Beards in the East-West Polemic

Abstract By the beginning of the ninth century the various linguistic, cultural, and political differences between East and West were already on display for all to see. It was in this atmosphere that the Byzantines first took note of the Latin clergy’s habit of shaving, distinguishing it from the (relatively) long-standing Eastern practice of men wearing beards. At first not much was made of the difference, and exchanges in the ninth century rightly regarded it as a matter of custom rather than theology. Unfortunately, the rising tensions between East and West, coupled with the increased significance Latin authors gave to tonsure as a mark of the clerical state, meant the end of such toleration. By the mid-eleventh century, beards, or the lack of them, became a casus belli in the conflict between Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch Michael Keroularios, and a firm fixture in subsequent polemical exchanges for the next two hundred years.