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In general, the public's ability to afford special clothing for such occasions was probably very limited before the modern era. The idea of paying for a dress that would have been worn on only one occasion would surely have been alien to the vast majority of medieval people. Whatever "good" or "fancy" clothes most people might own were most likely reserved for special occasions and would have done double duty then. The notion of "white weddings" only gained popularity in England in the late 18th century, and then only among the wealthier classes. John Parsons On Mon, 7 Jun 1999, Sarah Salih wrote: > 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 > > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%