CHAPTER III.
We will now conduct the reader, who has condescended to accompany us thus far, through the succeeding centuries and complete our illustrations of the fashion of bygone times.
Cæsar describes the Britons as having long flowing hair, and a beard on the upper lip only. A bust in the British Museum, one of the Townley marbles, supposed by some to represent Caractacus, may be taken as a good example of the fashion of hair worn by the British chieftains. The hair is parted along the crown of the head, and disposed on each side of the face and down in the neck in thick bold masses. Immense tangled moustaches, reaching sometimes to the breast, completed the hirsute ornaments of the tattooed Briton. Strabo says, in his time the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands had long beards, like goats. Dion Cassius alludes to the long yellow hair of Boadicea flowing over her shoulders, which sufficiently indicates the coiffure of that undaunted heroine.
The Anglo Saxons considered fine hair as the most becoming of personal ornaments, and took every pains to dress it to the greatest advantage. Aneurin, the Welch bard, says, the warriors wore a profusion of hair, and were as proud of it as the women, decking it with beads and ornaments. It was worn long, and parted on the forehead, falling naturally on the shoulders; the beard of ample growth, and forked. To have the hair cut entirely off was considered a great disgrace—a mode of punishment inflicted upon criminals. Adhelm, bishop of Sherbone, who wrote in the eighth century, describes a maiden as having her locks delicately curled by the iron of those adorning her. The clergy were obliged to shave the crowns of their heads, and to keep their hair short to distinguish them from the laity. Again and again the denunciations of the clergy were directed against the practice of wearing long hair, but with partial results; the old Teutonic love of flowing locks was too strong to be extinguished by the threatenings of the Church.
When the Gauls were ruled by native sovereigns, none but nobles and priests were allowed to wear long beards. A close shaven chin was a mark of servitude. In the days of Charlemagne, kings rivalled each other in the length and majesty of their beards. Eginhard, secretary to Charlemagne, describes the old race of kings as coming to the Field of Mars in a carriage drawn by oxen, and sitting on the throne with their flowing beards and dishevelled locks. So sacred a thing was a king’s beard, that three of the hairs enclosed in the seal of a letter or charter were considered the most solemn pledge a king could offer.
The Danes, like the Anglo Saxons, took great pride in their hair; and the English women, we are told, were not a little captivated with some Danish officers, who especially delighted in combing and tending their hair: and we read of one Harold with the fair locks, whose thick ringlets reached to his girdle.
The Normans, at the time of the Conquest, not only shaved the upper lip and the entire face, but also cropped close or shaved the back of the head. Harold’s spies, unacquainted with so singular a custom, on the approach of the Conqueror’s forces, reported that his army was composed of priests, and not soldiers. Holinshed states that after the Conquest the English were ordered to shave their beards and round their hair, after the Norman fashion. When William returned to Normandy, he took with him some young Englishmen, as hostages: the French greatly admired their long beautiful curls. The Normans and Flemings, who accompanied the Conqueror, were too solicitous about their good looks to be long restricted to the stunted growth prescribed by military rule. All classes soon indulged in the forbidden luxury, and, as is usually the case, the reaction was extreme; so much so, that William of Malmesbury who makes complaint of the cropping of his countrymen in the previous reign, reprobates the immoderate length of the hair in the time of Rufus.
The prevailing sin of unshorn locks and curled moustaches had long been a grievous scandal in the eyes of the clergy. Councils were held at Limoges, in 1031; by Gregory VII. in 1073, and again at Rouen in 1095; on this much discussed grievance. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury refused his benediction to those who would not cut their hair. And Serlo, bishop of Seez, when Henry was in Normandy, seems to have taken the matter literally into his own hands. Observing that the king and courtiers were moved by his zeal and eloquence, when preaching against this extravagant profusion of hair, he pulled out a pair of scissors, and docked the whole congregation, king and all, on the spot. A royal edict to the like effect was immediately issued. St. Wulstan, bishop of Worcester, took a somewhat singular method of enforcing his commands. When anyone knelt to receive his blessing, he would snip off a lock of their hair, throwing it in their face, and bidding them to cut off the rest, or perish in perdition.
The effigies of Henry and his Queen Matilda, at Rochester Cathedral, show the style of hair worn in those days. The king is represented with the beard trimmed round, and hair flowing in carefully-twisted ringlets upon his shoulders and down his back. The queen’s hair descends in two long plaits to the hips, and terminates in small curls. These plaits were sometimes encased in silk, and bound round with ribbon.
Whatever changes were effected by the zeal of the clergy, it is certain that the fops in Stephen’s reign had not conformed to their teachings. Historians describe their effeminate ringlets: and when these were not sufficiently ample, recourse was had to false hair.