Re: [h-cost] Allegory of Colour

[Linda Walton]

Thank you very much indeed to all who replied to 
my question about the allegory of colour.


In addition, my very special thanks to Amy 
Greenfield and Robin Netherton for your detailed 
responses.  They have been very helpful to me, not 
least in providing examples of how to approach 
such a problem.  I have copied your messages into 
a document so that I can refer back to them again, 
and I will certainly be following up the 
references you kindly provided too.


Yours sincerely,
Linda Walton,
(in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, U.K.).
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[h-cost] Allegory of Colour

[Linda Walton]

Can anyone tell me more about this?

The allegory of colour, which already at the end 
of the thirteenth century showed slight signs of 
development, had now become a language 
comprehensible to nearly everyone, and the 
full-fledged dandy had now the means of 
proclaiming to the world his amorous adventures by 
the scale of colours displayed in his dress.


It's a quotation from The Black Death:  A 
Chronicle of the Plague Compiled from Contemporary 
Sources by Johannes Nohl.  My copy was published 
by George, Allen  Unwin Ltd., in 1961, but the 
book was first published in 1926.  It's on page 
153, where he's discussing European life after the 
plague.


Obviously, this is an old book, and scholarship 
has moved on.  Is the concept just one of those 
myths of costuming?  But if it's true, what was 
this colour code?  I'd be grateful to know more 
about that, but even more grateful to know if this 
is a reliable author, because he says many more 
interesting things.


Linda Walton,
(in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, U.K.).
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