Did Medieval Knights REALLY Have Long Hair?

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Whether it be video games, novels, films or tv series we almost always see Medieval knights, real or fantasy, rocking long manes of hair. Is long hair historically accurate or for Medieval mounted nobility? Did knights really have long locks? Blonde or black? Let's find out!

Link to Modern History tv https://www.youtube.com/c/ModernHistoryTV

Methodology

Well to approach this systematically we first of all need to properly define the word "long hair", identifying what we exactly mean.

Because one of the things we'll see today is that since long and short are very loosely descriptive adjectives, our own culture and personal perspective shape and change their meaning, and in general the mental image we perceive.

Some people would describe this length of hair on a man a long already, while a very similar length of hair in a woman could be referred to as "short". Same length, opposite adjectives.

So for clarity's sake, even though with my current length we have a rather extreme example today, we'll consider any length of hair that reaches the shoulders on a man, as long. Therefore this would be medium, this would be short.

Of course when we are discussing knights we are referring to the Medieval period. What's key to understand before we begin looking at iconography and reading period sources, is the length of the Middle Ages. We are dealing with a very long period, a 1000 years, and fashion changed a lot during this time.

I mean, I'm sure any of you watching could spot a hairstyle from the 80s when put together with current hairstyles, and that's what, a difference of 40 years? It's 1000 years we are talking about.

So precise timing is the first gear of our mechanism today.

Secondly, the geographical area, the culture of reference.

A custom we'll find in 10th century Medieval England won't necessarily reflect habits and norms in 15th century Italy or 13th century Portugal.

So the second cog to our machine, is space.

The shared elements in the mechanisms that supported the social construction of the ‘meaning’ of hair shall now be examined.

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