Vingodo
In the Middle Ages, Western women also had a "turban worship".
Sophie · Marceau once let the teenager know what it means to be "a sight of affection". And it all depends on a headscarf.
In the movie "Braveheart", the male protagonist Wallace first met With Sophie The French princess Isabella, played by Marceau, meets, the princess is wrapped in a thin white silk turban, the brown eyes are clear and confused, and the eyelashes are slightly blinking, which is soul-stirring.
I've always felt that it was this turban that made me get Sophie. Marceau's mysterious charm.
However, the crew did not deliberately use the turban to add "exoticism" to the goddess, in fact, in the Middle Ages, the "turban worship" of Western women was no less than the "hairstyle control" of contemporary young people.
Remember the medieval memes on WeChat? Each girl wore a headscarf hat.
If we pay a little attention to medieval portraits, we will soon find that most of the women in the paintings wear headscarves and gauze hats, and the styles are endlessly varied.
For example, in Jan Van Ike's Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Arnolfhanie, the bride's white headscarf and her hairstyle (like two horns) puzzled me for a long time. The high school art teacher once explained to us that the white turban represents the virginity and virginity of a woman, so even if the bride's lower abdomen is raised, we can still know through her turban that this is a "serious" girl.
For married women, the headscarf symbolizes chastity. /Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Arnolfini
So why is a woman's headscarf a symbol of chastity?
Returning to the Christian tradition, Paul of the Bible wrote to Corinthians: "A man does not need to cover his head, for he is the image and glory of God, but a woman is the glory of man... Therefore, for the sake of angels, women should have a sign of authority on their heads. ”
The angel in this sentence refers to the "six-winged angel" Seraph, who has only two wings to fly and the other four to wrap himself tightly—one pair to cover his face and one to cover his feet.
The "six-winged angel" Seraphim (aka "Blazing Angel") in the fresco. Although full of joy, he is the highest level of the angel level. /Wikipedia
Probably inspired by Saraf, women were also required to wear headscarves and wrap themselves in the form of angels.
From the 12th century onwards, the most popular style of headscarf for women was called "Wimple" (meaning women's headscarf), which was also the prototype of the "nun's hat". It is said that after the Christian Crusades, this "nun hat" was brought with it, inspired by the veils of Muslim women.
Headscarves of women in the 14th century. / Robert Camping, Portrait of a Woman
At that time, the Holy See issued a decree stipulating that married women must wear headscarves in the public sphere as a sign of humility and obedience to their husbands. If you are married and don't wear a headscarf, then everyone will suspect that this woman is probably pretending to be single in order to hook up with other men behind her back.
Therefore, wearing a headscarf has become an oath of "famous flowers have the lord"; and women's hair has also become the private territory of the body.
In addition, the female head covering has important religious significance. If a woman enters the church without a headscarf, it is undoubtedly a great disrespect to God, and the degree of evil is almost naked. On religious holidays, female believers need to cover their entire faces with veils and leave only their eyes, which can symbolize the peaceful silence of Jesus' crucifixion.
Covering women's heads has important religious significance. / Stills from The Nuns
This explains why nuns still wear headscarves. This headscarf is a constant reminder of their presence with God.
For women in ordinary homes, wrapping a headscarf is easy to work. Wrapping the head with white linen and then tying a knot on the top of the head can achieve the purpose of working sharply and without being disturbed by broken hair.
But aristocratic women are different, not only to pay attention to the material of the turban, the knotted shape is also carefully designed. Therefore, the nobles played a trick with the turban -
The Queen of Thorns' turban is sewn with gold embroidery of Tyrell family roses. / Stills from Game of Thrones
In Game of Thrones, the Queen of Thorns' turban symbolizes her power and social status. The Queen's turban is embellished with intricate gold embroidery, and the turban has become the Queen's most obvious personal style. The show's designer explained that the function of the turban is to show the authority and wealth of the queen.
The combination of crown and turban was also a common hair accessory for aristocratic women in the 12th and 13th centuries. The headdress combination is called Barbette, and Sophie in Braveheart Marceau's styling is such a way of matching.
The Barbett can be embellished with jewelry, embroidery and ribbons to highlight positions of power. / Stills from "Braveheart"
In addition, the popularity of the turban opened the trend of "taking people with hats" in the Middle Ages, because women did not show their hair, and women made a big fuss about headscarves and hats.
By the late Middle Ages, the traditions of feudal society began to loosen and disintegrate, and aristocratic women no longer bound themselves with headscarves, so they began to wear "Hennin", a pointed conical hat, used to liberate themselves.
The Enin hat, also known as the conical hat, is the prototype of the witch's hat.
The Enin hat, also the prototype of the witch hat, was inspired by Gothic architecture. The Enin hat is like a super cone, 3 inches to 9 inches (about 8 cm to 23 cm) high. Considering that the average height of people at that time was much shorter than that of modern people, I have to wonder whether this so-called "liberation" is a lie - will the girls walk with an unstable center of gravity and an imbalance of balance?
The inside of the Hat is fixed with wire or paste, the tip is 40 degrees, the hat is draped with tulle (or high-grade linen), and the front can be added velvet - the "predecessor" of the turban is still there, but the essence of "covering the face" is no longer there.
Conical hats are expensive, so as long as you see a sharp horn in the distance, you are undoubtedly aristocratic.
Interestingly, the "horned head" mentioned above, the bridal head shape in The Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Arnolfini, is the "first-class version" of this conical hat.
"I am a little green dragon" automatically plays: "I have horns and horns on my head." ”
In order to "show off their wealth", the "horns" became larger and wider, and finally exceeded the width of their shoulders, leaving the girls overwhelmed. In this way, women simply put the wire shelf in their hair in the hat and let the "horns" on both sides merge into one.
As a result, the turban hat shifted from horizontal development to vertical development - the hat became higher and higher, and all kinds of strange shapes were derived.
The turban hat shifted from horizontal development to vertical development.
However, in the 15th century, the once popular turban began to "cold". After the Renaissance, girls' beauty-loving nature was liberated, and they wanted to show their beautiful braids and hairstyles directly instead of playing tricks on their headscarves. Gradually, the transparent and cool gauze hat replaced the heavy and stuffy turban.
Thus began the century that belonged to the hat.
Reference:
[1] The Veil of medieval women: beyond fashion, or a symbol of gender and piety?
[2] European women's fashion 1400-1450
[3] Beauty in Game of Thrones: What's so special about the clothes they wear?