One thing I often notice when I watch historical TV shows like The Last Kingdom (definitely not always an A+ source for accurate history) is that the beards vary between nations. Vikings are almost always bearded, but many of the Saxons go with tiny mustaches or are even clean-shaven. Then I read this in a pop history article: "1066 - Shaving and haircuts help William of Normandy invade England to overcome Harold the Saxon of Hastings. Harold's spies ventured out before the attack and came back reporting a large group of priests seen nearby but no enemy."
This seems to imply that the Normans were clean-shaven habitually, while the Saxons were more hairy.
My question boils down to this: In the early middle ages (say c. the 900s-1000s) did facial hair help people distinguish between nations or cultural/religious groups? Did the Scandinavians, Saxons, Franks, Normans, and people in the Holy Roman Empire wear their beards differently, and leave a record of it? Did beards have any special religious significance in terms of the conflict between Christianity and paganism? And are there any historical books and articles on early medieval or dark ages hair and fashion out there?
TL;DR: How did the many varieties of early medieval peoples wear their hair and beards in the era of the 900s-1000s, and were haircuts used as a marker to distinguish between cultural, religious, and national groups?
Thanks much for your time.
That's a really interesting research question, and it's not one that will have an easy answer. We know of some hair styles used in specific ways, such as the long braided hair of Merovingian kings, the mustaches of Charlemagne and some of his successors, the different types of tonsure used by monks of varying allegiances in the British Isles, and so on. Hair could be very important ... but I'd hesitate to say it was used to distinguish cultural, religious, and national groups. That's largely because our modern notions of culture, religion, and nation don't map very well onto the ways that early medieval people lived their lives.
Unfortunately, I don't have the resources on hand to give you a detailed answer, but I can point you in the right directions. Dutton's article will contain most of the morsels you're looking for, and Ashby's book will give you the specifics about the Viking Age. Both are excellent reads and recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in the period. Pohl's article is foundational for understanding what early medieval ethnicity is and what it isn't, and he does in fact get a bit into hair and the Viking Age with Charlemagne. Abrams' article has a more sustained focus on the Viking Age, although there's only a single tangential reference to hair. She mentions forked beards, which do seem to have been a symbol of ... something. It might be worth keeping an eye out for them as you pursue your interests.
Paul Dutton, 'Charlemagne's Mustache', in Charlemagne's Mustache and Other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age (2004), 3-42.
Steve Ashby, A Viking Way of Life: Combs and Communities in Britain and Scandinavia, c. AD 800-1100 (2014).
Walter Pohl, 'Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity', in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800 (1998), 17-69.
Lesley Abrams, 'Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age', Early Medieval Europe 20 (2012): 18-38.