medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Clergy were not always willing to wear somber clothing on the "street",
at least by the thirteenth century. The Fourth Lateran Council had to
forbid them wearing green or red. See my article:
Forbidden Colors in the Regulation of Clerical Dress from the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215) to the Time of Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464), in
Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1 (2005): 105-114.
I heard a paper at Leeds a few years ago that said earlier law codes
identified red & green with nobility.
Tom Izbicki
Henk wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Poppycock and balderdash. If this saint was a 7th c person the differnend
> could not have been clear at all. It is well known that clothing of males
> and females at that time only differed in length not in cut. And priests
> wore their cottes long, down to the feet, like monks. And women. There was
> no real difference between women's clothing and the dress of clerics except
> maybe for the colour, as the latter tended to be of more sombre hue. And
> there was certainly no difference at all between shoes for men and women.
> Celebrating mass as a bishop of Capua further obliged him to don liturgical
> dress in the shape of a wide whitish linen garment called an alb, worn over
> the normal clothing and falling to his feet. After that there came the
> chasuble, which was a wideish poncho like mantle, a stole and a mitre. There
> was no way that people could see he was wearing women's clothing under all
> that, and if they had it would not have been clear that it was women's
> clothing either.
>
> Henk
>
> I'm sorry: Vitalian of Capua is a saint of the Regno who, having been absent
> from "saints of the day" for a couple of years, is perhaps not as familiar
> as many of his fellows. He has a brief Vita (BHL 1254) whose repeated
> sensationalism is powered by an improbability drive of some magnitude.
> According to this text, V.'s enemies at Capua (who later successfully got
> rid of him) placed women's clothing and women's shoes in his bedroom one
> night in the correct expectation that when he arose on the following day he
> would in the darkness dress himself in these and, so attired, celebrate
> Matins before the people and clergy. As the light grew, it became apparent
> to others how V. was dressed; it was widely assumed that V.'s sartorial
> embarrassment arose from unchaste behavior on his part.
>
> The incident is adapted from one in the legendary Vitae of St. Jerome where,
> with similar intent, the same trick is played and J. goes to Matins
> similarly dressed. Probably the easiest version of that to find will be the
> one in the _Legenda aurea_.
>
> Best again,
> John Dillon
>
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