The European Middle Ages seem to have been drab. Buildings were unadorned gray stone, and people were clothed in dull tones of brown. At least that’s what people are led to believe by depictions in movies and TV for the past few decades. In reality, as seen below, people back then had a passion for bright colors, the more vibrant – and the more garish – the better.
Medieval People Liked to Dress in the Brightest Colors Possible
Based on how they have been depicted in modern movies and TV recently, most people would have to conclude that Middle Ages Europe was depressingly drab and dull from a visual perspective. Just about everybody is clad in dull brown clothes, occasionally broken by a bit of black thrown into the mix. Buildings are either plain brown wood for the lower classes’ dwellings, or unadorned stone grey for the castles of the aristocratic elites or the churches and cathedrals of the usually brown-clad clergy. Actual medieval people, however, did not restrict themselves to shades of brown and black.
Instead, people in the Middle Ages tried to get as colorful as they could whenever they could. Medieval folk took a brush of bright paint to anything that couldn’t move. They also liked to pack as many colors into their wardrobe as possible. Those who could afford it would decorate their walls with vibrant tapestries and frescoes. Their clothes often had a splash of color by way of trim. That is when they were not wholly dyed in bright colors that popped and caught the eye. Ironically, older movies from generations past, such as 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, were more realistic than modern Hollywood in their depiction of how medieval folk liked to wear bright colored clothes.
Buildings in the Middle Ages Were Riots of Color
Just as medieval people did not go for drab clothes as Hollywood would have it, medieval buildings were not as drab as depicted the past few decades in movies and TV. The walls of castles and churches in the Middle Ages were not unadorned plain stone. Just as they did with their clothes and interior decorations, medieval people went for vibrant – even garish – colors when it came to buildings. New cathedrals, for example, were riots of color when they were inaugurated. Walls, saints, and even gargoyles were coated in the brightest paints available. Over the years, however, the paint faded. Then, as tastes evolved – and budgets diminished – repainting in the original vibrant colors was done with less and less frequency.
Eventually, such repainting was abandoned all together. Because of that, what we see of churches and cathedrals from the Middle Ages that have survived into the present is that they are usually plain and unadorned. We are mistaken, however, when we assume that how those buildings look today is how they looked back in the medieval era. For example, the first photo, above, is of the façade of Notre Dame Cathedral of Reims today. The second photo is a laser projection on its façade, that depicts what it would have looked like in the 1400s based on bits of paint in the stone’s pores.
_________________
Some Sources & Further Reading
Church Pop – Wow! Medieval Cathedrals Used to Be Full of Brilliant Colors
History Halls – Myths and Realities: Just How Real Was Hollywood’s ‘The Alamo’?
Tradition in Action – A World of Brilliant Colors
