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Medieval hairstyles male7/24/2023 Young girls wore their hair long and loose over their shoulders with a band to keep it from becoming unruly. Women wore headdresses to cover the head and neck. In the poem The Carmen, written in 1068 about the Battle of Hastings, the Norman poet is disparaging about the English warriors referring to them in Frank Barlow’s translation as ‘nancy boys’ and in other translations as ‘effeminate.’ Interestingly, high status English men treasured their combs! It was considered an insult to cut a man’s hair and spoil his appearance. Leofgar, Harold’s mass priest in his priesthood kept his moustaches until he became a bishop. Moustaches may have been associated with warrior status. The Bayeux Tapestry shows King Harold and his followers with long flowing locks and wearing thin moustaches, while William and his men had their hair short, and shaved at the back. One of the most heated debates in the early Anglo-Saxon Church revolved around hairstyles, For example, should churchmen be tonsured at the front in Celtic style or as in Roman fashion on the crown? Male hairstyles were linked to social status. Your age in Anglo-Saxon England, your position in society, your marital status and even if you had been found guilty of criminal behaviour could be detected by your size, bodily afflictions, hairstyle, clothing and jewellery. So, what did this noble 11th C family look like, what, for instance, was their hair fashion or head gear? How did they turn out for King Edward’s winter crowning and Christmas feast? Harold arrives at Thorney Island on a long shaped boat, the Wessex dragon flying at the mast. Elditha rides in on her mare Eglantine surrounded by a guard and with her two younger children following in a covered cart. The Handfasted Wife, a novel about Edith Swan-Neck, common-law wife and beloved of Harold Godwinson, opens at Westminster during Christmas 1065.
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