History of Men's Earrings: Pirates to Princes

Somewhere along the line, society decided earrings were strictly "women's jewelry." Look at the actual historical record, though, and that idea gets the timeline almost exactly backward. For most of recorded history, the ear was a man's stage — worn by Persian soldiers, Roman senators, sea captains, poets, and at least one king who kept his pearl on through his own execution. The notion that an earring on a man is a modern statement is a surprisingly recent invention.

This is the long version of that story: roughly three thousand years of men and their earrings, from the palace walls of ancient Persia to the courts of Renaissance Europe.

The Ancient World: Status Worn on the Ear

Ear piercing is one of the oldest forms of body modification anywhere, with written and artistic references reaching back to the earliest civilizations. Much of that early evidence points to men.

The clearest examples come from ancient Persia. Carved reliefs on the surviving palace walls at Persepolis — capital of the Achaemenid Empire, roughly 550–330 BCE — show soldiers and royal figures wearing earrings as part of their dress. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a pair of gold crescent-shaped Achaemenid earrings of exactly the type excavated at Susa and Pasargadae and depicted being worn by men. These weren't subtle: gold, granulated, sometimes inlaid with turquoise, carnelian, and lapis lazuli traded in from across the empire. An earring here signaled rank, wealth, and a place near power.

Egypt tells a parallel story. When Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, he recorded that the young pharaoh's earlobes were pierced; earrings were found among the tomb's contents, even if none were on the body itself. Across the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, gold hoops and pendants moved between cultures as both ornament and portable wealth.

Rome and Greece complicate the picture in interesting ways. In some periods and classes, a plain hoop on a man could mark low status rather than high — associations shifted by era, region, and who was doing the looking. That tension, ornament as either honor or stigma, follows men's earrings through the rest of the story.

The Medieval Turn: From Adornment to Suspicion

In medieval Europe, men's earrings drifted in and out of fashion, but the broader trend was toward suspicion. As the Catholic Church's influence over dress and the body deepened, piercing came to be seen by many as an unwelcome alteration of a body made in God's image. By the High Middle Ages, ear ornaments on men were increasingly read as marks of outsiders rather than insiders.

You can see this in the art of the period. In late-medieval and early-Renaissance painting — especially Flemish, German, and Italian work — earrings, nose rings, and facial jewelry were often placed on the figures a painter wanted to code as outsiders: executioners, tormentors, and caricatured foreigners. The earring had become visual shorthand for someone outside respectable society.

That stigma is exactly the soil the pirate legend grew in.

Pirates and Sailors: The Gold Hoop at Sea

The pirate with a gold hoop is the single most famous image in this entire history — and while pop culture has polished it into legend, it sits on a real foundation. Sailors and seafarers did traditionally wear gold earrings, and the practical explanations passed down through maritime lore are genuinely old: a gold earring was portable wealth a sailor always carried, reportedly enough to cover the cost of a decent burial if he died far from home or washed ashore as a stranger.

Other claims attached to the seafaring earring — that it marked crossing the equator, surviving a shipwreck, or even improved eyesight — belong more to folklore than to documented fact. The eyesight idea in particular has no medical basis. We keep this section brief on purpose, because the deep dive into sailors, superstition, and the gold hoop has its own home: our upcoming guide to why sailors wore gold hoop earrings unpacks the burial-money tradition and the myths around it in full.

What matters for the broader arc is this: while the church and respectable society frowned, the men at the margins — sailors, travelers, and outsiders — kept the earring alive through the very centuries when it had fallen out of favor on land.

The Princes: Earrings Return to the Court

Then, in the 1500s, the earring walked straight back into the palace.

During the Renaissance, the rediscovery of classical antiquity and the rise of humanist art softened the old stigma. Jewelry — earrings included — regained prestige. The arrival of Eleanor of Habsburg in France in 1530, wearing jewelled earrings, is often cited as a turning point, and French noblemen soon began wearing single pendant earrings of their own. Portraits by François Clouet show figures such as Henri II, Charles IX, and Henri III with single pearl earrings.

England embraced the look just as openly. A famous English document from 1577, written by the clergyman William Harrison, noted that "some lusty courtiers and gentlemen of courage" wore rings of gold, stones, or pearls in their ears. Crucially, these were not commoners — they were courtiers. Among the Elizabethans, an earring on a man read as a sign of poetry, creative ambition, and fashionable daring rather than rebellion.

The historical roll call is remarkable:

• Sir Walter Raleigh — explorer, courtier, and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I — was painted wearing a large baroque pearl.
• Sir Francis Drake wore one.
• William Shakespeare appears in a gold hoop earring in the Chandos portrait at London's National Portrait Gallery — the only painting with a credible claim to depicting him. Whether he wore one daily is impossible to confirm, but the detail fits his era and his creative circle perfectly.
• King Charles I of England began wearing a large teardrop pearl in his left ear as a fifteen-year-old Prince of Wales, and it appeared in nearly every portrait of him afterward, including those by Anthony van Dyck. He wore it into battle. And in 1649, when he was beheaded for treason, he wore it still — placing his head on the block with the pearl in his ear. It was removed when his body was prepared for burial and sent to his daughter Mary, and it survives today.

It's worth keeping perspective: even at the height of the fashion, earring-wearing men were a stylish minority, not the majority, and the trend drew its share of disapproval — King James I reportedly couldn't stand the sight of men in earrings. But for a glittering stretch of the 16th and 17th centuries, the ear of a prince, a poet, or a courtier was a perfectly respectable place for a pearl.

From Princes to the Present

The fashion faded again over the following centuries, as men's dress grew more sober and jewelry came to be coded as feminine — a relatively recent reversal, given everything that came before. The earring never fully disappeared, but it slipped back to the edges.

Its return to the mainstream is a 20th-century story, and a rich one: the counterculture of the 1960s and '70s, the explosion of men's earrings through music television in the 1980s, and the enduring debate over which ear "means" what. Those chapters have their own homes here — our look at piercings in the 1980s and the MTV mainstream covers the decade men's earrings went fully pop, and our piece on the meaning of which side you pierce addresses the left-versus-right myths that still circulate. For the deep background on how all of this began, our history of body piercing from Ötzi to modern day sets the full stage.

The Jewelry Itself: Then and Now

For most of this history, one material dominated: gold. Persian nobles, Egyptian elites, Renaissance courtiers, and seafaring sailors all reached for gold for the same overlapping reasons — it signaled status, it held its value as portable wealth, and it simply lasted. A gold hoop was both a statement and a savings account.

That preference makes sense for healed, well-established piercings, and it carries straight into modern men's jewelry. For a classic look with real history behind it, solid 14K gold is as close as you'll get to what Raleigh or Charles I actually wore. A plain hinged hoop echoes the gold rings of antiquity and the sea; a simple stud offers a more understated nod to the tradition.

One important note the historical record can't give you: if your piercing is brand new rather than fully healed, material matters for healing, not just style. For a fresh lobe or cartilage piercing, the safest choices are implant-grade titanium, solid 14K or 18K gold, or niobium — biocompatible metals far less likely to cause irritation while the piercing settles. Implant-grade titanium in particular is a favorite for healing because it's lightweight and well tolerated by the body. Save the heirloom gold hoop for once you're fully healed, and it'll be worth the wait.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did men really wear earrings before women?
In several of the earliest civilizations, men's earrings are among the most prominent in the record. Carved reliefs in ancient Persia clearly show men wearing them, and earrings appear in the tombs of Egyptian royalty. Both men and women wore earrings across the ancient world; the notion that earrings are inherently "women's jewelry" is a much more recent development.

Why did pirates and sailors wear gold earrings?
The most widely repeated and best-supported reason is practical: a gold earring was portable wealth that could pay for a proper burial if the sailor died far from home. Other explanations — marking voyages or improving eyesight — are folklore rather than fact. We cover this in depth in our dedicated guide to sailors and gold hoop earrings.

Did Shakespeare actually wear an earring?
The Chandos portrait, the painting with the strongest claim to depicting him, shows a gold hoop in his ear, and earrings were fashionable among Elizabethan courtiers, poets, and creative men. Whether he wore one in daily life can't be confirmed, but it would have been entirely in keeping with the fashion of his circle.

Which ear did historical figures pierce?
It varied by person and period, and the "rules" people cite today are mostly modern inventions. King Charles I, for instance, consistently wore his pearl in his left ear. Historical practice was far less fixed than the later myths suggest.

What metal should a man choose for a new ear piercing today?
For a fresh, healing piercing, stick with biocompatible metals: implant-grade titanium, solid 14K or 18K gold, or niobium. These are far gentler on a healing piercing than cheaper alloys. Once you're fully healed, you have much more freedom to choose based purely on style.

This article is for educational and historical purposes and is not medical advice. Healing times and individual reactions vary from person to person. For piercing decisions, aftercare concerns, or any signs of a problem, consult a reputable professional piercer or a healthcare provider.