Why did monks have their head shaven into a ring?

Question

Their heads are bald on top but they have hair shaped like a ring around. Why?

Answer 1

It's called a "tonsure" - as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem.

You are referring to the Roman tonsure: this consisted of shaving only the top of the head, so as to allow the hair to grow in the form of a crown. This is claimed to have originated with St. Peter, and was the practice of the Latin Rite Roman Catholic Church until obligatory tonsure was suppressed in 1972.

Today in Eastern Orthodoxy and in the Eastern Catholic Churches of Byzantine Rite, there are three types of tonsure: baptismal, monastic, and clerical. It always consists of the cutting of four locks of hair in a cruciform pattern: at the front of head as the celebrant says "In the Name of the Father", at the back of head at the words "and the Son", and on either side of the head at the words "and the Holy Spirit". In all cases, the hair is allowed to grow back; the tonsure as such is not adopted as a hairstyle.

Baptismal tonsure is performed during the rite of Holy Baptism as a first sacrificial offering by the newly baptized. This tonsure is always performed, whether the one being baptized is an infant or an adult.

Monastic tonsure (of which there are three grades: Rassophore, Stavrophore and the Great Schema), is the rite of initiation into the monastic state, symbolic of cutting off of self-will. Orthodox monks traditionally never cut their hair or beards after receiving the monastic tonsure as a sign of the consecration of their lives to God (reminiscent of the Vow of the Nazirite).

Answer 2

I think a lot of factors come into play that color this perspective. For many seniors who grew up with the Beatles and during an era where guys still used Brilcream ('A Little Dab Will Do Ya'), Viet Nam and the end of Hitler's Nazis, there are two sensibilities: 1. Shaven (not bald by natural causes) heads are frightening because of the Neo-Nazi Thug representation; 2. Typically the most gentle of gentlemen had hair that was softly coiffed, even if it was bald on top etc. I like hair where it can be grown. I do not like deliberate shaven heads because, for me, it's just too 'alarming'.

Answer 3

From the earliest times of Christianity the Church fathers advised against excessive vanity with hair. For ascetics and monks and nuns it thus became natural to keep the hair short.

The practice is called "tonsure." For the monk or nun, cutting or shaving the hair is an outward sign of their dedication to the service of God.

The circle shape might have represented the halo shape that surrounds the heads of saints in art. The goal of every Christian (monk or not) is to become a saint.

Answer 4

This practice (called tonsure) is not improbably connected with the medieval idea that long hair is the mark of a freeman, while the shaven head marks the slave (in the religious sense: a servant of God).
OR
a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem.

Answer 5

The shaving is called "tonsuring." Look at all the art of the saints from the middle ages with their halos. The tonsure you're talking about is just a style to look like a halo.

Answer 6

Heck, they're going to go bald there first anyway. This way, they can say, hey, look, I still have all my hair except for the spot I shaved on purpose. Oh, I suppose some religious scholar will tell you that the radiowaves from heaven are able to penetrate the medulla oblogata at that precise spot.

Answer 7

Tonsures (shaved ring) are to denounce worldly fasion and self esteem.
I'm not that kind of monk. I'm a monk-ey.

Answer 8

Don't know, but , I do know the name of the cut. It's called a tonsure.

Answer 9

To emulate the crown of thorns.

Answer 10

Mimicing a halo - poor man's style...