Dear All,
In the final stages of my thesis, I'm trying to sort out all those nagging little loopholes which
seem to have crept in; though this is not strictly a religious question, I wonder if the collective
expertise of the list might be able to help out? What I need to know is whether it was normal
for brides in later medieval England to wear white. I know that white is generally associated
with purity, brideship etc and so would be appropriate, but not whether this translated into
actual practice, and I'm a little dubious about this, as a white dress would surely be such a
heavily symbolic garment that it would be difficult to wear more than once - which seems
wasteful. I know that Katherine of Aragon wore a white wedding dress, but this is late, and
high society. Our library here is not well-stocked with histories of costume; of those I've
found, some say that white has always been the colour of brides, some that the custom is
c19. So I'd be very grateful for references to a reliable general guide, or to medieval brides
wearing - or not wearing - white.
Sarah Salih
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