Hair in the Middle Ages

Abstract

During the Middle Ages hair was charged with cultural meaning. Hair possesses various qualities that allow it to be a tool of social action; it is detachable, renewable and can be manipulated (Firth 1973). As a malleable body part it can be shaped, dyed, and removed so the treatment of hair is a pre-eminently socially visible act (Bartlett 1994). Hair can convey messages of social differentiation. During the medieval period, as at other times, hair was variously deployed as a marker of status, race, physical maturity, and sexual virility (Mills 2004). Hair also played an important role in medieval religious life.

Keywords

• Archaeology
• hair
• identity
• tonsure
• hisutism
• saint
• relic
• reliquary
• Ólaf Trygvasson
• Mary Magdalene
• Charlemagne
• lock
• hair behaviour