Why Do We Wear Black to Funerals?
The History of Mourning Dress
from Medieval Europe to Today
For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die.
—Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 (RSVCE)
Medieval funeral clothing in early 10th-century Bohemia. Even among nobility, mourners wore simple, dark garments
—brown, gray, or undyed wool. This scene from the funeral of Duke Vratislav shows typical medieval mourning customs:
before black dye became widely available, funeral attire was modest and subdued, regardless of social rank.
—brown, gray, or undyed wool. This scene from the funeral of Duke Vratislav shows typical medieval mourning customs:
before black dye became widely available, funeral attire was modest and subdued, regardless of social rank.
For centuries across Europe, mourners dressed in black. The custom feels ancient, inevitable—as if grief has always worn that color. But the history of funeral attire is more complicated. Black at funerals was not always the rule, and for most of the Middle Ages, it was not even common. What we inherit as tradition was, for a long time, simply impossible.
Clothing at Funerals in Medieval Europe:
The History of Wearing Black to Mourn
The History of Wearing Black to Mourn
The tradition of wearing black to funerals begins with a practical problem: the difficulty of the dye itself. True black required expensive, repeated dyeing—first a deep blue base from woad or indigo, then overdyeing with madder, then treatment with iron mordants. The process was labor-intensive, and the result fragile. Iron, used sparingly, could rot wool over time. Achieving a rich, lasting black was a mark of wealth.
By the High Middle Ages, black cloth was available across social classes, but the finest blacks remained costly. For common people, "black" often meant dark brown, deep gray, or muddy violet—whatever the local dyer could manage with oak galls, alder bark, or walnut husks.
So for much of medieval Europe, funeral clothing was not uniform. Medieval mourning customs varied widely. Mourners wore what they had, in the darkest, plainest colors they owned. Brown, gray, and dull violet were common. Purple, when affordable, signaled both mourning and status. White appeared frequently—not as a symbol, but as the most practical option. Undyed wool, bleached by the sun, was what most people already possessed.
Children and unmarried women often wore white or pale veils to funerals. In royal circles, white became the formal color of mourning for queens. Mary, Queen of Scots, famously wore deuil blanc—white mourning—in 1559 after losing multiple family members. The tradition persisted in Spain until the end of the 15th century.
The Cost of Black
Why did black become the color of mourning? Black carried symbolic weight long before it became widespread. The Catholic Church had used black vestments for funeral Masses and penitential liturgies since at least the 6th century, symbolizing spiritual darkness and the absence of divine light. By the 9th century, records from the Ordo of St. Amand mention black vestments for specific solemn occasions. In 1198, Pope Innocent III formalized the use of liturgical colors, designating black for Masses of the dead alongside white, red, and green. Violet was offered as a substitute for black, softening the starkness while maintaining solemnity. For clergy, black was established. For laypeople, it remained aspirational.
The shift began in the 15th century, when advances in dyeing and the expansion of global trade made black more accessible. The Burgundian court led the way. Philip the Good of Burgundy, between 1430 and 1455, dressed himself, his household, and even his servants in black—not only for mourning, but as a statement of authority and refined taste. Nearly 40% of woolens and 55% of silks in Burgundian court accounts were black. The look spread across Europe. By the 16th century, the Spanish Habsburgs enforced a strict "black protocol" at court, and Italian elites followed suit. Black became the color of power, dignity, and sobriety—worn not to signify death, but to convey seriousness and self-control.
Protestant reformers adopted black for similar reasons. In Geneva, John Calvin and his colleagues wore black academic gowns and white preaching bands, deliberately distinguishing themselves from Catholic vestments. The black robe signified that ministers were teachers of Scripture, not priests performing sacrifice. John Knox carried the custom to Scotland in the 1560s, where the black Geneva gown became standard clerical dress.
Puritan laypeople in England did not wear black daily—most dressed in browns, murrey, and dull greens—but reserved black for formal occasions, including funerals. The color marked solemnity, not sanctity.
Catholic customs reinforced the association. Savonarola's moral reforms in Florence during the 1490s encouraged plain black dress as a sign of humility and virtue, condemning colorful garments as sinful excess. Across Europe, black became the expected choice for those who could afford it.
Church and Court
Graves of three disciples who died under the ascetic practices of Saint Norbert. While burial in consecrated churchyards
was the norm in medieval Europe, funeral customs varied during times of crisis. During plague, famine, or war
—when medieval mourning customs broke down—separate grave sites outside church grounds were common.
What people wore to funerals mattered less than whether they received Christian burial at all.
The funeral of Elizabeth I in 1603 marked a turning point: her coffin procession was draped in black, and nearly every official mourner wore black robes. By wearing black at such grand royal occasions, the elite transformed it into a status symbol. English sumptuary laws soon regulated mourning attire by rank, dictating who could wear heavy black wool or elaborate mourning garb.
For common people, the timeline lagged. Black became more widely available in the 17th century as simpler dyeing methods spread and costs dropped. By then, it was common enough that even rural English yeomen owned black garments, as evidenced by inventories and wills. In much of Europe, black was no longer reserved for the wealthy—it had become the expected funeral color across classes, though the quality and depth of the black still varied by wealth.
The Victorian era sealed the custom. When Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria wore black for the remaining 40 years of her life, and her example set a rigid standard across Europe and America. Mourning became codified: full mourning required black crepe, veils, jet jewelry, and prescribed periods of dress—sometimes years for widows. Industries arose to supply mourning wear. Catalogs advertised ready-made black dresses and accessories. Etiquette guides detailed the stages of mourning and the acceptable shades of half-mourning—gray, mauve, lavender. What had once been a flexible practice became a social obligation, enforced by expectation and expenditure.
From Elite to Universal
I clothe the heavens with blackness,
and make sackcloth their covering.
—Isaiah 50:3 (RSVCE)
But this was a recent development. For most of medieval Europe, funerals were not defined by a single color. People wore what they owned and avoided what was bright. The symbolic association between black and death existed—rooted in ancient Rome's toga pulla, reinforced by Church liturgy, and deepened by cultural metaphors linking darkness with mortality. But the ability to act on that association required resources most people did not have.
By the late 19th century, black mourning had become so entrenched that it seemed timeless. Yet it was not inevitable. It emerged gradually, shaped by economics, fashion, religion, and law. The dye had to become affordable. The Church had to establish the precedent. Reformers and royalty had to model the practice. And the Queen had to wear it for 40 years.
Today, black remains the default funeral color across much of the Western world, though the strict mourning periods have faded. In many other cultures—across Asia, parts of Africa, and the Middle East—white, red, or other colors mark mourning instead. We wear it not because we must, but because it has come to feel appropriate—a gesture of respect, a withdrawal from color, a quiet acknowledgment of loss. The medieval peasant in gray wool and the Victorian widow in black crepe were separated by centuries and circumstances, but they shared the same instinct: to mark grief by setting aside the ordinary.
Black became the color of mourning not because it always was, but because, eventually, it could be.
Black Is the New Black
From our Witnesses in Light series: Saint Ludmila—grandmother of Saint Wenceslaus and martyr of Bohemia.
The funeral scene of Duke Vratislav depicts the solemn mourning customs of 10th-century Bohemia
