Note 1304 — Chapter XV · THE BOY BISHOP

Gregory of Tours, x. 16 (M. G. H. Script. Rerum Meroving. i. 427), mentions among the complaints laid before the visitors of the convent of St. Radegund in Poitou, that the abbess ‘vittam de auro exornatam idem neptae suae superflue fecerit, barbaturias intus eo quod celebraverit.’ Ducange, s. v. Barbatoriae, finds here a reference to some kind of masquing, and Peter of Blois, Epist. 14, certainly uses barbatores as a synonym for mimi. The M. G. H. editors of Gregory, however, explain ‘barbatoria’ as ‘primam barbam ponere’ the sense borne by the term in Petronius, Sat. lxxiii. 6. The abbess’s niece had probably no beard, but may not the reference be to the cutting of the hair of a novice when she takes the vows?