I have occasionally noticed that late Medieval representations of our most blessed Lady often show her bare-headed and with her hair over her shoulders and arms. I think of the Marian banner in St John's College (reproduced in Duffy Fires); of the statue of the Assumption in the church at Sandford upon Thames.
And the Roman Pontifical, describing a Queen approaching her Coronation, says that she comes crine soluto. The records of the Coronations of Good Queen Mary and of Bloody Bess agree: she wears her hair loose and 'decently let down on her shoulders'.
One of the 'Horatian' poets of Urban VIII's renascimento wrote:
Tu [his friend Rosa] rerum dominam canes,
Et sparsam Zephyrorum arbitrio comam
Nudis ludere bracchiis,
Et nimbos volucrum fundere crinium ...
Medieval precedent, I think, going hand in hand with baroque movimento.
1 comment:
Dear Reverend Father,
The seal of the mediaeval shrine of Walsingham, of which there are two surviving impressions in the British Museum, one available as a cast in the Shrine shop, shows Our Lady quite clearly with long unveiled wavy hair beneath her ancient crown.
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