The Philosophy of Beards: A Lecture Physiological, Artistic & Historical — John Shaqi
The Philosophy of Beards: A Lecture Physiological, Artistic & HistoricalGowing, Thomas S.
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Beards: A Lecture Physiological, Artistic & Historical
Gowing, Thomas S.
Beards
and carried to its climax in the anecdote of a Spanish nobleman, who,
having accused a man of some crime, and the latter being proved
innocent, exclaimed, “if he did not do it he was plotting it, for the
rascal has a red beard!” Those who need consolation under this calumny,
traceable probably to an old notion, derived from his name, that Judas
Iscariot had a red beard, I am fortunately able to refer to a sermon[20]
on that Arch-Traitor, full of wit, humor, pathos, and imagination, by
the celebrated Abraham St. Clara, where red beards are nobly vindicated,
and the following noted instances cited:—
Footnote 20:
Judas der Ertz. Schelm.
Several illustrious Romans,
The Emperor Barbarossa;
Hanquinus Rufus, King of the Goths;
Bishops Gaudentius and Gandulfius;
The Martyrs Dominicus, Maurinus, and Savinianus.
During the distractions to which Charlemagne’s empire was subject after
his decease, the Northmen appeared, and a band, under Rollo, having been
converted and settled in what is now Normandy, became known in English
History as the Normans; with whom an increasing intimacy having sprung
up in the reign of Edward the Confessor, (whose head was shewn from the
Bayeux tapestry,) a Norman party was gradually formed at court and
Norman customs, one of which was shaving, partially adopted. Harold, as
representative of the real old English party, wore his Beard as shown by
a cotemporary MSS. illuminator; but William the Conqueror, and most of
his followers, are figured only with a moustache and their back hair
close cropped or shaven. It was this _barbarous_ fashion that induced
Harold’s spies to report to their master that the invaders were an army
of Priests.
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