Norman hair colour?

[Mason]

something like 40% brown, 30% fair, 20% red and 10% black would seem more likely.

That sounds like the colouring of the hair on my own noggin, never mind the Norman 'race'!*






(*Although you can replace the red with grey when considering the hair on my chin!)

[Le Korrigan]

I grew up in Brittany. My family is mostly Breton and I have some relatives in Normandy.
We have dark hair (20%), light brown (45%), blond (20%) and red hair (15%). Freckles are common. Most of kids have light brown or blond hair, these color change when we get older. I see more differences when I travel in Southern France than in UK.

But honestly - looking at my figures hardly any of them show any hair... it's all covered by helmets and fabric.

So true 


Hope it helps  

[janner]

As DrtV posted, the milites would most probably have been in coif and helm with no hair on display, as would a proportion of the spearmen. So you only really have to worry about the rest of the foot.

Given the diversity of the army and the broad genetic base of eleventh century northern France/low countries (for want of better names), a spread of hair colours makes sense. I'd probably go, two blonde, two ginger, two medium brown, and four dark brown.

[HerbyF]

Most of the population of northern France at that time was of Frankish, Saxon & other german tribes mixed with Gauls. Gauls were fair skinned with auburn to blond hair. Most of the German tribes were fair haired. I would go with a mix from dark auburn to medium & light brown with a lot of ginger & blonds mixed in. Maybe a few dark haired figures but not to many.

[Red Orc]

What's your evidence for the genetic makeup, HerbyF? And what are you basing your 'racial' descriptions on?

I think there's probably a lot of difference between dynasties and the people they rule over.

[cram]

As it goes there isn't that many bare headed models or models with hair visible in my army! I've been painting them with a mixture of hair colours, no real dominant hair colour as this would seem to be a bit of a grey area. If there's evidence that a people had a dominant hair colour though, then I like to paint them as such, but if its open to a lot of debate I paint their hair quite varied.

Thanks for all the input everyone.