Medieval Hairstyle

Woman doing her hair in early twelfth-century fashion.

From 1130 to 1140 noble women used to split their hair into two thick braids which hung in front of the shoulders, or, further splitting these two sections into two parts, they held those together by means of strips of silk or gold fabric.[…] Here is how these strips kept the long sections of hair together by going outside the sections and between them alternatively (see fig. A). Such hairstyles must have required a lot of time and care, therefore they were only adopted by noble women, who, at the time, weren’t wanting for leisure.