-A thick, tangled and deliciously idiosyncratic history of hair.- Times Literary SupplementIn the period 1450 to 1650 in Europe, hair was braided, curled, shaped, cut, colored, covered, decorated, supplemented, removed, and reused in magic, courtship, and art, amongst other things. On the body, Renaissance men and women often considered hair a signifier of order and civility. Hair style and the head coverings worn by many throughout the period marked not only the wearer-s engagement with fashion, but also moral, religious, social, and political beliefs. Hair established individuals- positions in the period-s social hierarchy and signified class, gender, and racial identities, as well as distinctions of age and marital and professional status. Such a meaningful part of the body, however, could also be disorderly, when it grew where it wasn-t supposed to or transgressed the body-s boundaries by being wild, uncovered, unpinned, or uncut. A natural material with cultural import, hai
