More About Hair

Hair is a fascinating resource. It is a crop that renews without any special tending, producing thread and cushioning. It can be cut, dyed, and shaped into various patterns that can denote different things in society: high or low status, and even religious status. It can be used to denote maturity or your fitness for the ruling class.

Let's talk for a moment about sumptuary laws, designed (to quote Britannica.com) "to restrict excessive personal expenditures in the interest of preventing extravagance and luxury." They started long before the Middle Ages. A province of Sparta forbade residents to own furniture or even a house that could not be made simply with an ax and saw. Anything more elaborate was excessive and shameful. Spartans only were allowed iron money, not gold or silver. Roman law also had rules governing the materials for garments.

Medieval Europe adopted many sumptuary laws, often to make sure the increasing wealth of the growing middle class did not encourage them to dress extravagantly similar to the ruling class. French kings restricted the use of gold and silver embroidery, etc.

Sumptuary law could embrace hairstyles as well. We know this because Florentine women in 1326 asked the Duchess of Calabria to speak on their behalf to the duke. The women of Florence were restricted (unfairly, they felt) from wearing "false hair": wigs and hair extensions. The law was intended to prevent lower-class women from appearing aristocratic—an affront to the fabric of society. Pope Eugene IV (1383 - 1447; briefly mentioned here) issued a statement that women should be allowed to wear "false hair." To be fair, his reasoning was that it could be pleasing to her husband and reinforce domestic bliss and marital fidelity, so a woman's satisfaction was not necessarily foremost in his mind.

Long and flowing hair was attractive and seductive on a woman, and so once she was married the hair had to be put under a wimple or bound up, so that she did not appear seductive to other men. The image of a woman combing long hair, in many cases being watched by a man, appears in medieval art, and is even painted on combs.

While combing [sic] the sources, I have found so much more regarding hair than I expected, including some items that might not be rated PG. More to come.

The Loving Pope Pius II

Pius II was the only pope to write an autobiography while he reigned. Lest you think he probably sanitized his life so that it seemed more appropriate for a pope, in this case he included events that were quite the opposite. He was an author of more than an autobiography: he also wrote Historia de duobus amantibus ("A Tale of Two Lovers"; see the illustration), and others.

Born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini to a soldier, he was one of 18 children (many of whom did not live long). He worked at the family farm until the age of 18, when he left to study at Siena, where he settled as a teacher. In 1431 he left teaching to be secretary to a bishop who was on his way to the Council of Basel, but changed jobs when that bishop ran out of money. He then went to Scotland on a secret mission, where he had a dalliance and fathered a child, who died young. He described Scotland as "wild, bare and never visited by the sun in winter."

Back in Basel, he was offered a diaconate, but disliked the obligation of abstinence. He was sent to Strasbourg, where he fathered another child (who died at 14 months). Later, at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, he was named court poet for his cleverness and facility with language. While there, it is believed that he observed events that were turned into the "Tale of Two Lovers."

Enea did not care much for morals or strictness, but he realized that the way to power lay in the Church. His diplomatic skills working for Pope Eugene IV impressed those around him, so Eugene's successor Nicholas V made him Bishop of Trieste, and later Bishop of Siena. Now he wanted to advance, and desired to become a cardinal. He thought his chance came in 1455, but then Pope Calixtus III wanted to promote his own nephews first, and so Enea did not become a cardinal until 1456.

That meant, however, that he was part of the papal conclave on 10 August 1458, right after Calixtus died. Enea did his best to work his diplomatic skills among the cardinals and, although there were many with more experience and better ethical reputations, he managed to gather the votes so that a second ballot elected him unanimously.

According to his own writing, he did not rise above the desires of the flesh, but he did not neglect papal duties, and was keen on spreading Christianity, calling for a crusade against the Turks, who had taken Constantinople in 1453 and were now a strong presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and successful Crusades sometimes required allying oneself with potentates you would not normally work with. Pius reached out to a voivode ("chief military leader") of a region in Romania called Wallachia, whose position north of the Turks would make him a helpful ally in surrounding them. Tomorrow, I'll talk about the link between Pius and a few other people mentioned in this blog, and then about his alliance with someone who had never before been mentioned: Dracula.

See you then.