
For as the art of writing was then rare, and parish registers were not regularly kept, it was not easy to ascertain the degrees of affinity even among people of rank; and any man, who had money sufficient to pay for it, might obtain a divorce, on pretence that his wife was more nearly related to him than was permitted by the canons.

The synod also passed a vote, prohibiting the laity from wearing long hair.[****] The aversion of the clergy to this mode was not confined to England.

When the king went to Normandy, before he had conquered that province, the bishop of Seeze, in a formal harangue, earnestly exhorted him to redress the manifold disorders under which the government labored, and to oblige the people to poll their hair in a decent form.

Henry, though he would not resign his prerogatives to the church willingly parted with his hair: he cut it in the form which they required of him, and obliged all the courtiers to imitate his example.[*****] [* Eadmer, p.

87.] [** Eadmer, p.