medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
At 8:47 AM -0500 2/24/03, Tom Izbicki wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>I am working on regulation of clerical dress just now, & 13th century
>synodal decrees on the habits of religious refer to black or brown,
>sometimes "nigra bruna" together. Nothing specifies gray, but the friars
>are not as often mentioned as are monks & canons.
>Tom Izbicki
Interesting! But it makes sense if the "black" isn't dyed-black but
natural-black from the color of the wool.
I had been until recently under the impression that brown, as such,
was pretty much exclusive to Franciscans and Carmelites (and the
occasional organized hermit group). Since brown habits with rope
girdles do seem to be the "default" image in a lot of non-historians'
minds when they think of the clothing of male religious before 1600,
I've been trying to educate a few people out of that notion. (It's
one of my pet peeves <g>.)
References to "nigra bruna" make me think that I've been
over-simplifying a bit too much in promoting specifically black or
gray. It makes me wonder if the depiction of monastic habits in art
as solidly black is as much an artistic convention as I already know
to be the case in the depiction of unbleached "white" habits as
solidly white (i.e. as not the natural off-white color but
white-white).
--
_________________________________________________________
O Chris Laning
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+ Davis, California
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