Charlemagne's Mustache

Just returned (late) the copy of Charlemagnes' Mustache: and other cultural clusters of a dark age, by Paul Edward Dutton (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Interestingly enough, I note that my library has bought a copy while I had the thing on ILL.
Anyway, the only reason I borrowed it was because of the first chapter, which discusses Carolingian hairstyles. It has an interesting take on it, that uncut hair was seen as a symbol of power early on in the Germanic areas, so Germanic kings were hirsuite; but the Roman influence went for the clean-shaven, short haired, and slowly that came to be the mark of civilization. When hair was power, putting royal claimants in cloisters and cutting and tonsuring their hair was a much more powerful symbol than when short hair was in fashion for the powerful-- so, he says, that is why the habit of blinding and otherwise mutilating rebellious throne claimants grew up in the centuries around the Millenium. Some good illustrations of hairstyles, but nothing really on hair care, which is what I was looking for.

the other chapters are:
Charlemagne, King of Beasts, about the animal mythology and symbolism in the Carolingian empire
Karolus Magnus Scriptor, about the royal relations on reading and writing
Of Carolingian Kings and their Stars-- astrology/astronomy in the history and descriptions of Carolingian reigns
Whispering Secrets to a Dark Age-- what sort of verbal communications, secrets, etc. were there?
A World Grown Old with Poets and Kings-- Carolingian kings and power/old age progressions
Thunder and Hail over the Carolingian Countryside-- symbolism of weather in histories of the kings

Stirrup controversy

Found this floating around my sent-mail box:
There is, in fact, a scholarly argument over whether stirrups were essential in the formation of the Frankish cavalry during the Carolingian period.
Information on The Stirrup Controversy can be found in several sources. The pro-necessity of Stirrups argument is advanced by, among others, Medieval Technology and Social Change, by Lynn White Jr. The contrarian view is on the Medieval Technology Pages: http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/Subjects.html
I love the Medieval Technology pages, and figure them in the list of sources that I would rejoice to see cited in SCA research.

Cool Book! Medieval Feast by Aliki

Ok, I now have in my little hot hands a paperback copy of
A Medieval Feast written and illustrated by Aliki (HarperTrophy, pb $6.99). This is a book aimed at ages 7 to 11, unpaged, illustrated in color drawings. These are somewhat medieval in style and conciously imitative of the familiar illuminations we cooks pore over; but the illustrations are modern children's-book rather than illumination in style.
The information provided about the preparations for the feast, the cooking and the food, and the day to day life are in fact completely right. Details in the 'frames' around some of the illustrations show very nice images of the animals and foods to be served. I especially treasure the looks on the faces of King, Queen and Bishop when presented with one more subtlety (it's clear they are VERY full already...)
This book is great. I want to do a demo based around it, with Redon's The Medieval Feast and maybe a copy of the book of images from the Lutterel psalter as backup.