Standards of Dress: Clerical dress

Recently, I did a thread on changes in standards of dress for average people, or more particularly, those living in cities and towns.  We looked at how those standards have changed greatly over the past century, and even how the dress of the early 20th  Century, or at least male dress, still looks familiar, it was much more formal, day to day, than it is now.

Here we look at a more specific topic, clerical dress.

Clerical dress, i.e., the clothing of priest, pastors, rabbis, etc., has seemingly changed less, which is not to say that it hasn't changed at all, in comparison to other vocations.  This probably makes sense, given their roles.

In looking at this topic, this is one area where we really have to start with the present standards, which are the only ones most people are really familiar with, and work backwards.  This reveals some interesting trends, but it also tends to show how stable this particular area of dress is.  And to start off here, with really have to look at the Roman Catholic Priest.

For the most part, in North America, and indeed in most of Europe, the dress of Christian clerics falls into two camps, one of which takes its inspiration from the standards of the Catholic Church, and the other of which takes its standards from business wear.   Almost never, but not quite never, do Christian religious take a standard from elsewhere, although there are few notable exceptions, such as The Salvation Army.  There are solid reasons based in tradition and even theology for this, but we won't really get into that, as that's a topic for some other forum

The clothing of Catholic Priests is governed by regulations within the Church pertaining to that.  Generally, Catholic Priests must wear black, and they must wear a shirt that accommodates a Roman Collar.

Catholic Priest in Europe, courtesy of Wikipedia.  This Priest is wearing a cassock, which is a type of dress which is unusual in the United States.  The Priests clothing features the Roman Collar.

The actual origin of the Roman Collar is disputed, and even the name "Roman Collar" isn't universal.  Some claim a Reformation origin for the collar, but the better evidence takes it back to ancient times with there being some attribution to it serving a purpose associated with medical emergencies in the Medieval Black Plague.  No matter, in the modern world black dress with Roman Collar is the regulated norm for Catholic Priests.  Roman collars are also the norm for Orthodox Priests in North America.  And they are the norm for Protestant denominations that have an origin associated with the Catholic Church, such as the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches.

Lutheran Priest with Roman Collar, but with checked sports coat.  In the sports coat, he departs from what would be the Catholic standard.

Roman Collars today are also frequently worn by ministers in denominations that have no close association in origin with the Catholic Church, however. In these instances, ministers of those denominations are in denominations that have adopted the wide practice of other Christian denominations or, sometimes, the individual ministers have. 

Given this, it's probably surprising to learn that Roman Collars, while an ancient style of clerical dress, haven't always been the rule in North America, to the extent that they currently are.  Indeed, while at one time Roman Collars were the rule in Europe, in North American Catholic Priest's clothing regulations  caused them to be dressed in apparel that was of the type worn by secular businessmen, this being the norm until the mid 19th Century. The reason for this is that prejudice against Catholics was so strong, that the Church did not wish for clerics to stick out too much, lest they be harmed by anti Catholics. We have to keep in mind here that, prior to the American Civil War, bias against Catholics was so strong in the United States that it defined some political parties.

This type of prejudice began to wane after the Mexican War and Civil War, in which Catholic Irish Americans played such a significant role, and even though decades would pass before being strong anti Irish would not be regarded as acceptable, it did mean that the Roman Collar returned to Catholic clerics by the second half of the 19th Century, in North America.

This didn't mean, however, that clerical dress became identical to what we commonly see today. At that time cassocks, a long outer garment somewhat resembling a frock coat, were the clerical norm for most denominations using the Roman Collar.  This remained the case well into the 20th Century, but during the 20th Century, a coat based on the single breasted man's business suit coat became increasingly common.

Catholic Priest, mid 20th Century, wearing cassock.

Fairly typical wear for Priests, mid 20th Century.

This trend has continued into the the present era, where cassocks are now rare, but where the Roman Collar with simple black suit jacket is common.  For Catholic priests, the reaming clothing is always black, unless they occupy an higher ecclesiastical rank.  For other denominations, however, this is not necessarily so, and you will sometimes see colored shirts of various colors, with blue seemingly being the most common.

Roman Collars have become so common in North America that they have spread to Orthodox and Eastern Rite denominations in North America, which was not always true.  The Roman Collar does not have as long of history in these denominations as in the ones discussed above, with those denominations having had very traditional clothing of their own, which is still worn where these denominations exist in large numbers.  Those watching the recent dramatic events in Ukraine have seen Priests wearing this clothing out in the streets, in support of Ukraine. Typically news reports indicate that they are "Orthodox Priest", but chances are just as high that they may be Ukrainian Greek Catholic Priests, there being no ready way for an average person here to be able to tell the difference by simple observation.

 Greek Orthodox Priest, mid 20th Century, in Jerusalem.  Well into the 20th Century similar dress would have been the norm in North America for Eastern Rite and Orthodox clergy.

Perhaps before going on from here it would be good to note that in at least the Orthodox and Catholic Faiths, the clothing Priests wear is governed by regulation, and so it various but little. Chances are high, but I don't know for certain, that this is also the case with at least the Episcopal church as well.

Amongst the regulated clothing, for many years, was a requirement that headgear be worn.  Some of the photographs set out above demonstrate that.  At one time Catholic Priests wore distinctive headgear on a daily basis,  and in some localities on some occasions they still do.  But for average parish priests this passed away in the 1960s.  At that time, for those areas still requiring it, the requirement in North America was for a hat of a formal type, such as a fedora, so the former requirement of a distinctive hat had passed away, for the most part.  Orthodox Priests have a much more distinctive headgear that survived well into the 20th Century and may still be a requirement for some Orthodox denominations, but I'm not familiar enough with their situation to be certain.

None of this has addressed vestments, which Priests and other religious wear during services, and which would make up a lengthy separate topic.  Suffice it to say, the denominations mentioned above all wear vestments, and while these remain clearly identifiable over time, you can tell the era in which they were made by stylistic differences that occur over time.

Catholic Priest offering Mass, World War Two.  Vestments are being worn, Priest on far right is wearing a cassock.  The distinctive headgear shown would indicate, I think, that three of these men are Bishops.

 Episcopal Priest with recently married couple, mid 20th Century.

For those denominations where Roman Collars are not worn, and shirt and tie is, basically they have tended to follow the more conservative end of business dress over the years.  This continues to the present time, making them one of the few groups that routinely wears formal wear in their official capacity.

Protestant minister discussing problems with his congregation after services, in what appear to be a cold setting in Maine, 1940s.

Presbyterian minister, mid 20th Century.

With all this emphasis on clothing and how it was worn, and what it generally means (I've skipped pretty much information pertaining to higher Church ranks) one surprising thing is to learn that in the United States, distinctive religious clothing has been nearly wholly omitted on occasion for some specific roles, such as military chaplains.  American chaplains wear the standard military uniform of their branch of service.

U.S. Army Chaplain, Civil War.

Confederate officer, holding position as officer and Chaplain, Civil War.

U.S. Army Chaplain, World War One. This photo shows that at the time at least some Army chaplains wore an open collar coat, which was not the service norm, with Roman Collar.

More typical World War One appearance for a U.S. Army chaplain with stand up collar service coat.

Col. William R. Arnold, Chief of Chaplains during World War Two, and a Roman Catholic Priest.

Their uniforms have always featured distinctive insignia,and in field conditions you will still see some specific items being worn while they are performing their official roles. But by and large, they look a lot like other servicemen.  This does not tend to be the case for other nations.

 British Chaplain, wearing Roman Collar, in World War One.

 Catholic, Protestant and Jewish Chaplains, U.S. Army, World War Two.

U.S. Army chaplain, in dress uniform, World War Two.

So far, of course, I've written only about Christian clerics.  In the time frame covered by this blog, it would seem that some discussion of at least Jewish clerics would also be in order.  My problem here, however, is that to the extent I'm familiar with their dress, I'd only be a danger in discussing it.

The Jewish faith is, of course, presently divided into various branches, and it would seem that dress in general in the branches various.  I've seen photographs of rabbis in the mid 20th Century, for example, that are simply indistinguishable from men in typical business attire of the day.  Others have very distinctive dress. So, given that, I can only assume custom and practice varies by branch. As is well known, Hassidic Jews today wear very distinctive dress in general, so perhaps rather than make any more errors than I already have, I should leave that topic alone.

So far I've also omitted any discussion of the dress of female religious.  Generally, up until perhaps the 1970s or so, most female religious were nuns, and perhaps globally that may still be true.  The Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Episcopal Church and Lutheran Churches all have religious orders for women, which most people simply refer to as nuns.

 Nuns on Long Island sea shore, 1940s

Nuns traditionally wore distinctive dress which is referred to as "habits".  While these vary, all nuns of all denominations wore some variety of distinctive dress, with most habits resembling one another very generally.  It's interesting to note that orders dedicated to hospitals were once so common in Europe that for a long time European nurses wore clothing that strongly resembled habits, and a common term for a nurse in Europe is "sister."  The German word for a nurse is Krankenshwester, or "sick sister".  

This is an area that has changed enormously post 1960.  While there are still orders of nuns in all faiths that have nuns that wear habits, the largest population of nuns in North American was by far in the Catholic Church, which generally greatly diminished the requirements for habits after the early 1960s, at which point many orders simply did away with them.  Not all did, and interestingly those which have retained them tend to be amongst those which remain the strongest today.