Significance of white in a tartan

[SF Jeff]

An authentic tartan worn at Culloden.

Mmmm, nice...

Highland Division regulation-issue Tropical Whites, do you think..?

I think it's to pay tribute to all of the baby harp seals that have given their lives so we may have a proper full dress sporran.

Or... it's arctic camo.

[OC Richard]

Just think of the fun you could have devising a new 'clergy' tartan.

None of the old two-tone black-and-white stuff of the old days, but more 'Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat'.

High Days and Holy Days would be a riot of colour!

Yes let's consider this for a moment. If you follow the proportions on the liturgical colour pie chart the main colours would be green (Ordinary Time) and purple (Lent and Advent) with some white (Easter, Christmas, etc).

As it happens there's a tartan which follows this, and my favourite tartan to wear at church gigs it is.



About the brown, who can say.

(Yes I know that Advent is supposed to be blue, but I can't recall seeing a church with a set of blue vestments and altar cloths, instead using their purple Lent vestments and altar cloths for both.)

(And yes I know the "white" stripe in Isle of Skye is supposed to be "grey" but it looks white to me.)

[FossilHunter]

Yes let's consider this for a moment. If you follow the proportions on the liturgical colour pie chart the main colours would be green (Ordinary Time) and purple (Lent and Advent) with some white (Easter, Christmas, etc).

As it happens there's a tartan which follows this, and my favourite tartan to wear at church gigs it is.



About the brown, who can say.

(Yes I know that Advent is supposed to be blue, but I can't recall seeing a church with a set of blue vestments and altar cloths, instead using their purple Lent vestments and altar cloths for both.)

(And yes I know the "white" stripe in Isle of Skye is supposed to be "grey" but it looks white to me.)

But what do you wear on Gaudete Sunday? ;)

[Father Bill]

But what do you wear on Gaudete Sunday? ;)

…and Laetere Sunday!

[RGM1]

Awesome outfit, well done.

[OC Richard]

But what do you wear on Gaudete Sunday? ;)

https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/ta...ails?ref=11967

[FossilHunter]

https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/ta...ails?ref=11967

I suppose I was asking for that! ;)

[OC Richard]

I suppose I was asking for that! ;)

Which leads down a quite different (though equally absurd) path, that rather than having a single "liturgical colour" kilt that's in a tartan combining the various colours in their proper proportions, one would have a set of kilts each in a different colour variant of a basic simple pattern, a green one, a purple one, a white one, a pink one etc.

[AFS1970]

A while back there was talk on here about creating a tartan based on the liturgical colors. I think there were a couple of attempts, none of which were all that pleasing. I suppose if this concept were to be revived it would be better to use the Sarum colors than the Roman ones, but I doubt the tartan would look any better.

[OC Richard]

I had to look up Sarum colours. I'd not heard of that.

I did find this online:

The oldest English liturgical color sequence is that of Lichfield, c. A.D. 1240 from the statutes of Bishop Pateshull:

Advent and Lent, black
Passiontide, red
Christmas, most precious vestments
St John, Circumcision, BVM, Virgins, St Michael, white
Epiphany, Apostles, Martyrs, St John Baptist, varied colours
St Mary Magdalene, Epiphany till Lent and Pentecost till Advent, according to the will of the sacristan

Not much to go on there beyond black, white, and red.

Below is a description of the Sarum color cycle from Percy Dearmer’s The Parson’s Handbook:

Red:
Every Sunday of the Year except in Lent
Passion & Palm Sundays
Good Friday
Martyrs

White:
Only the Blessed Virgin (and NOT for saints who weren’t martyrs)
Lent

Blue:
St Michael

Yellow & Green:
Confessors

Black:
Requiems
Advent and Lent (at a later date)

Incidentally, blue and violet were consider as pertaining to black days and were used in Requeims and eventually Lent and Advent. Blue copes can be seen in depictions of Requiems.

Ah, so red for Sundays in Ordinary Time and black, blue, and violet for Advent and Lent.

Now, here are Liturgical Colours pie charts for the Roman Church, the CoE, a US Anglican Church, a US Lutheran Church, the UMC, and a Presbyterian Church. To my way of thinking the consensus of these would be the thing to follow at least here in the US.

So we have around 60% green with the rest mostly divided between purple and white (or purple, blue, and white which might be better for a tartan) with small stripes of red, and perhaps of black and pink.