Chignon (hairstyle) traced back to ancient Greece, where Athenian women commonly wore the style with gold or ivory handcrafted hairpins. Athenian men wore the style as well, but they fastened their chignons with a clasp of "golden grasshoppers", according to "The History of the Peloponnesian War", by Thucydides. The chignon was specific to Athens, as other city states, such as Sparta and Cyprus, had their own style of hairdressing. The chignon was also popular in ancient China, where married women wore the low, knotted hairstyle. Male writers of the Victorian era, like Anthony Trollope, were fond of poking fun at the absurdity
Tonsure in the shape of a cross to mark their obedience to the Church. St. Germanus I writes "The total tonsuring of the head is in imitation of the holy Apostle James, brother of the Lord, and the Apostle Paul, and of the rest." In the Latin or Western Rite of the Catholic Church, "first tonsure" was, in medieval times, and generally through 1972, the rite of inducting someone into the clergy and qualifying him for the civil benefits once enjoyed by clerics. Tonsure was a prerequisite for receiving the minor and major orders. Failing to maintain tonsure was the equivalent