Veil, Hat Or Hair? Reflections on an Asymmetrical Relationship
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Veil, Hat or Hair? t 25 Veil, Hat or Hair? Reflections on an Asymmetrical Relationship Gabriela Signori* The letters of the apostle Paul to the Corinthian community were a keystone in the edifice of Christian thought during the Middle Ages, as far as evaluating the positions of men and women went. Particularly decisive in this regard was the section of the letters in which Paul explained why women were expected to wear the veil in church while men had to keep their heads uncovered. The history of the reception of this section of the Corinthian letters has till now not been traced. This history was an asymmetrical one: it hinged mainly on the references to women, occasionally on those to members of the clergy, but rarely did men of the laity figure in the discussion. In the First Corinthians, one of the four letters the apostle Paul addressed to the inhabitants of Corinth, the relationship between man and woman in the community of Christians has been defined as one of superiority and subservience. At the zenith of the Christian order stands God: God stands above Christ, Christ above man and man above woman. Man is the mirror-image of God and his glory (imago et gloria), while woman reflects the glory of man alone. The gender of a person also determines the external features that mark the dialogue with God: the man keeps his head uncovered during prayer or prophecy, whereas the womans head must be veiled. Paul sermonises through oppositions. He does not provide reasons or causal explanations; rather, his statements follow in parathetical sequence, * Historisches Seminar, University of Münster, Domplatz 20-22, D-48143, Münster, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. The Medieval History Journal, 8, 1 (2005) Sage Publications t New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London DOI: 10.1177/097194580400800103 26 t Gabriela Signori one upon the other. His argument becomes obscure when he resorts to syllogisms. For a woman to be bare-headed during prayer, so the argument goes, would be tantamount to her being shorn of her hair. Should she not wish to cover her head, she should then shave off her hair. But since a shorn head spells dishonour, it follows that she be veiled. According to this, honour would appear to be the second reason for Pauls prescription of the veil for women during prayer. Also difficult to follow is the state- ment: For this reason a woman must carry a sign of authority (potestas) on her head because of the angels.1 The confusion is finally compounded by the additional remark that wearing ones hair long is disgraceful for a man, but an honour for a woman, as long hair has been gifted to her and is akin to a veil. Why would a woman need a second, artificial veil when she is already in possession of a natural one, her hair? To this, Pauls curt reply: But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God.2 The Veil While there has been a considerable amount of writing on the significance of these words of the apostle, the history of their dissemination and reception has hardly been investigated.3 This is surprising, especially in view of the fact that more than other sections of the Bible, the Corinthian passage in particular had a lasting effect on the ways in which in medieval European societies imagined the ordering of gender relations on earth. This particular text came to acquire central importance, as we shall see, in defining the norms of behaviour in church, though it applied only to women. Two, or rather three, objects inhabit from the outset the heart of the biblical interpretation: veil, hat and hair. It would then follow that the interrelationship of these objects be brought to light. Yet this in itself is a difficult task, as the veil, hat and hair stand for entirely different things. The symmetrical oppositions drawn by Paul in relation to hair hardly existed in medieval social practice: long hair was, over centuries, a source of honour not only for women, but equally for men. A shorn head was 1 First Cor. 11, 10. 2 Ibid.: 11, 16. 3 A number of questions centring on these issues that remain open will be addressed in the course of this article. See Wire, Women Prophets: 11634; Kraemer, Share of the Blessings; MacDonald, Early Christian Women: 14454. Veil, Hat or Hair? t 27 associated with subjection, servitude, submission and humiliation.4 The hat was never the male counterpart of the veil, not even in Pauls version. In his prescription, it was the bare head of the man that completed the polarity. In other words, the veil was the sign of subordination, the un- covered male head that of freedom, the signum libertatis, as designated in the Glossa Ordinaria,5 a biblical commentary originating probably in Laon in the north of France, towards the end of the eleventh century, at a historical juncture when an increasing number of cities clamoured for freedom from feudal bonds.6 Freedom, as expounded in this commentary, is meant to be understood as an antithesis rather than as political gain: it is constituted in opposition to the signum subjectionis, the veil. Men and their headgear rarely figure as a subject in the Corinthian exegesis, except when the question of dishonourable hair length is raised.7 According to the First Corinthians, closely cropped hair or a clean-shaven head was obligatory only for the clergy.8 Since the fifth century, tonsure served as an additional feature that marked the hairstyle of the clergy as distinct from that of the lay public.9 The circular Roman tonsure, widely prevalent among the clergy of the Western Church and which echoed the form of the corona, Christs crown of thorns, was according to the First Corinthians meant to reinforce the notion of its bearers likeness to God.10 It is for this reason that ordinary members of the clergy were explicitly forbidden from wearing a hat.11 The earliest references to transgressions of this rule date from the eleventh century, the period of the investiture 4 Burkart, Zwischen Körper: 6191. 5 Biblia sacra: col. 284: In capite sunt omnes sensus spirituales, sicut in capite corporali corporales. Et quia viri caput est Christus sine alio mediante: and per Christum Deus in signum libertatis, non habet velum quod est subiectionis signum. On the Glossa, see Smalley, Study of the Bible: 5566; Milburn, The People: 29496. 6 Schulz, Kommunale Aufstände: 4973. 7 First Cor. 11, 14. See, among others, Platelle, Le problème. 8 First Cor. 11, 7. This was especially in the Western Church, where the clergy also refrained from growing a beard (Andrieu, Le pontifical romain: 338). On medieval norms prescribing beardlessness for the clergy, see Bvrchardi, vt videtur: 103114. 9 On tonsure, see Gobillot, Sur la tonsure; Bock, Tonsure monastique; Trichet, La tonsure: 6992. 10 First Cor. 11, 4. This applied, according to Pater Bock, only to the tonsure of clerics; among monks, the tonsure signified humility, submission and penance. In Bocks view, monks wore for a longer period of time the tonsura sancti Pauli, that is, their heads were fully shorn. It was only in the twelfth century that they adopted the customs of the clerics (Bock, Tonsure monastique: 38390; also, Constable, The Ceremonies). 11 Zimmermann (Ordensleben: 99100) has not found any reference in the rules for the monastic orders to headgear other than the hood and felt cap during winter. 28 t Gabriela Signori conflict.12 Their numbers become abundant in the Synod records from the thirteenth century onwards. Rules prohibiting clergymen from wearing their hair long or curled were disproportionately numerous. Decrees prescribing severe punishment for neglect of tonsures also reappear in the records at regular intervals.13 Even earlier than the tonsure, it was the veil that came to be constituted as a social marker of a consecrated virgin. This was not so in the early third century, when Tertullianus first made a move to make the veil obligatory for all virgins. Referring to the First Corinthians, Tertullianus regarded the veil as armour, shield or bulwark against the evil eye and desires of the flesh.14 A hundred years later, all consecrated virgins wore the veil, but this was the bridal veil and no longer a form of armour.15 All references to the Corinthians had disappeared, and in its place the Can- ticle, a section of the Old Testament, appeared more and more frequently, as for example in the writings of Ambrosius, Bishop of Milan (d. 397).16 It was at this point of time that the first doubts regarding the claim that man alone was created in the image of God, came to be hesitantly ex- pressed. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (d. 430), pointed out that according to the story of the Creation, both woman and man were created for each other, in the image of God.17 Moreover, authors such as Church Father Hieronymus (d. 419/420), went as far as to put forward the view that in 12 Zimmermann cites from the life history of Petrus Damian, which suggests that many monks even at that point of time wore a form of headgear. The reference is to broad bands, the copulae, that covered their heads like hats: quibus quasi quibusdam pileis capita contegebant. Damian prohibited this on the grounds that only a hood was appropriate for a monk. See Migne, Patrologia latina, vol. 144: col. 141A. 13 Pontal, Recherches sur le costume. 14 Tertullianus, Le voile: 13842, 15058, 17678, 18284.