Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair (9 page)

At the time these different Christ figures were created, a new artistic style was becoming popular, the icon. This was a portrait of a holy figure such as Christ, Mary, a saint, or an angel that was used in private and public worship as a focus of veneration. It was a visual object that
made a divine person present and accessible to the worshipper, lifting his or her mind and spirit toward the sacred.
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The purpose of this image was different from the narrative or symbolic representations of earlier art. Context and narrative faded away in favor of a “true” likeness that manifested the inner, spiritual character of holiness and created a mystical link to the divine presence.
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Creating a single, true likeness of Christ was a special problem for icon painters, who needed to portray, in a single face, the teaching, miracle-working, suffering, and resurrected Christ. Without action or specific context, the icon painter could not rely on the visual contrasts used by designers of narrative scenes. The solution to this problem can be seen in one of the earliest preserved icon paintings, a sixth-century portrait in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai (
figure 4.5
). Produced in Constantinople, the capital of Orthodox Christendom, it presents Christ before a background of distant buildings and golden stars that suggests both heaven and earth. Within the figure itself, however, the visual logic of the heavenly, bearded Christ prevails over the beardless, earthly Christ. For one thing, there are no mortals in the scene from whom Jesus must be differentiated. For another, the inert form and golden hues accentuate the heavenly setting over the earthly. The iconic Jesus, then, is not the divine man among mortals. He is the Son of Man in heaven. And artistic tradition had depicted Christ in heaven as bearded, to make him more human and to distinguish him from angels.

In the icon painting, Christ’s beard also helped establish the right balance in representing his divine and human natures. If Christ was too heavenly, distant, and angelic, he could not also be the compassionate savior who shared in human suffering. The point of the icon, after all, was to make Jesus intimately present. It was necessary to give the Christ figure a human touch, and the painter of the St. Catherine icon managed this by endowing him with an ordinary, medium-length beard, representing neither the youthful immortality of a classical god nor the full, philosophic, or Zeus-like hairiness one sometimes finds in earlier representations.

When one considers the overall impression of the St. Catherine image, it becomes apparent how different components of the portrait work to harmonize the grandeur and modesty of Christ. On the
one hand, he appears with an unworldly golden halo around his head, golden stars above, and a jewel-encrusted Bible in his arm. On the other, he greets you at eye level with two fingers raised in a comforting sign of blessing. His face is likewise both impressive and modest. He is a bearded man with extraordinary, flowing hair and a firm demeanor, yet his beard is moderate and ordinary, and his features mild. Having struck upon an effective visual formula for the complex personality of Christ, artists have more or less faithfully reproduced it ever since.

The visual logic of iconic art was the primary reason for Jesus’s beard, but it drew powerful reinforcement from theology. The development of icons occurred at a time when many leaders of the church strongly approved of facial hair. The so-called Fathers of the Church were theologians of the first six centuries whose writings were afterward taken as authoritative. These men promoted a positive view of facial hair as part of their assertion of a male-dominated gender order. The masculinity of Christ, as well as his humanity, was very important to them.

The earliest proponent of Christian beardedness was the influential theologian Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215). Clement was a Christian convert steeped in Greek philosophy who lived in the time of the first beard movement. He channeled Aristotle and Epictetus in his discussions of manliness and hair, though he added a tone of divine insistence lacking in these earlier authors. Epictetus had hoped to shame men into growing beards, but Clement threatened them with damnation. “God planned,” he wrote, “that woman be smooth-skinned, taking pride in her natural tresses, the only hair she has . . . but man He adorned like the lion, with a beard, and gave him a hairy chest as proof of his manhood and a sign of his strength and primacy.” It was, he insisted, “a sacrilege to trifle with the symbol of manhood.”
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Clement’s contemporary, Tertullian, the first great Latin Christian writer, also defended beards as proof of a supposedly natural gender order. His
On the Apparel of Women
was primarily concerned with female indulgence and vanity, though he also reprimanded men who dyed their hair or cut their beards too closely.
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Both Tertullian and Clement were eager to steer their Christian readers away from self-indulgence and disorderly desire. To their thinking, modesty involved acceptance of the body as God made it, and an embrace of the male superiority it supposedly demonstrated.

For Christians of the late Roman Empire, however, the human body became more controversial. Many saw it as corrupt, a burden to the soul, and an impediment to spiritual renewal and eternal life. Many enthusiasts sought a spiritual transformation and resurrection that would literally leave the body in the dust. The new byword was “virginity,” and true holiness was redefined as the total abandonment of sexuality,
and therefore of social and family life. This new asceticism sought to gradually release the soul from the chain binding it to an earthly prison, so that at death it could emerge from the abandoned body in spiritual perfection. The most influential exponent of this view was the theologian Origen (185–254), a onetime student of Clement. Origen believed that the triumph over the body did not have to wait for death but could begin immediately in the life of faith. Origen praised the ascetic life and the denial of physical urges, going so far as to castrate himself as an act of liberation. With Origen and others of his stripe, the denial of sexuality involved overcoming the limits of the body and also of gender. Many expected that in the life to come, masculinity and femininity would become irrelevant in the angelic perfection of the soul.
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The problem with this view, in the minds of many Christians of the time, was that the denial of the body and of gender difference could not be confined to heaven but threatened to overthrow the gender order on earth as well. Origen and other writers like him provoked a backlash in the fourth century, as Christian authors recoiled from this frightening precipice. St. Jerome (347–420), for one, was caught on the horn of this dilemma. He was a man deeply committed to the ascetic life, an admirer of monasticism and even of Origen himself. But the more radical implications of Origen’s thought frightened him, so he tried to find a middle ground: a theology of self-control rather than renunciation. He also emphasized the importance of the body and of bodily resurrection. In spite of Paul’s declaration that in Christ there is no male or female, Jerome believed that in the life to come men will still be men, and women will still be women. Gender, in other words, is so fundamental that even death and salvation cannot dissolve it. Though Jerome had been both a beneficiary of and mentor to powerful Christian women, he rejected both the spiritual resurrection and women’s claims to spiritual equality that would be its result.
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In this regard, Jerome was in perfect harmony with most Christian leaders of his day, who agreed that it did no good for women to stroke their hairless cheeks and dream of a resurrection that would void their inferior status. The Church Fathers favored the notion that resurrection was a restoration rather than a transformation. Neither a man’s gender nor his beard would disappear in heaven. On the contrary, they would be restored in fuller glory, all blemishes of body and soul erased. St.
Augustine (354–430), the single most influential Church Father in Christian history, also favored the idea of bodily resurrection and the preservation of sexual traits (though not of sexuality) in the eternal life. The body would be a spiritualized body, however, attaining a kind of perfection impossible in earthly life. Speaking as a Greek sculptor might have, he envisioned that the resurrected body would attain the beautiful proportion of the peak of life.
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Augustine made clear that hair would be included in this restoration, though he surmised that the number of hairs rather than their lengths would be preserved.

The fact that Augustine, unlike classical artists, included beards in resurrected perfection indicates that he, like other Church Fathers before him, viewed masculinity as fundamental to creation, not just a physical attribute but a quality of the soul, manifest particularly in the virtues of fortitude and nobility. In his commentary on Psalm 33, Augustine interpreted the mention of David’s beard as a reference to his spiritual strength.
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Similarly, he interpreted the reference to Aaron’s beard in Psalm 133 to denote Aaron’s authority and, allegorically, the apostles who bravely confronted the world with the Gospel. “The beard,” Augustine explained, “signifies the courageous; the beard distinguishes the grown men, the earnest, the active, the vigorous.”
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It was symbolic of spiritual virtue, with the definite implication that men had stronger spirits than women. As an ornament of the manly soul it was beautiful rather than practical, and offered a small glimpse of the fuller beauty of the life to come.
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When theologians like Jerome and Augustine praised masculinity and beards in defense of the gender order, they provided a theological basis for a bearded Jesus. The fact that Jesus was a man was essential to his authority, and his beard was essential to his being a man. Christ’s manliness, in turn, legitimized both the existing social order and the dominance of men in the church.

After centuries of experiment and change, the image of Christ became fixed in many key respects, particularly in regard to his hair. The almost universal agreement on a bearded Jesus in Christian art since the seventh century originated in an effort to humanize the divine Christ, but in many eras, including our own, it has instead had the effect of making him appear archaic and unworldly. On the other hand, every age can recognize the masculinity of Christ in the standard image, and
this has been an important visual prop for male authority in the world. Lest women think that we all are all one in Christ, Christ is emphatically not female. The bearded Christ reinforces the notion that beards are literally heavenly and underscores the even more ancient association of facial hair with wisdom and authority. Men, being more akin to Christ, thus affirmed for themselves their privileged station in the kingdom of God and entitlement to leadership in the church.

Any man who wonders why custom requires him to shave every day must turn his thoughts back to the Middle Ages, when ancient models of manliness were cast aside and replaced with new ones that eventually shaped modern customs. As in ancient Mesopotamia, medieval culture produced competing types of manhood, each with its distinctive hairstyle, yet by the end of the Middle Ages, one masculine mode—beardlessness—had emerged triumphant. This was the church’s doing. Though the iconic Christ remained bearded, medieval Christianity embedded in the European mind a link between shaving and goodness, and secured the ascendancy of the razor in Western civilization.

This linkage took time. It was not an obvious or self-evident principle, nor did it have any currency beyond the territories of Latin Christianity. It arose from the particular convictions, conflicts, and confluences of medieval European life. Twelve hundred years ago, when Charlemagne built the first great state of the medieval era, the reformation of the manly face was already underway.

Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, was king of the Franks and conqueror of Europe during his long reign from 768 to 814. His dominance
over Europe was a great achievement, not to be matched for the remainder of the Middle Ages. Naturally, he became a legend in later centuries, taking on the role of the ideal king. As a result, there were really two Charlemagnes: one of fable, and one of history. One Charlemagne triumphed magnificently against the Moors in Spain; the other did not. One captured Jerusalem from the heathens; the other did not. One had a great white beard; the other did not. As a rule, the masculinity of the medieval imagination was more full-throated and full-bearded than it was in actual practice. Real life was more complicated, and more interesting.

The mythic-hero version of Charlemagne emerges most vividly in one of the popular hits of the Middle Ages, the
Song of Roland
, an epic poem written down about three centuries after the great king’s death. In this fantasy, Charlemagne is the perfect patriarch: strong, wise, and fatherly. Roland is his perfect vassal: brave, dedicated, and loyal. As a great king, Charlemagne’s most important physical attribute is his great
white beard, for it tells the story of his soul.
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When his beloved nephew Roland volunteers for the dangerous mission of leading his rearguard forces in the Frankish march home from Spain, the ruler of the Franks wants to say no, and he slowly strokes his beard before reluctantly agreeing. Roland and his small force are then ambushed, and he bravely stands his ground, slaying hundreds of Arabs with his magnificent sword, Durendal, all the while thinking only of serving his emperor “of the lovely beard.” The news of Roland’s tragic fate breaks Charlemagne’s heart, “who does not raise his head at all, but only plays with his beard and his moustaches, while tears collect on his eye-lashes.”
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Recovering from his agony, the emperor rides forth to exact his revenge, his flowing beard tumbling majestically over his breastplate. In the end, Charlemagne is triumphant but saddened. His wisdom and might have prevailed but at great personal cost. Sadly, he soldiers on. In the final stanza, news arrives of a pagan assault in Italy. “‘God!’ he says, ‘My life is sorrow.’ He weeps, tugging his white beard.”
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The fictional Charlemagne’s manly virtues show themselves in his magnificent hair. When acting as loving father, he is said to have a “lovely beard,” when a warrior, a “flowing beard,” and when a wise ruler, a ‘‘white beard.” By the same token, the sorrow of manly responsibility is felt in the self-inflicted agony of beard-pulling. This equation does not mean, of course, that all men, or even all patriarchs, actually had great beards. In fact, long beards were more common in myth than in history, and were less in evidence in Charlemagne’s time than during the twelfth century, when the
Song of Roland
was composed. The real Charlemagne did not tug his beard tragically because he did not have one. He did not sit on a throne like a white-bearded statue because he had places to go and people to see.

The actual, mustachioed Charlemagne was, in his own way, just as impressive as his bearded legend. For one thing, he was physically imposing, standing six feet, three inches, with a thick frame, making him truly a giant among men at a time when people were on average much shorter than they are today. Unlike his mythic antitype, however, the historical Charlemagne was far less interested in crusading in Arab lands than in civilizing his own half-Latin, half-German, largely impoverished kingdom. To accomplish this, he marshaled both the military prowess of his German nobles and the civilizing powers of the Roman
church. Charlemagne himself reflected his two-toned society. On the one hand, he spoke German and ruled in the manner of a German chieftain. In German tradition he kept several wives, even if only one them was official. On the other hand, he studiously practiced speaking and writing in Latin, he wore Roman-style clothing, and he gathered around himself the best scholars and wisest counselors the church had to offer. Under their guidance, he founded schools, stocked libraries, built monasteries, and promoted the moral and social teachings of the church, even if it meant he had to curb some of his own German tendencies.

One of those tendencies was to favor long hair and beards. Earlier rulers of the Franks had been famous for their uncut hair and flowing beards, but Charlemagne’s father had dispossessed the old dynasty, and both father and son rejected its old, hairy ways. Charlemagne cut his hair short, in the Roman, churchly fashion, and limited his facial hair to a bushy mustache. He may have found inspiration in a famous statue of the great Theodoric, the Gothic ruler of Italy three centuries earlier, who wore a similar decoration. In any case, the mustache worked for Charlemagne as a sort of compromise. It was German, but not too far from the Roman preference for modesty in hair.
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The crowning achievement of Charlemagne’s reign was precisely that. On Christmas morning in the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned him Roman emperor, a title not known in Western Europe for over three centuries. In a ceremony that was carefully choreographed and imbued with deep symbolism, the German and Latin worlds were formally fused to create a new state and a new society. It began with pope and king praying together, prostrate before the altar of old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the spiritual home of the Roman Catholic Church, which the first Christian emperor, Constantine, had built nearly five hundred years before. High above the assembled courtiers and clergy, the ancient glory of Christian civilization rose in classical columns and glittering mosaic images of popes and apostles. On a high arch above the great altar, giant figures of Emperor Constantine, St. Peter, and the enthroned Christ gazed down through a mystical haze of incense. Inscribed on this arch were old but timely words: “Constantine has founded this royal hall for Christ because the world has risen in triumph to the stars with Him as guide and leader.”
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And so, in this “royal hall”
of St. Peter’s, the world seemed to rise in triumph again under a new emperor. After king and pope lifted themselves from the floor, the ruler of the church placed the imperial crown on the king’s head, anointed him with holy oil, and prostrated himself at the feet of Europe’s master. On cue, the assembled clergy proclaimed him “pious Augustus, crowned by God.”
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Charlemagne was not really the Augustus of old, of course. He did not have the shaved face of the original Augustus, nor of Constantine, who towered benevolently above him. The new age was certainly not a restoration of ancient Rome. Charlemagne was, after all, still a German, and he still had his mustache. On the other hand, he wished to be known as pious and crowned by God. In that respect, less rather than more hair was appropriate, not only because it was the Roman style, but also because the church had begun to articulate a new alignment between piety, goodness, and shorn hair.

This equation of holiness and hair-cutting had taken root in the wreckage of the old Roman Empire well before Charlemagne’s time. At first, it was simply a pragmatic choice. As German tribes swept over Europe, subduing Latin Europe, the Latin-speaking clergy struggled to retain their independence, cohesion and authority. To reinforce their separate identity, they assiduously maintained the short, Roman hairstyle. Taking their cue from the classical past, and also from St. Paul’s rejection of long hair in the First Letter to the Corinthians, church authorities formally legislated short hair for all clergy.
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Beards were not specifically regulated but fell under the general rule of moderation. Because the German nobility proudly grew their hair long, this instruction helped differentiate churchmen from laymen. A council of bishops meeting in Portugal in the year 563 prohibited clergy from wearing long hair “like pagans.”
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This ban was repeated by later councils throughout Western Europe, and by 721, Pope Gregory II was threatening long-haired priests in the province of Rome with excommunication. It was clearly more than a matter of decorum; short hair had become an essential symbol of priesthood and holiness.

By the time Pope Gregory issued his command, a new, even more radical type of haircut was spreading among Western clergy. Short hair, it seems, was not enough. Beginning in sixth-century Gaul (modern-day France), men entering the priesthood had the tops of their heads
shaved bald, leaving a distinctive
corona,
or crown of hair. This practice, known as the tonsure, was soon adopted throughout Europe, along with an explanatory myth that it was done in imitation of St. Peter, the founder of the church. Symbolically, the crown of hair was also associated with Christ’s crown of thorns. Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great, 540–604) provided the authoritative explanation of the tonsure, whose logic was later extended to beard-shaving as well: “What do we understand in a moral sense by hair, but the wandering thoughts of the mind?” Therefore, “the shaving of the head then is the cutting off all superfluous thoughts from the mind. And he shaveth his head and falls upon the earth, who, restraining thoughts of self-presumption, humbly acknowledges how weak he is in himself.”
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In this way, hair was linked with sin, and its removal became a kind of purification. Without really knowing or trying, the medieval church had reconstituted a very ancient logic of hairless purity.

Early on, this notion of shaving away sins involved beards as well as the crown of the head for monks. They were professionals in the truest sense of the word, for they professed, that is to say, they took a vow of humility and service. Even more than ordinary priests, who at the time were allowed to marry and have families, they renounced the world. Because they undertook a higher standard of spiritual discipline, it made sense that monks would shave off even more of their hair. Regular shaving for monks (about once a month) became the law of the land in 816, when Charlemagne’s son, Louis, issued a new set of regulations for monasteries. Not to be outdone, many priests opted to shave their beards as well, as did many laymen, according to the report of a scandalized Arab observer, Hārūn ibn Yahā. The inhabitants of Rome, he wrote in 886, “young and old, shave off their beards entirely, not leaving a single hair.”
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He was told it was the Christian thing to do. This clearly made no sense to Hārūn, for it rejected the natural link between patriarchy and beardedness that even western Europeans acknowledged. What he failed to recognize, however, was that the Latin church was formulating an alternative form of patriarchy based on the unique spiritual authority of celibate professionals. This new symbolism of holy hairlessness scandalized not only Muslims but also Orthodox Christians of the Byzantine Empire.

In centuries of arguments between Catholics and Orthodox Christians,
stretching from Charlemagne’s time to the final breach two centuries later, Orthodox divines rehearsed a long list of theological objections to wayward Westerners, almost always including the reprehensible practice of priestly shaving. It was, they said, contrary to the regulations of the early church, not to mention degrading for the clergy.
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Westerners like the monk-scholar Ratramnus (d. 868) rose to the defense. Building on ideas articulated by Pope Gregory the Great, he spoke of the heart, or spirit, residing in the head. The hair of the face and head represented a barrier of worldliness that stood between God and the soul. “The face of the heart,” he wrote, “ought continually to be stripped of earthly thoughts, in order that it may be able to look upon the glory of the Lord with a pure and sincere expression, and to be transformed into it through the grace of that contemplation.”
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For a monk like Ratramnus, beardlessness was an important facet of holy living.

For all his success, Charlemagne’s empire did not survive beyond the 800s. Europe broke down into smaller kingdoms, counties, and cities. In the political wreckage, the church grew even more powerful. It alone unified Europe, and the pope was the only man who could claim the allegiance of all Europeans. In the 900s, however, in the eastern portion of Charlemagne’s old empire—Germany and Italy—a new line of kings arose to establish, in name at least, the “Holy Roman Empire.” These rulers claimed the old powers of Charlemagne and vied with the popes for mastery in German and Italian territory. As this competition between church and royalty intensified, battle lines were drawn both on maps and on men’s faces.