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.
Dear Reverend Father,
ReplyDeleteThe 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.