Shaving Faces in Religious Communities: Theory, Practice, and Visual Dynamics

Abstract Visual evidence is an important component of our historical sources. Attention to strict regulations about shaving needs to be complemented by nuanced reading of visual patterns that indicate what artists and audiences thought of as not only ideal and formal but also plausible and actual. Theoretical, largely moralizing support for clerical shaving characterized it as eradicating sin and worldliness. Face-shaving and tonsuring were regulated activities in the religious orders, marking, bonding, and disciplining all members in ways both personal and communal, and distinguishing them from lower status, bearded conversi. Freshly shaved men suited the theoretical precepts, though in actuality such factors as age, health, timing, and travel gave rise to a variety of practices and facial appearances. For the artist, beards were variable, affective devices that aided naturalistic effects, enabled differentiations, and increased their work’s persuasive presence.