Centuries-old hairstyles carried intense ethnic and political symbolism. [fact]
Early in the eleventh century, an otherwise unknown Anglo-Saxon named Edward took to cutting his hair in the Norman fashion. He shaved the back half of his head and let dirty, long hair cover his face. His brother, thoroughly disgusted with Edward's new hairstyle, wrote him an angry letter, which has been preserved, "You despise your race and your ancestors," he seethed, "since in insult to them you dress [your hair] in Danish fashion with bared neck and blinded eyes. . . . He will be accursed who follows heathen practices in life and dishonours his own race."
Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 88