Pulchris Coloribus: Clerical Attitudes to Colour in the Twelfth Century

Abstract

This study examines the different attitudes to colour among Clerical writers in the twelfth century. Beginning with the debate between Cluny and the Cistercians over whether black or white was the most appropriate colour for a monk’s habit, this leads to a consideration of the wider controversy over the suitability of colourful display in ecclesiastical settings. The importance of the Patristic tradition is then explored, with its complex colour symbolism that emerged from centuries of Biblical exegesis. While pervasive, the symbolic function of colour was far from universal, and often contradictory. An alternative approach sought inspiration outside the text, and influenced by Neoplatonic ideas, other writers showed a greater sensitivity to colours as they appeared in nature. In this context colour was believed to have transcendental properties that aided the mind’s ascent to an understanding of the Divine, expressed in the mystical and visionary writing of the period. These different approaches to colour found practical expression in the stained glass of the abbey of St.-Denis, and the liturgical colours of ecclesiastical vestments. As Aristotelian ideas spread at the end of the century, we begin to see a shift to a more ordered and systematic approach to colour that developed in the following century.