![]() What was normal for individual commoners varied by their region and its trends, and there were variation within those bounds in the most general possible terms, women wore their hair as long as was practical for them, tying it back or braiding it but generally keeping it tamed under some kind of hair-covering even when working. ![]() They might wear beards or they might not. "Just this specific collection of 15th century Nuremberg tradesmen" is an incredibly small sample size, but in general, across the High and Late Middle Ages men had shorter hair than women, generally unparted. non-forked beards, just how long or how cropped do you wear your shortish hair, what to do with your hair when it began to go bald, hair swept back vs. Even within this fairly homogeneous group you can see a variety of styles among men who were not otherwise ultra-fashion-forward - forked beards vs. They are also illustrated in a certain style, with certain stylistic conventions to suggest certain features and an over-representation of certain age demographics (lots of white-haired balding men) but together they're at least a collection of individuated working men, and these illustrations are meant to be likenesses of specific men.Ī tanner circa 1425 and another tanner circa 1464 - both men have beards, the first man appears to be naturally balding, but the second has ear-length unparted hairĪ vintner circa 1425 - again, balding, unparted hair, bearded with beard of moderate lengthĪ wine-worker circa 1474 - hair shorter than his ears but still unparted, falling forward onto his forehead, bearded but his beard is forkedĮven in the case of balding men, these are clearly haircuts - they're not hair allowed to grow wild, they're not long hair tamed with a braid, furthermore they are men's haircuts designed to differentiate their wearers from women as much as their beards do. But we can still get an idea of what non-noblemen and non-noblewomen were doing with their hair from artwork.įor example, we can look at an array of working men from the 15th century in the context of works like the Hausbücher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen - these are all craftsmen, which situates them as commoners but not as the poorest of the poor. This is hard to say, given the breadth of the Middle Ages and the state of visual depictions of common people - unlike with photography, there's no chance of accidentally snapping a candid image, each image must be composed by an artist and that artist brings their own conventions and prejudices to the table.
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