The New World and the Changing Face of Europe

The faces of politeness: Facial hair, masculinity and culture in the long eighteenth century

“…Since they had once borne unfavourable connections with Jews and Turks, Europeans had therefore shaved to demonstrate their superiority to this perceived 'other' . 129 According to Horowitz, the discovery of beardless white inhabitants in the New World shift ed 'otherness' onto the clean-shaven face, leading to the widespread return of beards across Europe. 130 Others agree with the concept of facial hair as a cultural reaction.…”

Jewish Questions in <i>The Three Ladies of London</i>

“…We may also infer that his name -from the Greek gerōn, or 'old man' -suggests Gerontus was bearded; however, as Elliott Horowitz has shown, changing fashions in Christendom and the emergence of a new cultural 'other' in the beardless peoples of the New World began to displace the medieval association between beards and non-Christians. 47 The Three Ladies contains echoes of other antisemitic narratives: when Mercadorus curses Gerontus as a 'sitten, scald, drunken Jew!' (12.19), this recalls an association between Jews and excrement -'sitten' is an aphetic form of 'beshitten' -still current in early modern England, evidenced in the belief that Jews emitted a noxious scent and in the tale of the Jew of Tewkesbury, an event reported to have occurred in 1257 but frequently retold.…”