Kings, Catholic, Orthodox, Druid, Sorcerer....

[healeri2]

I'm wondering about the connections between kings, catholic, orthodox, druid, sorcerer, magician garments.

The attire catholics and orthodox christians wear are so "kingly" in their appearance. With staffs, crowns, decorative robes, I'm wondering how all these historical garments are related. I find it interesting that we can see the past in these clothes due to tradition.

Also, rituals that these religions hold, theatre, customs of kingdoms, etc are somehow related but I haven't a clue. The historian in me is wondering and I thought I'd start by asking if anyone here has knowledge in this arena.

[David19]

I'm not sure but i think priests are kind of considered 'spiritual kings' (or the Pope at least) since in medevial times the hierarchy was people - land owners - lords - king - Church (i think at least). Also i think most priests have always had some kind of mystical leanings in them (maybe not all, but most are) so they might be considered sorcerers with blessing the wine (Catholic ones will turn the wine and bread into the flesh and blood of Jesus), exorcisms, etc.

Hope i've helped.

[Zibblsnrt]

Good question!

The short answer is that the Persians did it.

...What?

Oh, you want more than that? Okay; long answer time!

The Persian states - the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid empires that were roughly contemporary with Greece and Rome - were the very model of what we'd consider an absolute monarchy, with the king as centre of the state, the source of all law and authority, and so on. Part of the mystique about this involved putting on appearances to overawe the lesser mortals among us - especially since the Persian monarchs were at least occasionally considered to be gods, or at least god's direct servant on Earth.

The "appearances" were pretty much what most people think of when they think of the idea of a Middle Eastern monarchy - with all the robes, paraphernalia, elaborate court procedures, etc. This served two obvious purposes. One was the obvious symbol of rank thing, making Who's In Charge obvious at a glance. The other was more obviously political; the appearances, procedures, and so on around the monarch were meant to distance him from his subordinates. It amplified his rank, diminished that of those who would see him, created a gulf between king and people and maintained that sense of superstitious awe surrounding him. It worked, anyway; in a really unstable part of the planet it helped establish three stable kingdoms which each lasted for centuries.

Fast-forward a bit and leave the continent. The Roman Empire, by the early years of the 200s CE, was in trouble. A string of spectacularly bad emperors threw the whole system into chaos and sparked a fifty-year civil war which almost destroyed the system entirely. (Some argue it did.)

In 284, the emperor Diocletian came out of the mess on top and began trying to figure out ways to bring things back into order - after fifty years, the chaos was the routine, and he didn't have much of an opportunity to change that. He saw the system of the Roman principate, which worked since Augustus, as no longer working. Despite the power centred on the emperors, they still at least maintained the facade of being Just Guys - principes, first citizens, rather than the monarchs we often view them as now.

Diocletian saw this as a disadvantage in the modern empire, something which weakened his position. So he set about building himself a new image, something which would produce an aura of capital-A Authority around him, something that would restore some dignity and awe to the principate, which would make his position just a little unassailable for just long enough to try to get things back in order. He already had significant street cred, so to speak, having taken up the title "Restorer of the (Roman) World," but he wanted a little more than that.

In doing so, he looked at the example of the Sassanid empire. At this time, they were a new, very powerful and energetic kingdom which used the traditional Persian style of monarchy and did it well. On top of that, the collapse of the Parthians over the previous generations meant that the situation the Sassanids faced was similar to the Roman one. Diocletian saw a template he could work with, and adopted as much of it as he could. He abandoned the egalitarian pretenses of the principate entirely, styled himself dominus (or "Lord") instead of princeps, and rebuilt the Roman system into something more akin to a genuine monarchy. (This is the reason some argue the third-century chaos actually did destroy the Roman system.)

So far, we've got the Persians using this system because it worked for them; we have the Romans adopting it out of political expediency, and it worked for them too.

The reason it's been adopted so much since then, by European monarchs and more traditional Christian clergy, is because they were borrowing the idea from the Romans. In their cases, it was more a case of trying to maintain traditions which reminded them of the Roman civilization, which fell in the fifth century and was spoken of in terms of nostalgic awe for a thousand years afterwards. More political impacts were a fringe benefit, but they generally saw themselves as carrying on traditions which ran millenia deep and connected them to what they saw as the mightiest civilization ever to exist.

At first, it was because it wasn't that long ago that Rome was in living memory. Early Christian monarchs constantly dreamed first of repairing, then of rebuilding, the Roman Empire, and maintained as many of its institutions and stylings as they could keep a hold of in the hopes of doing so.

The Catholic (and to a lesser extent Orthodox) clergy took a different angle - to them, the real Rome, the city and empire of God rather than that of man, hasn't actually fallen yet; they are still carrying on its traditions because its traditions are the facts of day-to-day existence and not historical carryovers yet. This is most obvious in things like the Papacy, which has a pretty clear pedigree going back to the earliest years of the Principate. Other denominations will often keep the stylings, but more because That's The Way Things Have Always Been Done than because of any explicit parallels.

So that's the long answer version, really. The Persians did it because it worked; the Romans did it because it worked for the Persians; early post-Roman rulers and clergy did it because they didn't want to give up on the idea of Rome; later rulers and clergy did it because everyone else has for so long, so who are they to abandon tradition?

And that's probably far more information than you ever wanted on the question. ;)

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

I was once told that the long tunics and things of the Orthodox churches were once the regular menswear in the Byzantine Empire. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. I do think that priestly vestments in an old faith are more or less historical because of tradition, which has already been pointed out.