ABSTRACT
THE close alliance between ] ewish and general costume in the middle ages is perhaps seen most clearly in the exaggerations of fashion which reached their climax in Italy at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It will be unnecessary to enter into much detail here with regard to the sumptuary laws on the subject of extravagance in dress, for incidental allusions have been already made to several such attempts to check the ruinous excess which the Italian States vainly sought to suppress with a strong hand. ] ewish moralists and preachers shouted themselves hoarse in exhortations towards greater moderation 1. 'J ews should don humble raiment and not flaunt coloured robes,' was already a Jewish maxim in the thirteenth century. 'Even on Sabbaths, when they may dress better, they should only wear simple dresses of camelot.' Linen might be worn close to the skin only on Sabbaths, on all other days a thick woollen garment was put undermost. This form of self-denial, when it took a moral form, did somewhat hamper the Jews from adopting national costumes, but it cannot be attributed to their sensitiveness as a fault that Jewish
authorities denounced the prevalent fashion of young Italian men wearing short tunics which left the legs bare. Jewish preachers applied the scriptural verse:-
to the feet of those who wore shoes which left the upper part of the foot uncovered 1. But-and this is the interesting point-all the efforts of Jewish moralists were powerless against the contagion of national example. It is true that Jewish sumptuary laws against extravagance in dress are old and widespread. In the Talmudical code, litigants in civil cases were expected to dress alike so as not to influence the judges by their appearance 2. In criminal cases the accused dressed in black, and let his beard grow wild in token · of anxiety. Similarly, an excommunicated Jew wore black for thirty days 3. White, on the other hand, was the colour of joy·. The wearing of gold embroidery
35 was regarded as a token of pride 1. Throughout the middle ages, this objection to gold trimmings continued, and plain, modest black was the universal colour of the Jews, so far as they had a favourite colour at a1l 2• The Jews of all countries wore black; in Spain, Germany, and Italy the phenomenon was equally marked 3. Black being the colour of grief, the Jews-' mourners of Zion,' as they were called -were no doubt strengthened in their predilection for black on the score of modesty, by its applicability to their persecuted state 4. But, here again, it is obvious that the use of black was not an anti-national choice, for in the Orient, where black is antagonistic to the national sentiment, the Jews avoided dark colours as scrupulously as they strove to wear them in Europe 5. Unfortunately, as we shall see,
. Jews were forced by many Mohammedan rulers to wear black even against their inclination.
