Congratulations to top historians and podcasters Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on their recent podcast on the history of beards. Their podcast, The Rest is History, has taken the podcast world by storm, featuring in the top handful of podcasts in numerous rankings. In June, the Telegraph reported that it has had 200m downloads, and it has spawned a monthly subscription club for additional content and a chat community, two books and a live tour.
Ancient historian Tom Holland, well known in Christian circles for his book Dominion, and modern historian Dominic Sandbrook discuss an immensely varied range of historical topics from the profound to the frivolous. And so, it was natural that they undertook a two-part mini-series on the history of the beard.
Mouse can report that it was overall well-researched and entertainingly presented. Key aspects of beard history were suitably covered. They began, as Mouse's Beard Theology does in the cradle of civilisation in Mesopotamia, where kings would wear long beards to show their status as manly warriors, but priests would shave to present themselves as pure before the gods. They cover Roman and Greek beards, with a strong showing from top ancient historian Holland on point.
The series moved swiftly into the modern period. Had there been more time available they might have dwelled longer on the split between the Latin and Orthodox Church in 1054 in which the beard featured strongly. For Mouse, that story is emblematic of the role of beards through history - as markers of identity.
The story Holland and Sandbrook told about the modern era was focused more into fashion than theology, which is understandable. However, there remains a theological underpinning which could have been explored further with more time. With the space Mouse had in his book to expand on the topic he was able to tell more of the story through the medieval period, where the first beard theology was written by Abbot Burchard who theorised that priests should shave their outer beard as a sign of humility but develop their 'inner beard'.
The modern church had an uneasy relationship with the beard through the 1960s and 70s when it was emblematic of rebellious sub-cultures, before making its peace with the beard eventually leading to Archbishop Rowan Williams winning the coveted Beard of The Year trophy.
Mouse highly recommends The Rest is History in general and these episodes in particular. And if you enjoy it why not expand on it with Mouse's Beard Theology where you can also read about Henry VIII's beard-growing competition with Francis I of France, why the Devil has a beard and many other entertaining tales.
Image created with Microsoft Designer AI
