Why did monks tonsure

As the title asks: What is the significance of this particular haircut the tonsure , why is it associated with monks and what is the history behind it? Both men and women traditionally had their hair cut or removed in specific ways when they entered a monastery or convent.

These haircuts symbolized religious devotion, group identity, and humility as well as the renunciation of worldly things and personal vanity. The practice may relate to ancient rites in which people in various cultures offered their hair as a religious sacrifice. Monks and nuns also take a vow of celibacy, and hair has historically been associated with eroticism and sexuality and as a means to attract the opposite sex.

Historians say that monastic hairstyles also may relate to the ancient custom of shaving the heads of male slaves. Some early monks who began shaving their heads voluntarily referred to themselves as "slaves of Christ. Groups of Christian men began to form organized religious communities during the second and third centuries.

These men, who became known as monk, lived apart from other people and developed distinctive modes of dress and appearance. Some monks cut their hair short, while others shaved it off completely or shaved part of their head.

Partial shaving may have its origins in ancient Egypt , Greece , and other places where men shaved a circular bald spot on top of their heads to honor the sun god.

Some orders of monks who left a narrow crown of hair around their heads said that this signified the crown of thorns placed on Christ's head during his crucifixion.

The distinctive style, which is called the tonsure from the Latin word tondere —"to shear" , often is associated with Catholic monks. Historians are unsure about the earliest origins of the tonsure, but church officials came to accept it and then required that all Catholic monks adopt this hairstyle.

The tonsure is "a sacred rite. In Roman Catholic monasteries, novices who had just entered the community had their hair cut short with scissors. When the novice took his vows to become a monk, he received the tonsure. The hair was cut short and then the hair on top of the head was shaved off, leaving a round bald area on the crown.

These haircuts were carried out as part of the initiation into the group and were maintained by monastic barbers. Three main variations of the tonsure developed among various orders. The eastern style involved shaving the head completely, according to a style attributed to St. Paul, while others shaved just the crown, a style associated with St. Controversy over certain hairstyles persists today, but in religious terms the wrong cut can be exceptionally offensive.

The reason the St. These saw a singular appearance chosen for avoidance of doubt over what was the best way to worship the divine. Things came to a head, so to speak, in within the confines of a former Anglo-Saxon monastery in Whitby, northeast England. The question being debated concerned Easter, specifically when it took place on the religious calendar.

Because of the way Christian culture had evolved in that part of the world, there were two opposing viewpoints.

Eventually King Oswiu who ruled between — AD called a meeting to sort the matter out once and for all. The result led to the Italian tradition winning out and the St. The Celtic tonsure was trimmed away in When you see someone sporting the shaved head with the ring of hair , there's absolutely no doubt about what vocation the wearer has chosen. But why on earth did such a strange haircut evolve in the first place? The term "tonsure" is actually a reference to any religious or ceremonial clipping of hair.

It's usually done to mark a stage in some kind of religious journey, and it's practiced in religions including Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Buddhism, Hinduism, and it was even done in ancient Greece and Rome via Britannica.

And it's in Rome that the story of the Christian tonsure starts. According to the Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History , it's unclear just when Catholic monks started adopting the trend of shaving the tops of their heads while leaving that little ring of hair. Historians do think it started around the same time men started organizing into devout communities of monks, which places the time frame around the second or third century A. There are a few reasons why early monks might have chosen to go for this sort of look, and one is that it had long been traditional to completely shave the head of slaves to denote their low status.

Early monks styled themselves as "slaves of Christ," and the tonsure might have been a way to demonstrate their obedience to the divine. There's another theory, too, and this one comes from Daniel McCarthy, a scholar in Dublin who has done a ton of research on the use of the tonsure. He says the distinctive hairstyle was a tribute to the crown of thorns placed on Christ's head during the crucifixion.

When men decided to enter the community, the first haircut they got wasn't the tonsure — it was just an incredibly short haircut done with scissors. The tonsure was reserved for marking the occasion of the novice taking his vows to become an actual monk, and monasteries had barbers who were responsible for maintaining the look.