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Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean

ISSN: 0950-3110 (Print) 1473-348X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/calm20

Hair and Beards in the Early Medieval West

Ian Wood

To cite this article:

Ian Wood (2018) Hair and Beards in the Early Medieval West, Al-Masāq, 30:1,

107-116, DOI: 10.1080/09503110.2018.1426581
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2018.1426581

Published online: 15 Mar 2018.

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Hair and Beards in the Early Medieval West

Ian Wood

ABSTRACT

Discussion of hair and beards in the early medieval West is
dominated by the wearing of long hair by the Merovingians, and
by the debate about the tonsure. Narrative sources and Roman
Law provide evidence on the social and ethnic meaning of hair
and beards, but the most substantial body of evidence is to be
found in Biblical commentary.

ARTICLE HISTORY

Received 5 January 2018
Accepted 8 January 2018

KEYWORDS

Hair; Beards; Merovingians;
Carolingians; Tonsure; Aaron;
Commentaries on the Psalms

Hair in the early Middle Ages, and especially in the post-Roman West, is a subject that has
long attracted attention.

1

This is not because hair prompted the sort of cosmological dis-

cussion that could be found in some Islamic texts.

2

Nor is hair the subject of numerous

epigrams, as was the case in Classical Arabic literature,

3

although in the fifth century Sido-

nius Apollinaris did satirise the Burgundians,

“oiling their hair with rancid butter”: infun-

dens acido comam butyro,

4

while around the year 900 Hucbald of St Amand wrote a

lengthy poem in praise of baldness for his bald patron, Archbishop Hatto of Mainz
(891-913).

5

In Old English, from around the year 1000, there is at least one filthy riddle

concerned with hair

6

but, for the most part, the subject of hair for the early medieval

Western historian is dominated by a number of very specific issues, and two in particular.
The first is the fact that long hair was a mark of being a member of the Merovingian
family, who ruled over the Franks from the mid-fifth to the mid-eighth century. From
the late fifth century down to 751, the rulers of Francia were known as the reges criniti,
the long-haired kings. Inevitably, historians have wondered about the meaning of their
long hair.

7

A second reason for the interest in early medieval hair was the extremely

fraught debate over what constituted the orthodox style of tonsure to be worn by

© 2018 Society for the Medieval Mediterranean

CONTACT

Ian Wood

[e-mail]

1

Robert Bartlett,

“Symbolic Meanings of Hair in the Middle Ages”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sixth series 4

(1994): 43

–60; Walter Pohl, “Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity”, in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of

Ethnic Communities , 300

–800, ed. Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 17–69, esp. 51–61; Paul

E. Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, in idem, Charlemagne’s Mustache and Other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 3

–42; Maximilian Diesenberger, “Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital in the

Frankish Kingdoms

”, in The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Richard Corradini, Maximilian Die-

senberger and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 173

–212; Axel G. Weber, Der Childebert-Ring und andere frühmit-

telalterliche Siegelringe (Leverkusen: Garcia GmbH, 2007), pp. 49

–63.

2

See Shahzad Bashir,

“The Mediation of Hair: Sufi, Hurūfi and Poetic Usages in Persian Texts”, in this volume.

3

See Geert Jan van Gelder,

“Rebarbative Beards in Classical Arabic Literature”, and also Wen-ching Ouyang, “A Hairy State of

Mind: Creativity in the Arabic Literary Imaginary

”, both in this volume.

4

Sidonius Apollinaris, carmen XII, l. 7, ed. André Loyen, Sidoine Apollinaire, volume I: Poèmes (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1960),

p. 103.

5

Thomas Klein,

“In Praise of Bald Men: A Translation of Hucbald’s Ecloga de calvis”, Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and

Renaissance Studies 26 (1995): 1

–9.

6

Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exeter Riddles (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2011), pp. 230

–3.

7

Diesenberger,

“Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital”.

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VOL. 30, NO. 1, 107

–116

https://doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2018.1426581

priests.

8

This may perhaps offer us a parallel to the world of S

 ūfī and Hurūfī thought.

9

Discussions of tonsure, however, do not revolve around cosmological symbolism, but
are rather concerned with the doctrinal affiliation of the tonsured man. A priest was ton-
sured in the manner of the church to which he belonged, which meant that it was instantly
apparent whether he was associated with the Roman, (Greek) Orthodox, or

“Celtic” party.

In some circumstances, such an association might be regarded as heretical.

Beards have not attracted the same intensity of academic discussion, but they too could

be a marker of the ecclesiastical tradition to which a priest belonged: by the eleventh
century (although not in the fourth and fifth) Latin clergy tended to be clean-shaven,
Orthodox to be bearded. Thus, following the death of the German missionary Bruno of
Querfurt on the borders of Russia in 1009, a Greek bishop arrived, and, according to
Ademar of Chabannes, encouraged the growing of beards (morem grecum in barba cres-
cenda et ceteris exemplis eos suscipere fecit:

“he made them follow the Greek tradition in

growing a beard and in other ways

”).

10

The importance of the long hair of the Merovingians and of the debates over the

tonsure has allowed the construction of a clear narrative of hair and beard styles, and
their significance as markers of distinction (ethnic, religious and social) from the late
Roman period through to the start of the second millennium. But while there may be a
clear overarching narrative, historians have insisted that the symbolism of hair

“was

very inconsistent and highly contextual

”

11

– as indeed seems to have been the case in

the Islamic world, to judge by the effect that the singer Ziry

āb is said to have had on Anda-

lusi society in the time of Abd-al-Rahman II. 822

–52. But, as al-Maqqarī noted, a style that

was originally adopted at court was later associated with slave girls.

12

The precise context

in which hairstyles and beards were sported is important.

In Paul Dutton

’s reading, the history of hair in the early Middle Ages begins roughly as

follows: in the fourth century, Romans tended to be clean-shaven, with their hair cropped,
while the barbarians tended to wear their hair longer, and to be bearded. This tradition of
being hirsute is mentioned in Tacitus, who claims that youths among the Chatti did not
cut their hair or beards until they had killed an enemy.

13

Even after that rite of passage,

barbarians tended to remain bearded, with their hair relatively long, to judge by represen-
tations of them in Roman sculpture. Barbarians on such public monuments as Trajan

’s

column, and on sarcophagi, as well as on coin issues commemorating Roman victories,
are easily identified by their full head of hair, and often by their beards. Hair length
was seen as a mark of civilisation in Roman law: the Codex Theodosianus legislated
against overlong hair: Maiores crines, indumentum pellium etiam in servis intra urbem

8

Edward James,

“Bede and the Tonsure Question”, Peritia 3 (1984): 85–98.

9

Bashir,

“Mediation of Hair”.

10

Ademar of Chabannes, Chronicon beta and gamma, III, 31, ed. Paschale Bourgain, Richard A. Landes and Georges Pons

[Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis, volume CXXIX] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999). On Eastern beards, see Tuomas
Heikkelä,

“Between East and West: The Many Uses of the Life of St Symeon of Trier”, in Travelling through Time: Essays in

Honour of Kaj Öhrnberg, ed. Sylvia Akar, Jaakko Hämeen-Antilla and Inka Nokso-Koivistop [Studia Orientalia, volume CXIV]
(Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2013), pp. 121

–34, esp. 125.

11

Yitzhak Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, AD 481

–751 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 139–40; Bartlett, “Symbolic

Meanings

”.

12

Ah

 mad ibn Mohammad al-Maqqarī, The History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, trans. Pascual de Gayangos,

volumes I

–II (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1840), II: 120.

13

Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 5; Tacitus, Germania, 31, 2, ed. Alf Önnerfors, in De origine et situ Germanorum liber

(Stuttgart: Teubner, 1983).

108

I. WOOD

sacratissimam praecipimus inhiberi (

“We forbid the wearing of long hair and of leather

garments, even by slaves, within the most sacred city

”).

14

This, however, was a law

issued at a precise moment, in 416, a mere six years after the Gothic sack of the city of
Rome. It was surely a very loaded piece of legislation, because barbarians with long,
and well-groomed hair, had long been in the entourages of Roman emperors, as can be
seen, for example, on the Missorium of Theodosius.

15

At the same time, we know, in

one instance, that only shortly after the making of the missorium (but less that two
decades before the law in the Theodosian Code) barbarians submitting to Rome had to
endure the indignity of having their hair cut before they were allowed to serve as mercen-
aries in the Roman army.

16

That barbarians were proud of their hair and that they

groomed it carefully is apparent from the numerous combs found on archaeological
sites.

17

Of course, a sense of style may not have been the chief concern: the removal of

lice may have been more pressing.

The Merovingians, the reges criniti, provide us with what is certainly the most striking

example of the wearing of long hair.

18

It may have been a traditional, even archaic, hair-

style, but it was one that the Merovingian family sported in the late fifth century, as can be
seen on the seal-ring of Childeric I d. 481, which was buried together with its owner in
c.481.

19

His son Clovis had long hair.

20

And the ruling members of the family continued

to wear their hair long, down to their removal from office in 751.

21

To cut the long hair of a

member of the Frankish royal family was a way of depriving him of a claim to the throne,
as we can see in the cases of Chararic,

22

of the offspring of Clovis

’s son Chlodomer, 511–

54,

23

and of the self-styled Merovingian Gundovald, d. 585.

24

In the cases of Chararic and

of the sons of Chlodomer, there was also an issue of forcible tonsuring: their hair was not
just being cut, but they were also being transformed into churchmen.

In the later sixth century, it was possible to identify a royal corpse simply on the

grounds of the length of the dead man

’s hair.

25

Yet young boys who did not belong to

the royal family also seem to have worn their hair long. To shave a puer crinitus (and
here the phrase does not seem to be concerned only with members of the Merovingian

14

Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 10; Codex Theodosianus, XIV, 10, 4, in Theodosiani libri XVI cum continuationibus Sir-

mondianis et Leges Novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, ed. Theodor Mommsen and Paul M. Meyer (Berlin: Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 1905), p. 788.

15

Weber, Der Childebert-Ring, 58; El Disco de Teodosio, ed. Martin Almagro-Gorbea (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia,

2000).

16

Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 10; Claudian, In Eutropium, ll. 383–4, in Claudian, ed. and trans. Maurice Platnauer,

volumes I

–II (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1922), I, pp. 138–229; idem, Panegyricus de quarto consulatu

Honorii Augusti, ll. 446

–7, in ibid, 1, pp. 286–335.

17

Arthur MacGregor, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials since the Roman Period (London: Rou-

tledge, 1985), pp. 73

–96; Howard Williams, “Material Culture as Memory: Combs and Cremation in Early Medieval Britain”,

Early Medieval Europe 12 (2003): 89

–128, pp. 116–26 (on “The materiality and symbolism of combs and hair”, “Hair and

combs in historical sources

”, and “Cremation, hair and social memory”).

18

J. Michael Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-haired Kings (London: Methuen, 1962), pp. 156

–7; Diesenberger, “Hair, Sacrality and

Symbolic Capital

”. The crucial sources are Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, II, 9; VI, 24; VIII, 10, in Gregorii episcopi

Turonensis, Libri Historiarum X, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Mero-
vingicarum I, volume I] (Hannover: Hahn, 1951), pp. 57, 291, 377.

19

Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 6. See Weber, Der Childebert-Ring, 35–6.

20

Diesenberger,

“Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital”, 182.

21

Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, 1, ed. Georg Waitz [Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum, volume XXV] (Hann-

over: Hahn, 1911), pp. 2

–3.

22

Gregory, Decem Libri Historiarum, II, 41, ed. Krusch and Levison, 91.

23

Ibid., III, 18, ed. Krusch and Levison, 118.

24

Ibid., VI, 24, ed. Krusch and Levison, 291.

25

Ibid., VIII, 10, ed. Krusch and Levison, 377: Diesenberger,

“Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital”, 178.

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109

family) without the consent of the child

’s parents was a serious crime.

26

The ritual cutting of a

boy

’s hair (capillaturia) was an important act, and aristocrats and rulers might entrust their sons

to someone of equally notable family to perform the first haircut, as happened when Charles
Martel, d. 741 sent his son Pippin to the court of the Lombard King Liutprand 712

–44.

27

The cutting of hair is also one of the few occasions when women

’s hair is the subject of

comment

– although, of course, there is a substantial discussion of veiling in Late Anti-

quity,

28

and indeed in Anglo-Saxon England there was a tradition, inspired by I Cor-

inthians 11: 5

–6, that a woman should cover her hair.

29

Just as the unauthorised

cutting of a boy

’s hair was a crime, so too was that of a girl.

30

To shave a girl was a

way of depriving her of status, and of dishonouring her,

31

but it was also a ruse employed

by a priest to disguise his lover, so that she could be mistaken for a boy.

32

Whether he

knew it or not, as a priest, being subject to Roman law, he was acting against the provisions
of the Codex Theodosianus, which states that

Feminae quae crinem suum contra divinas humanasque leges instinctu persuasae professionis
absciderint, ab ecclesiae foribus arceantur. Non illis fas sit sacrata adire mysteria neque ullis
supplicationibus mereantur veneranda omnibus altaria frequentare; adeo quidem, ut episco-
pus, tonso capite feminam si introire permiserit, deiectus loco etiam ipse cum huiusmodi con-
tuberniis arceatur

…

Women who cut off their hair, contrary to divine and human laws, at the instigation and per-
suasion of some professed belief, shall be kept away from the doors of the churches. More-
over, if a bishop should permit a woman with shorn head to enter a church, even the bishop
himself shall be expelled from his position, and kept away, along with such comrades.

33

It has been argued that the ritual cutting of a child

’s hair was equivalent to the first

cutting of a boy

’s beard, the barbatoria – which was already regarded as a formal occasion

in the classical world, and continued to be so in the following centuries.

34

By the late Mer-

ovingian period, the barbatoria was potentially a religious act, which was marked by its
own Christian prayer, the oratio pro eo qui prius barbam tundit (

“the prayer for him

who cuts his beard for the first time

”).

35

Supervising the cutting of a virgin beard could

be regarded as the act of a godfather, which may explain the need for such a prayer.
According to a curious Carolingian account of the meeting between the Frankish King
Clovis 481

–511 and his Visigothic counterpart, Alaric II 484–507, the Goth cut the

Frank

’s beard and became his godfather.

36

An earlier account, from the mid-seventh

26

Pactus Legis Salicae, 24, §2, ed. Karl A. Eckhardt [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges Nationum Germanicarum,

volume IV] (Hannover: Hahn, 1962), pp. 80

–1; Diesenberger, “Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital”, 184, 186.

27

Paul the Deacon, Historian Langobardorum, VI, 53, ed. Ludwig Bethmann and Georg Waitz [Monumenta Germaniae His-

torica, Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum] (Hannover: Hahn, 1878), p. 183. Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 18; Die-

senberger,

“Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital”, 185.

28

Kate Wilkinson, Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 40

–2, 48, 52.

Wilkinson also makes extensive comparison between late Roman and Pakistani veiling.

29

Peter J. Lucas,

“Judith and the Woman Hero”, The Yearbook of English Studies 22 (1992): 17–27, p. 19; Murphy, Unriddling

the Exeter Riddles, 231

30

Pactus Legis Salicae, 24, § 3, ed. Eckhardt, 81.

31

Gregory of Tours. Decem Libri Historiarum, V, 39, ed. Krusch and Levison, 246.

32

Ibid., VI, 36, ed. Krusch and Levison, 307.

33

Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 2, 27, in The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, ed. and trans. Clyde

Pharr (New York, Greenwood Press, 1952), p. 445.

34

Hen, Culture and Religion, 137

–43; Diesenberger, “Hair, Sacrality and Symbolic Capital”, 184.

35

Hen, Culture and Religion, 141, with n. 121, which supplies the text of Sacramentarium Gelasianum, III, 83.

36

Gesta Theodorici Regis, 15, in Fredegarii et aliorum Chronica. Vitae sanctorum, ed. Bruno Krusch, [Monumenta Germaniae

Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, volume II] (Hannover: Hahn, 1888), p. 207. Hen, Culture and Religion, 140.

110

I. WOOD

century, states merely that Alaric touched Clovis

’s beard: but this is also said to have been

enough to affirm his status as godfather.

37

If taken seriously, these two narratives have

alarming implications for Merovingian history, for they imply that Clovis was baptised
as a heretical, Arian, Christian long before his famed Catholic baptism at the hands of
Bishop Remigius of Reims

38

(an act that in itself would have been heretical, because re-

baptism was not allowed by the Catholic Church). In our earliest description of the
king

’s Catholic baptism, however, it is his hair and not his beard that is mentioned:

cum sub casside crinis nutritus salutarem galeam sacrae unctionis indueret (

“when locks

grown long beneath a helmet, would put on the helmet of the sacred chrism

”).

39

Despite the overlap between the capillaturia and the barbatoria, in the Roman Empire

and in subsequent centuries, beards were the subject of a different set of discourses from
those concerned with hair. For the Emperor Julian 361

–3, the beard was something

sported by Greek philosophers, and therefore admirable, as he explained in his lengthy
diatribe, the Misopogon, or

“Beard-Hater”.

40

But just as philosophers wore beards, so too did barbarians. Among the barbarians,

the most famous story relating to beards concerns the naming of the Lombards, the
Longobardi, the

“Long-beards”. The story in one of its versions goes as follows: in the

course of a war between the Winnili and the Vandals, each tribe prayed to their particu-
lar deity for victory: the Winnili to the goddess Freia, and the Vandals to their god
Wodan. Freia told the Winnili to appear before Wodan

’s window at dawn, and specified

that the women should tie their hair in such a way as to make it seem that they were
bearded men. When Wodan saw them he asked

“Who are these long beards?”, at

which point Freia insisted that he should give victory to the group to whom he had
given a new name.

41

We may guess from this that the Lombards tended to sport

impressive beards, and indeed we can see them so depicted on a metal visor, the so-
called Agilulf visor.

42

Images of Lombard men to be found on seal rings of the

seventh and eighth centuries seem to indicate that long beards remained the norm for
high-ranking males,

43

but we should be careful of simply asserting that what might

have been a strategy of distinction for the Lombards in the sixth and seventh centuries
remained unchanged. Certainly by the late eighth century, Lombard dress had changed
radically, as Paul the Deacon remarked, in his comments on frescoes that had been
painted in Monza a century and a half earlier.

44

37

Fredegar, II, 58, in Fredegarii et aliorum Chronica. Vitae sanctorum,ed. Bruno Krusch, [Monumenta Germaniae Historica,

Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, volume II] (Hannover: Hahn, 1888), p. 82.

38

Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, II, 31, ed. Krusch and Levison, 77: Avitus of Vienne, ep. 46, in Alcimi Ecdicii Aviti

Viennensis episcopi Opera quae supersunt, ed. Rudolf Peiper [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi,
volume VI, 2] (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883), p. 75.

39

Avitus of Vienne, ep. 46, ed. Peiper, 75; trans. Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood, Avitus of Vienne, Letters and Selected Prose

(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002), pp. 371

–2.

40

Julian, Misopogon, in The Works of the Emperor Julian, ed. Wilmer Cave Wright, volumes I

–II (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press, 1913), II: 448

–52; Dutton, “Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 10.

41

Origo gentis Langobardorum, 1, ed. Ludwig Bethmann and Georg Waitz [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores

Rerum Langobardicarum] (Hannover: Hahn, 1878), pp. 2

–3; Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, I, 8, ed. Bethmann

and Waitz, 52

–3.

42

Weber, Der Childebert-Ring, 42.

43

Ibid., 75

–88, 95–7.

44

Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum, IV, 22, ed. Bethmann and Waitz, 124; Walter Pohl,

“Introduction: Strategies of

Distinction

”, in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities , 300–800, ed. Walter Pohl and Helmut

Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 1

–15, esp. 9–10; idem, “Telling the Difference ”, 43–4, 59.

AL-MAS

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111

But from the fourth century onwards, there was a particular reason for beards to get a

good press, and not just among the Lombards. They appear regularly in the Bible

– and

just as the Qur

ʾān and Hadīth provide points of reference for Muslim discussion of hair

and beards,

45

so too the same was true of the Bible in the Christian World. In the Old Tes-

tament, the Book of Leviticus (19: 27) is explicit that a man should be bearded: nec radetis
barbam (translated somewhat fancifully in the Authorised version as

“neither shalt thou

mar the corners of thy beard

”). This is echoed in the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua from late

fifth-century Gaul: Clericus nec comam nutriat nec barbam radat (

“a cleric should not

grow his hair or shave his beard

”).

46

Not surprisingly, given the Biblical injunction,

Christ himself is often portrayed as having a beard, except when he is depicted as a
youth.

47

And in the eleventh century, Ademar of Chabannes 988

–1034, in his instructions

for how to make a crucifix, took it for granted that the figure of Christ would be bearded.

48

But by this time, Western clergy tended not to sport facial hair.

49

Many of the Patristic comments on beards are straightforward and obvious. Beards rep-

resent masculinity,

50

male adulthood,

51

virility

52

and strength,

53

though Ambrose 374

–97

also noted that beards could be curled and effeminate.

54

Shaving or tearing the beard was a

mark of grief, and an indication of weakness.

55

One verse of the Psalms, however, attracted

particular attention, and a rather more complex exegesis. Psalm 132: 2 states Sicut unguen-
tum in capite, Quod descendit in barbam, barbam Aaron, quod descendit in oram vestimenti
eius (

“It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even

Aaron

’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments”). This was a verse that was con-

sidered with care in the major commentaries on the Book of Psalms, including those by

45

See van Gelder,

“Rebarbative Beards”.

46

Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, 25, in Concilia Galliae A. 314

–A. 506, ed. C. Munier [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume

CXLVIII] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), p. 171.

47

Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 156

–7; Ralf

Mathisen,

“Ricimer’s Church in Rome: How an Arian Barbarian Prospered in a Nicene World”, in The Power of Religion in

Late Antiquity, ed. Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 307

–26, esp. 313.

48

Ittai Weinryb, The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 201

–2.

49

Ademar of Chabannes, Chronicon, III, 31, ed. Bourgain, Landes, and Pons.

50

Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum, I, 36 [Patrologia Latina, volume XXIII]; Jerome, Contra Iohannem, 26, ed. J.-L. Feiertag

[Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume LXXIXA] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999); Jerome, ep. 22, in Sancti Eusebii Hiero-
nymi Epistulae, pt I, ed. Isidor Hilberg [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, volume LIV] (Vienna: Tempsky,
1910), pp. 143

–211, and Jerome, ep. 125, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, pt III, ed. Isidor Hilberg [Corpus Scriptorum

Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, volume LVI] (Vienna: Tempsky, 1918), pp. 118

–42; Augustine, Contra Iulianum, IV, 53, in

Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum, ed. Michaela Zelzer, [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, volume
LXXXV, 1] (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1974).

51

Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus super Psalmos, 132, 5, ed. Anton Zingerle [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum,

volume XX] (Vienna: Tempsky, 1891); Augustine, De Civitate Dei, IV, 11, VI, 1, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2014); Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 33, 132, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013).

52

Jerome, In Ezechielem, II, 5, in Hieronymus Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, ed. M. Adriaen [Corpus Christianorum, Series

Latina, volume LXXVI] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969); Jerome, Tractatus in Psalmos, 132, ed. G. Morin, B. Capelle and J. Fraipont
[Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume LXXVIII] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958); Isidore, De Differentiis, 53, 78, in Liber
Differentiarum, II, ed. M.A. Andrés Sanz [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume CXIA] (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006).

53

Augustine, Sermo, 24, in Sermones de vetere testamento, ed. Cyrille Lambot [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume

XLI] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1961); Caesarius, Sermo 118, in Sermones I, ed. G. Morin [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina,
volume CIV] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953); Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, 33, in Expositio Psalmorum I

–LXX,

ed. M. Adriaen [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, XCVII] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958).

54

Ambrose, ep. IV, 15, 7, in Epistola et Acta, ed. Otto Faller [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, volume LXXXII]

(Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1968).

55

Jerome, Commentariorum in Esaiam, V, 15, in Commentariorum in Esaiam, libri I

–XI, ed. M. Adriaen [Corpus Christianorum,

Series Latina, volume LXXIII] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1963); Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, I, 36, ed. M. Adriaen [Corpus
Christianorum, Series Latina, volume CXLIII] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979). See also Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, II,
14, 10, in Orose, Histoire contre les Païens, ed. Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet, volumes I

–III. (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2001), I: 14.

112

I. WOOD

Hilary, d. 368 of Poitiers,

56

Jerome, d. 420

57

and Augustine, d. 430.

58

As the brother whom

Moses anointed as High Priest (Leviticus 8; Exodus 28), Aaron was the standard type for the
priesthood, and thus beards could be regarded as appropriate for the clergy.

It is, however, worth noting that commentary on this particular Biblical verse could be

more generalising, especially if one did not comment on Aaron. Thus, in the collection of
homilies from the late fifth century, known as Eusebius Gallicanus we find the following
discussion offered to a lay audience:

Itaque, iuxta propheticum testimonium, quod audiuimus: sicut unguentum in capite quod des-
cendit in barbam, uideamus quid

“barbae”, quid “unguenti”, quid “capitis” species significet

nobis.

“Vnguentum” desuper facie, benedictionis infusio est; “caput” omnium, christus est;

“barba” autem, super quam unguentum caeleste descendit, sancti quique deo proximi et robor-
ati in uirum perfectum, et in more barbae aeterno capiti cohaerentes et circa eius ossa sermones
et mandata pendentes.

Therefore, following the words of the prophet, which we have heard:

“It is like the precious

ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard

”, let us see what the image of “beard”,

of

“ointment”, of head signifies to us. “The ointment” over the face is the infusion of blessing;

“the head” of all is Christ; but “the beard” over which the heavenly ointment descends is the
saints and those close to God, and those strengthened in the perfect Man, and like a beard
sticking to the eternal head and the words and orders hanging around his bones.

59

Psalm 132, however, ensured that there was plenty of discussion of sacerdotal beards.

Commenting on Aaron

’s beard, Ambrose states directly barba Aaron, hoc est barba sacer-

dotalis (

“the beard of Aaron, that is the sacerdotal beard”).

60

We have already noted that,

unlike their Western successors in the eleventh century, late Roman and early medieval
clerics were expected to be bearded, and on occasion we can be sure that they followed
the canons. Ambrose himself was bearded, to judge by the near-contemporary image of
him in the chapel of San Vittore in Ciel d

’Oro in Sant’Ambrogio in Milan.

61

So too was

the monastic saint, Severinus of Noricum, whose beard and hair was seen to have
remained incorrupt when his coffin was opened some years after his death.

62

One

might add that martyrs could be bearded. When Ambrose uncovered the body of the
long-dead martyr Nazarius, the blood on the body seemed to be recent, but his head,
which had been cut off, had been restored, and his hair and beard were perfect.

63

Just as beards are mentioned in the Bible, so too is hair. Two stories attracted particular

attention. There is that of Samson, whose strength vanished when his hair was cut. Here,
being linked to physical strength, hair has the same association as have beards,

64

but, as

56

Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus super Psalmos III, 132, 5, ed. Jean Doignon [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume LXIB]

(Turnhout: Brepols, 2009).

57

Jerome, Tractatus in Psalmos, 132, ed. Morin.

58

Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 132, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, XXXVIII

–XL]

(Turnhout: Brepols, 1956).

59

Eusebius Gallicanus, Sermo 54, ed. F. Glorie [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume CI] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1970).

60

Ambrose, De obitu Valentiniani, 6, in Exlpanatio Symboli

… , ed. Otto Faller [Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Lati-

norum, volume LXXIII] (Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1963).

61

Svetlana Zaigraykina,

“The Early Christian Martyr Chapel of San Vittore in Ciel d’Oro in Milan and Its Vth Century Mosaic

Decoration

”, Nis and Byzantium 10 (2011): 135–47.

62

Eugippius, Vita Severini, 44, 6, in Eugippe, Vie de saint Séverin, ed. Philippe Régerat [Sources Chrétiennes, volume

XXXLXXIV] (Paris, Cerf, 1991), pp. 290

–1.

63

Paulinus the Deacon, Vita sancti Ambrosii, 32, ed. M. Kaniecka (Washington DC: Catholic University of America, 1928).

64

Jerome, Commentariorum in Hiezechielem, II, 7, ed. F. Glorie [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume LXXV] (Turnhout:

Brepols, 1964).

AL-MAS

ĀQ

113

noted by Caesarius of Arles, Samson

’s hair and strength grew back, thus making the Old

Testament hero a symbol of the penitent restored to spiritual health.

65

And there is the

story of the woman who anointed Christ

’s feet with oil, and dried them with her hair

(Luke 7: 37), who again is a symbol of penitence.

66

One might note that this, together

with the texts concerned with the discussion of the cutting of a woman

’s hair, is a rare

occasion when the hair of a woman rather than of a man is at issue. The story is also
the subject of a magnificent image on the eighth-century carved pillar at Ruthwell,
where the woman

’s hair is given dramatic emphasis.

67

But while these stories were important for patristic commentators, equally significant

were the passing references to hair in the Psalms, which prompted frequent, albeit
never extended, allegorical commentary: the hairs of the head could simply imply vast
numbers,

68

but also thoughts,

69

and sins. As Caesarius commented, in capillis et virtutes

et vitia designantur (

“both virtues and vices are represented by hairs”).

70

Like beards, hair was an important matter for a cleric, although here the question was

one of shaving or tonsuring. As we have noted with regard to the commentaries on Psalm
132, the head of a priest was anointed, but it was also shaved. The style in which it was
shaved was a matter of controversy, just as the question of S

 ūfī shaving could be an

issue.

71

The controversy over the tonsure was a matter of debate largely within the

British Isles, where the Irish had preserved an older tradition of tonsuring and transmitted
it to those parts of England where they had been the dominant force in the conversion. The
continental church came to adopt a different style, and for a while the two styles were in
conflict. To follow the Irish tonsure (supposedly that of Saint John) was to affirm not just
one

’s Irishness, but also one’s attachment to a particularly venerable ecclesiastical tra-

dition, which claimed to be older and more orthodox than the newer one that was advo-
cated by the mainstream church. However, because the Petrine tonsure was linked to Saint
Peter and Rome, this ultimately gave it greater authority. There was, in fact, a third
tonsure: that which was followed in the East, and was associated with Saint Paul. When
the Greek monk Theodore 669

–90, who had been tonsured in the Pauline manner, was

appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, he had to allow his hair to grow so he could be
re-tonsured in the Petrine style.

72

The style of tonsure was a clear indication of affiliation,

and could be taken as a mark of orthodoxy or heresy

– although in the case of Theodore,

he had apparently worn the Pauline tonsure in Italy without objection for a considerable
time, and it was only his elevation to senior ecclesiastical office that prompted the demand
that he accept the Petrine version.

65

Caesarius, Sermo 118, 6; 119, 3, ed. Morin.

66

Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, II, 33, ed. R. Etaix [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume CXLI] (Turnhout:

Brepols, 1999); Bede, In Lucae Evangelium Expositio, III, 7, Bedae Opera exegetica, III, ed. David Hurst [Corpus Christia-
norum, Series Latina, volume CXX] (Turnhout: Brepols, 1960).

67

Fred Orton, Ian Wood and Clare Lees, Fragments of History: Rethinking the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Monuments (Manche-

ster: Manchester University Press, 2007), figures 62, 63.

68

Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum I

–LXX, 39, 13; 146, ed. Adriaen .

69

Gregory I, Register, I, 24; VII, 5, ed. Dag Norberg [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, volume CXL] (Turnhout: Brill, 1982),

pp. 31, 450; idem, Regula Pastoralis, II, 7, in Grégoire le Grand, Règle Pastorale, ed. Bruno Judic [Sources Chrétiennes,
volume CCCLXXXI] (Paris: Cerf, 1992), pp. 228

–31.

70

Caesarius, Sermo, 120, 2, ed. Morin.

71

See Bashir,

“Mediation of Hair”.

72

Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, IV, 1, in Bede

’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave

and Roger Mynors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 330

–1.

114

I. WOOD

It is worth remembering that, although they were tonsured, priests were still keen to

groom their remaining hair and beards. This is clear from the survival of what are
known as liturgical combs, often very beautiful in design, which survive from the
Middle Ages. The exact purpose of these combs is unclear, although they may have
been used before the celebration of mass,

73

and in particular by a bishop after the

removal of his mitre. But they were clearly not just used by bishops

– and indeed it is

unclear whether any distinction was made between an ordinary and a liturgical comb.
Bishop Riculf 787

–813 of Mainz sent an elaborate ivory comb to the Anglo-Saxon

cleric and abbot Alcuin, d. 804, which prompted a riddling reply, in both prose and
verse, referring to design of the object.

74

Tonsuring was not always a purely liturgical act. It might be an effective type of political

deposition: a king could be deposed or might abdicate by taking or being forced to
undergo the tonsure. An example is the case of the Visigothic King Wamba 672

–80.

Being tonsured rendered him unfit to govern.

75

So too, a leading politician might be ton-

sured, and sent to a monastery, and so effectively placed in penitential exile, as in the case
of Ebroin, though he allowed his hair to grow back, and resumed his secular career.

76

For the Merovingians, tonsuring was an act of particular importance. We have already

noted the fate of the sons of Chlodomer: faced with their tonsure or murder, their grand-
mother preferred that they should be killed.

77

Less violent was the cutting of the hair of the

pretender Gundovald, who was able to regrow his Merovingian locks.

78

So too, Theuderic

III 679

–91 was tonsured, but let his hair grow back.

79

In the eighth century, we know of a

Merovingian who came out of a monastery to claim the throne as Chilperic II 715

–21.

80

And the Merovingian dynasty was brought to an end by the forcible tonsuring of its last
king, Childeric III, 741

–51.

81

Paul Dutton has seen the capillaturia of Pippin at the court of Liutprand as marking a

shift from Merovingian to Carolingian views of hair.

82

Whereas long hair was a marker of

Merovingian royalty, the men of the succeeding dynasty were happy to have their hair cut.
Charlemagne 768

–814 modelled his look in part on that of Roman emperors, short-haired,

but with the distinction that he sported a moustache,

83

which may have been a deliberate

echo of that of the sixth-century Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric.

84

For the Carolingians,

Merovingian long hair was something archaic that could be made fun of, as Einhard

73

MacGregor, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn, 78

–81.

74

Paul Sorrell,

“Alcuin’s Comb Riddle”, Neophilologus 80 (1996): 311–8.

75

Council of Toledo XII, 1, in La Colección Canónica Hispana, VI, Concilios Hispánicos: tercera parte, ed. Gonzalo Martínez Díez

and Félix Rodríguez (Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas, 2002), pp. 151

–2.

76

Passio Leodegarii I, 13, ed. Bruno Krusch [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, volume V]

(Hannover: Hahn, 1910), pp. 282

–322, esp. 296; Mayke de Jong, “Monastic Prisoners or Opting Out? Political Coercion and

Honour in the Frankish Kingdoms

”, in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Mayke de Jong and Frans

Theuws (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 291

–328, esp. 320–2.

77

Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, III, 18, ed. Krusch and Levison, 118.

78

Ibid., VI, 24, ed. Krusch and Levison, 291

–2.

79

Passio Leodegarii I, 6, ed. Krusch, 288.

80

Liber Historiae Francorum, 53, ed. Bruno Krusch [Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum,

volume II] (Hannover: Hahn, 1888), p. 326.

81

Annales Regni Francorum, s.a. 750, ed. Friedrich Kurze [Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum, volume VI]

(Hannover: Hahn, 1895), p. 10; Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, 1, ed. Waitz, 2

–3.

82

Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 19–20.

83

Dutton,

“Charlemagne’s Mustache”, 24–6.

84

Ibid., 25, with the image on p. 8.

AL-MAS

ĀQ

115

showed, when he talked of them trundling round, powerless, on an ox cart with long hair
and uncut beard, crine profusa, barba summissa.

85

For Dutton the history of hair from the end of Antiquity to the early Middle Ages

begins with the long hair of the barbarians, and especially of the Merovingians, and
then sees a deliberate rejection of that style by the Carolingians. Long hair so ceased to
be a marker of dignity that, at the end of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth
century, Hucbald of St Amand could write a bizarre poem in praise of baldness for his
bald patron, Hatto of Mainz.

86

It is worth remembering, however, that the history of hair in the early Middle Ages is

not just a tale of the rejection of archaic hair styles that had been sported by the barbarians.
Indeed, the barbarians, although they provided the ruling dynasties, were never more
numerous than the indigenous population of the early medieval West. For the silent
majority, the starting point was not the bearded and hairy look described by Tacitus,
but an evolution from Roman styles. Furthermore, in so far as there was a commentary
on hair and beards, it was a religious one, derived from contemplation of the Bible,
much as some Islamic consideration of the same topics derived from the Qur

ʾān and

H

 adīth. The learned could read discussions of hair and beards in patristic writings,

while the wider public heard it from the pulpit, from which sermons of the likes of Augus-
tine, Caesarius and Gregory the Great, as well as those of the Eusebius Gallicanus collec-
tion, were transmitted to the congregation.

Whether or not Aaron

’s beard, Samson’s locks, or the long hair of the penitent woman

who washed Christ

’s feet, influenced any layperson in their choice of haircut or beard-

trim, for the clergy the Biblical references to these, and not the words of Tacitus on the
early Germans, were the point of departure. Although we may think that the dominant
discourse on hair in the early Middle Ages was concerned with status (especially royal
status), while that on beards concentrated on signs of ethnic identity (especially that of
the Lombards), the majority of our texts are religious, where hair and beards are the
focus of allegorical interpretation. And in so far as those discussions concern actual
styles of hair, they tend to be concerned with the hairstyle of the clergy.

85

Einhard, Vita Karoli, 1, ed. Waitz, 2

–3.

86

Klein,

“In Praise of Bald Men ”.

116

I. WOOD