He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank dress: next to his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins….. He despised foreign costumes, however handsome, and never allowed himself to be robed in them, except twice in Rome, when he donned the Roman tunic, chlamys, and shoes; the first time at the request of Pope Hadrian, the second to gratify Leo, Hadrian’s successor. — Einhard ”
No English monarch of the time had his dress habits recorded in such detail. The biographers also record that he preferred English wool for his riding-cloaks (sagæ), and complained to Offa of Mercia about a trend to make cloaks imported into Frankia impractically short. A slightly later narrative told of his dissatisfaction with the short cloaks imported from Frisia: “What is the use of these pittaciola: I cannot cover myself up with them in bed, when riding I cannot defend myself against wind and rain, and getting down for Nature’s call, the deficiency freezes the thighs”. But then he was six foot four inches tall. His clothes may well have been a political gesture, as the preceding Frankish dynasty, the Merovingians, seem to have been ready to borrow Byzantine styles. An early 6th century Merovingian Queen was buried in a violet silk dress and a red silk tunic embroidered in gold, as well as woollen hose and cloak.
At the beginning of this period the clergy generally dressed the same as laymen in post-Roman populations; this changed completely during the period, as lay dress changed considerably but clerical dress hardly at all, and by the end all ranks of clergy wore distinctive forms of dress.
Clergy wore special short hairstyles called the tonsure; in England the choice between the Roman tonsure (the top of the head shaved) and the Celtic tonsure (only the front of the head shaved, from ear to ear) had to be resolved at the Synod of Whitby, in favour of Rome. Wealthy churches or monasteries came during this period to use richly decorated vestments for services, including opus anglicanum embroidery and imported patterned silks. Various forms of Roman-derived vestment, including the chasuble, cope, pallium, stole, maniple and dalmatic became regularised during the period, and by the end there were complicated prescriptions for who was to wear what, and when. To a large extent these forms of vestment survive today in the Catholic and (even more conservative) Anglican churches. The same process took place in the Byzantine world over the same period, which again retains early medieval styles in Eastern Orthodox vestments.
Secular (i.e. non-monastic) clergy usually wore a white alb, or loose tunic, tied at the waist with a cord (formally called a cincture), when not conducting services.
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