Church Tartans

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Yep. Holyrood Abbey was established by King David I in 1128.
St. Ninian had established a Catholic Mission in Scotland in about 425 a.d. They've been there ever since.
After John Knox (Presb. founder) in the lat 16th cent. there was no 'Reformation' in regard to clothing. "Priest/Cleric/Clerk/Clark" was worn by all Clergy, regardless of Denomination, the same applied to the Laity. Catholics & the new Protestant groups continued to dress alike. So I reckon, a group can pretty much adopt any Tartan that has meaning for them.

The above could be read to imply that the Clergy tartan was being worn during John Knox's day, so I just wanted to post to clarify that the earliest actual evidence we have of a "clergy" tartan is c. 1830.
See:
http://albanach.org/clergy_tartan.htm

Aye,
Matt

[macwilkin]

To echo Matt's comments, see my earlier post in this thread:

Well...not exactly. There are a lot of myths associated with this tartan.

Lowland Presbyterians generally didn't embrace anything associated with the Highlanders, who were largely Roman Catholic or Episcopalian.

If you read Matt's article above, you'll find that the clergy tartan dates to the 1830's at the earliest. It's worth the read.

T.

[ScottEPooh]

So, is the Clark tartan somewhat "interchangeable" with a clergy tartan? Sorry if that's worded badly, but I wasn't sure how else to word it....

[gilmore]

There is a website for kilted clergy here: http://www.clergytartan.com/