During the Middle Ages, the broad spectrum of textile colours was described by a correspondingly wide range of names intended to beguile the customer. Some captured the nuances of delicate shades such as “dove grey” and “old rose,” while others, like “crimson,” croceus, or alessandrino, signalled the commercial value or exotic origin of the dyestuffs involved. Some terms were mainly used for wool, with others reserved for silk, reflecting the different dyestuffs used on the two fibres. The subject of textile colours is too enormous to be treated comprehensively here, and this paper will discuss a limited selection of colour terms from the late medieval period, looking at their meaning, how and when they arose, and how they can be related to surviving textiles. Focusing on England, France, and Italy, it will examine material starting from the thirteenth century and ending (beyond the Middle Ages) with three published inventories from the reign of Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) made in 1600.

Yellow

Croceus

Many colour adjectives were inherited from classical terminology. Some of them passed seamlessly into the contemporary vocabulary, like sanguineus for blood-red, which became sangwyn in English, sanguine in France, etc. Croceus, for yellow, is another classical term that passed untrammelled into medieval usage. It held the twin connotations of the golden yellow colour of the crocus flower itself and of the prohibitively expensive yellow spice and dyestuff, saffron (Crocus sattivus), obtained from its stamens, belying the fact that most surviving medieval yellow silks were coloured with cheaper colourants, such as weld (Reseda luteola). This implied connection with an expensive dyestuff is a recurrent theme in the names chosen for medieval textile colours. The inventory of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London of 1295 has only croceus and no other colour for yellow.

Both croceus and iallus can be found in the contemporaneous inventory of the Holy See (1295), which includes a length of tartar velvet described as iallo.