Picture of Queen Elizabeth I
 

The Color Gray

  • Interesting Facts and information about the Meaning of Color Gray
  • Who was allowed to wear the color Gray?
  • The Symbolic meaning
  • The Biblical meaning of the color Gray
  • How the color was produced

Picture of Queen Elizabeth I

The Color Gray

The Meaning of the color Gray
The color and material used in Elizabethan Clothing was extremely important. People who could wear the color Gray was dictated by English Law. These were called the Sumptuary Laws. The colors of Elizabethan clothes, including the color Gray, provided information about the status of the man or woman wearing them. This was not just dictated by the wealth of the person, it also reflected their social standing. The meaning of colors during the Elizabethan era represented many aspects of their life - the social, religious, biblical and Christian symbolism was reflected in the color Gray!

 
 
 

The Symbolic and Religious Meaning of the color Gray
Some interesting facts and information about the
symbolic, religious, Christian and Biblical meaning of the color Gray.

  • The symbolic meaning of the color gray was mourning and repentence
  • Gray is the color of ashes and a punishment or penance was to walk barefoot in a town covered with ashes
  • Gray also has a Biblical meaning and is the Christian color for the season of Lent and closely associated with fasting and prayer
 
  • Cheap dyes were used to produce the color grey
  • Gray clothing also symbolized humility and plainness, and for this reason was associated with monastic life and could be cheaply produced by using coarse, rough, undyed dark wool
  • People who were allowed to wear the color grey during the Elizabethan era, as decreed by the English Sumptuary Laws, were lower and upper classes
 

More details, facts and information about other colors may be accessed via the Elizabethan Clothing link at the top of the page.

The Color Gray

  • Interesting Facts and information about the Meaning of Color Gray
  • Who was allowed to wear the color Gray?
  • The Symbolic meaning
  • The Biblical meaning
  • How the color Gray was produced
  • The effect of the English Sumptuary Laws
 
 

Queen Elizabeth's Coat of Arms

 

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 Elizabethan Era
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Queen Elizabeth's Coat of Arms

The Color Gray

 

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