At the marked this weekend a very sweet woman complimented my new dress and the beautiful mustard yellow colour. She when went on to say that not all markeds would allow it as it yellow was a sign of a woman being a prostitude. I was of course not trilled to hear this but I was also sceptical. Was yellow dresses really a sign of prostitution?
I have however found that some of the things we tell each other at markeds are more myths than historical fact, so I set out to investigate the claim. In this post I will detail what I found on what prostitudes wore in the medieval and early modern period. I am of course particrally interested in Denmark and the German area, as that is where we attend markeds.
Sumptuary laws were mostly city laws that regulated what people were allowed to wear. Sumptuary laws were about one of three things: Either it was about being able to tell high status people from low status people especially being able to tell nobles from merchants with money , shaming particular groups mostly Jews, prostitudes and executioners or it might limit who was allowed to wear imported cloth to protect local industry.
For this purpose we are mostly interested in the clothing that singled out particular groups as someone who had to wear something specific, so others could spot them. According to sunagainstgold on Ask a Historian on Reddit , a few places did regulate what prostitutes wore:. Concerning your particular colors: James Brundage briefly mentions that prostitutes in Zurich, the law being passed in the 13th century, were required to wear red caps.
Executioners, another stigmatized group, were required to add strips in the city livery colors one of which was green to their clothing; this sounds more reasonable for prostitutes especially since executioners were sometimes responsible for running brothels given the apparent difficulty ergo expense of achieving a true green dye in the Renaissance era.
