Beard as Veil
Hair and the Past in Latin Ecclesiastical Commentary
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21420902 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Barbezat (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 123-136 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Viator (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0083-5897 • E-ISSN: 2031-0234 |
| Publisher | Brepols Publishers NV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1484/j.viator.5.152137 |
| OpenAlex | W7125432162 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
This article seeks to explore a relatively neglected way that medieval Latin churchmen understood and explained their grooming practices by associating hairiness with a superseded past. Using the only medieval treatise about beards, Burchard of Bellevaux’s Apologia de barbis , it examines how Latin clerics connected shaving their faces to their exegetical methods. Beardlessness represented the ability to see through the outer appearances of the Old Testament, the dead “letter that kills” (2 Cor. 3:6) to perceive hidden spiritual meanings. Hair was like the veil of the Old Testament, a thing of the past overcome by a spiritual (and hairless) Christian present. This explanation of Latin clerical beardlessness entangled methods of sacred reading with practices of gendered grooming, creating a particular mode of masculinity for beardless Christian churchmen. Clerical hair was connected to exegetical methods that bore indelible links to hierarchical delineations between different types of people and temporalities
Karma · Latin Americans · Masculinity · Middle Ages · Mode (computer interface) · Reading (process) · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Medieval Literature and History · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |