heathen

In “The New World and the Changing Face of Europe,” Elliott Horowitz advances the idea that European men sought to distance themselves from the heathen other, which in medieval times was associated with typically bearded Jews and Turks.

The view that beards on women were a rare exception sometimes reinforced the stature of those women, who in the case of Saint Wilgefortis was said to receive her hair as a miraculous gift from God, escaping a forced marriage to a heathen only to then be crucified by her father in imitation of Christ.

And while the churchyard of St Wystan’s Church, in Repton, has witnessed centuries of history, these events may have taken place during a few, terrible, months in 873 AD at the hands of the Vikings under their infamous leader Ivar the Boneless and their most terrible iteration, the Great Heathen Army.

The unusual event has been celebrated for centuries and is thought to have its roots in a heathen festival to celebrate the return of spring.

Peter Kass’s “Time of the Heathen” is as much artifact as artwork.