As leene was his hors as is a rake,
And he nas nat right fat, I undertake,
But looked holwe, and therto sobrely.
Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy,
For he hadde geten hym yet no benefice.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, General Prologue. The Clerk is a poor philosophy student from Oxford, thin and dressed in threadbare clothes. For he has not yet obtained an ecclesiastical living.