This question is stupid but straightforward.
In the movie ‘King Arthur,’ most of the Knights had beards but King Arthur was clean-shaven. How historically accurate was this? Was Arthur clean-shaven because he was a Roman officer and that is how they were required to groom themselves?
Are you asking whether Arthur groomed himself or whether people during that time (knights/Romans) did?
I always thought that the Romans did, but come to think of it, I’ve never actually read anything indicating this.
Both.
It’s late and I’m severally tired, but I’m fairly certain that Arthur was just a mythical king. I’m completely unaware of him having any credible historicity.
The legends of King Arthur are just fairy tales. They represent the ideal King, and all adventures pertaining to him are fairly generic.
This new movie is in fact based on some other guy that some geeky people have decided may be the origins of the Arthur story, or the Round Table of Knights, or some such nonsense.
In any case, beards were never mandatory, particularly in regards to movie adaptations.
What I would like to know is why Tarzan was always clean shaven–even in the 80s movie Greystoke!
Actually, it may be a choice made by the movie companies around 1915-1920: Beard meant Russian and Russian meant communist or anarchist. (Benjamin Harrison, who left the White House in 1893, was the last President with a beard.)
As far as I know, the Roman empire collapsed around the 5th Century A. D.–in what era was King Arthur supposed to be the sovereign? I also noticed that Hal Foster always drew Prince Valiant clean shaven.)
From what I have read, it would appear that, as a tradition before a battle, all Roman soldiers and officers would shave their beards. The word Barbarian means bearded one, and refered to the non-shaven enemies of Rome.
IIRC, Edgar Rice Burroughs had Tarzan shaving (with a hunting knife) in the original story. He also had him teach himself to read without any prior knowledge of human language!
Re. Arthur: “When” he was supposed to have lived can be judged two different ways. If the legend is based at all on any real historical person that person, Urther Pendragon, would have lived sometime in the 5th century when the Saxons were invading Britain, according to the 9th century historian Nennius
But virtually all the myths and legends about Arther, Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table that survive were written down (or invented out of whole cloth) by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his largely fictitious History of Britain (1135 AD). Numerous other medeival writers added to the legends, most famously Sir Thomas Mallory. So the image we have of Arthur and his knights, dressed in mail or even plate armor, dates from many centuries after the Saxon conquest of Britain.
Most scholarly studies that (basically) speculate on the basis of Arthur trace him to last Celtic ‘kings’ (or warlords) resisting Saxon rule. Among Celts of higher rank it was traditional, to shave their cheeks and leave a biker-like handlebar moustache that covered the whole mouth.
In the 5-6 Hundreds (“Arthur’s” time), most of the Celtic-Britons were pretty thoroughly romanized. I would not be surprised to find that they had all more or less adopted Roman tradition and were clean shaven.
But re the OP: I think that is the choice for the, probably several, Celtic chiefs which offered the germination of Arthur’s legend – Tradional Celtic Soup-strainers or Roman-like Smooth as a baby bottom – not Grizzly Adams/Santa beards.
Nope. The word “barbarian” comes to us from Greek, not Roman. And it came from a word meaning “the sound foreigners make.”
Beards on leading men is a big no-no, especially if you want to draw the ladies to the show! Putting a beard on someone generally means that you can’t see their face clearly and that takes away a lot of the nuance from a performance (haven’t seen KA yet, but I doubt that it would be the case here). Thus, generally no beards (to be sure, this convention can be exploited by doing the opposite, but that’s fairly rare).
As I recall Romans were generally clean-shaven; however, towards the end of the empire Greek influences became more acceptable and some Romans did take to wearing full beards. How that applies to the Romanized Celts is beyond me. I can tell you that Dr. Lao is correct on the etymology of “barbarian.”
I’m sure PaulFitzroy knows that there wasn’t a “real” Arthur just like there wasn’t a “real” Hector or Achilles, but he’s curious about the time period and whether a Celtic leader (not neccesarily Arthur) would shave in order to distinguish himself from his troops.
I read in a Sunday supplement in the paper that the historian working on “King Arthur” (he apprently was an expert on this before they contacted him, he didn’t just research it for the film) ha found a lot of evidence suggesting that the legend was in fact based on a real man who came over to the British Isles during the Roman occupation. He was even able to name the specific area which he came from and where he was stationed in the UK (Lancashire). The area where he was originally from, apparently, has lots of myths about pulling swords out of rocks, were fond of circular tables etc. etc.
Seeing as a lot of people are disputing whether Arthur existed, is the historian just justifying his job as tyhe film’s historian, or is he onto something?
Barring the invention of a time scanner, or the discovery of some spectactular untouched fifth-century artifacts or records, we will probably never know for certain. The available evidence is just too spotty, and what we do have will simply be re-argued endlessly. Many cultures had no real distinction between history and myth, and no one ever let the facts get in the way of a good story. If it’s hard enough to figure out the truth about the Old West of 150 years ago, how are we going to know what happened 1600 years ago during a general collapse of civilization?
Accordintg to the History Channel (so take that for what it’s worth!): In the 2nd or 3rd Century, there was a Roman commander of cavalry in Britain named Artorius Castor who beat back some Picts and ushered in a brief period of tranquility. In the 5th. Century there was a holdout romano-Briton of the order of equites (knightly class) named Ambrose Aurelian who served as dux bellorum (war lord, chief of battles) of the Briton kingdoms and did a lot to hold back the Saxons and usher in a brief period of stability.
Ambrose apparently died around or shortly before the time of the battle of Badon Hill, a Saxon defeat that is attributed to “Arthur”. A lot of the other stories about Arthur, however, seem to be actually a coalescing of other legendary Breton/Welsh/Cornish stories, taking place between 500 and 900. At that time the name “Arthur” starts appearing as a legendary figure – but only as a great invincible battle commander against the Saxons, not with any of the grand mythical, chivalric, magical or romantic elements. Those had to wait for Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretien de Troyes, and Thomas Mallory, in the 1100s-1400s.
The ‘historical consultant’ was John Matthews, a freelance writer who is very much on the New-Age wing of Arthurian studies. Make of that what you want.
Nor is his Lucius-Artorius-Castus-and-the-Sarmatians theory new. It was first proposed in the 1920s. All it boils down to is a Roman army officer (the said Lucius Artorius Castus) who had a name vaguely like ‘Arthur’ who may (but, on the other hand, may not), have commanded some troops stationed in Britain who came originally from Sarmatia, where there are some folktales vaguely like bits of the later Arthurian stories. As a theory, it was an interesting addition to the vast number of other ideas that have been suggested, but hardly the breakthrough that Jerry Bruckheimer seems to think. The smart money is still on Arthur-was-never-a-real-person theory.
How DID they shave beards back in those days? Given the generally primitive state of metallurgy, how did they make a blade sharp enough to cut hair so closely? In couldn’t have been pleasant, in anycase.
You can make an approximately reasonable straight razor out of decent quality iron. Add a lot of honing and stropping, much hot water, very steady-handed professional barbers (who at the time were also the surgeons), and a face that will have toughened over the years of that (and likely had enough other scarring from injuries and disease by the time you were an adult).
It’s not like you were expected to shave *(1)yourself ( 2)baby-smooth (3)every morning *-- that’s the legacy of Mr. Gillette. You’d go to the barber every so many days and he’d take care of you.
The Roman empire lasted a long, long time, and fashion changed quite a lot over the centuries.
We can know quite alot about how the emperors looked, as they managed to get their face minted in coins. The first emperor to grow a full beard was Hadrian (2nd century CE), and for the next couple of centuries the majority of emperors wore beard. It is indeed possible that this fashion became popular even in far-away Britain.
However, at that point (IIRC) a hirsute complexion was considered a bit effete and intellectual, inspired more by greek philosophers than mighty fighters. I believe that the military fashion stayed clean-shaven a lot longer.
In other news, historians have discovered the real Santa Claus. He’s a 35 year old plumbing supply salesman named Nicholas White who currently lives in Pensacola Florida. Of course, the reality is a little different than the mythology, since Nicholas is clean shaven, hates children, and never gives presents.