"Did Medieval Knights wear purple?" Topic

I'm working on some Perry Agincourt Knights and want to get as much colour as possible. I'm not too fussed for super accuracy, but I can't find any references for them using the colour purple on their outer coats/shirts. I know it was a hard colour to come by, but does anyone know if it was used at all?

Thanks

The ancient Roman nobility wore purple. It was very expensive as it required a vast amount of snails to produce. I imagine that Medieval knights who could afford it would wear purple.

Heraldic colors got more restrictive as you went from east to west. English knight had no purple until "mulberry" or "Murry" was introduced in the 15th century. There does appear to be purple among German Knight. So the French may have slipped in a few.

Given that Late Romans had purple cuffs and disks and other markings, purple cant have been too hard to manufacture. A particular shade of purple was for nobility – but there are other ways of making purple I am sure. A quick google of medieval clothes colors shows that purple yarn was possible. Cant answer on heraldry though.

You can easily make a purple colour by mixing red and blue dyes together. The famous and expensive Tyrian purple of the Ancient world derived from the glands of sea snails.

In his "A Complete Guide to Heraldry", Fox-Davies says that although purpure (purple) is very rare in English heraldry it is well recognized. He then goes on to quote the "earliest instance" of the tincture he found, that of Henry de Lacy Earl of Lincoln (d.1311): Or, a lion rampant purpure.

From memory, it wasn't one of the colours used in English heraldry. French rules were different and included some additional colours – orange and green IIRC – but I don't think purple was in there either. I'd guess (guess is the key word here!) that anybody who could afford purple would have a coat of arms and, in this period, would be wearing that or, at least, those colours.

Even without purple, lack of colour shouldn't be too much of a problem in this period!

As a possible shortcut from detailed independent research, are you aware of the big Agincourt diorama at the Royal Armouries in Leeds? A lot of research went into that and I'd be fairly confident they got the colours right. Here's a link to a post with some photos of it on Simon Chick's blog: link Might be worth a look for inspiration – and it uses Perry figures.

smallitalianwars.blogspot.com
midlandshipyard.blogspot.com

Added in edit – shouldn't have taken so long to compose this – overtaken by better informed posts!

Roman purple became increasingly rare through the early middle ages. The Emperors in Constantinople continued using it but in most of Europe, if worn, it tended to be more associated with the top clergy than the military nobility.

Purple crops up extremely rarely in heraldry – the lion of Leon was supposed to be purple but pictures from the period show it pretty much as red much of the time.

Murrey – as mentioned above -was a pretty dark purple which cropped up in late medieval liveries.

Surcoats and other textiles weren't always in the coat of arms. I've seen red, blue, green, yellow, black and white being used to varying degrees in sources but I don't remember purple. Purple could be achieved by overdying etc using red and blue, but it was hard to get a decent colour and this needed expensive reds such kermes.

It must have been possible for the colour to be used, otherwise why would they have an heraldic word purpure for it?

From my readings it was very rare, but not impossible.

Damon.

Possible to use but not commonly used.

Just a comparison, Burke's General Armorial 'a registry of armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time' has gu. for gules (red) 37,184 times (including around a dozen in the introduction)

pu. for purpure occurs _12_ times. And this is a Victorian armorial – as far as I could tell, all of the arms with purpure were post 1500.

Continental armorials like Rietsaap's have more purple (though still hugely outnumbered by the more usual colours), but in the introduction it claims that the purple can be caused by silver or gold arms which have tarnished.

As I posted above, textile coverings of armour did not have to be heraldic colours, but since sumptuary laws around this time and later generally restricted purple clothes to royalty, I would be mightily surprised to see it cropping up at Agincourt.

I also have info that De Lacy's coat of arms had a purple lion rampant on a gold field (using modern parlance)

The sumptuary law regarding the use of purple (at least for the English) was not enacted till well after Agincourt. I certainly wouldn't expect to see much of it, but it was not "against the law" if the OP is making Agincourt era knights.

Sure, there are the occasional ones. I've already pointed to Leon's.

I think the point is that if you want a representative bunch of colours having one or two out of a few dozen figures with a bit of purple on the arms fits, but more than that wouldn't feel right.

There are so many examples of heraldry from the period out there that there is a wealth of variety through the patterns, even with the more normal colours.

In England we had strict sumptuary laws in the 15th century which prohibited lower classes from wearing certain colours or certain materials.
At the time of Edward IV the colour purple was restricted to the royal family only.

See: link

However there is one noted possible variation… William Lord Hastings, an old drinking and womanising mate of Edward, used similar colours to Edward's blue and murrey. Hastings reversed these to murrey (wine red) and blue but in some sources the first colour is noted as purple (purpure). Now… this may be an error, or a colour fading over time OR it may have been a rare privilege granted to Hastings given his close affinity with Edward.
How close was his affinity? Richard (later Richard III) had him summarily executed for alleged treason during the usurpation of Edward's son, Edward V. Despite the claim of treason the Hastings family was not attainted (penalised) as traitors and Hastings was even buried in the royal chapel at Windsor next to Edward IV. This is hardly worthy of an alleged traitor.
So it looks like Hastings refused to go along with Richard claiming the boy Edward's throne and paid with his life but Richard was guilty enough to put things right post-mortem.
So… was Hastings granted the rare right of wearing purple? His loyalty over Edward IV's son suggests he was worthy of it.

You pays your money and makes your choice.
When I painted his unit, in 15mm, I think I did a few in purple and the rest in murrey.

Barry