SR
← De Institutione Novitiorum (On the Instruction of Novices)/Book 1 · De Institutione Novitiorum
Chapter 11InstN.1.11

De disciplina servanda in habitu

The Five Marks of Modest Dress

The author lays out five dimensions of disciplined dress—kind, quality, color, cut, and manner of wearing—and condemns the various foolish ways novices twist, trail, and display their garments for vanity.

In dress, discipline is maintained in five ways: in the kind and quality, in the color, in the cut, and in the way garments are arranged and fitted. In kind — that is, our garments should not be too costly. In quality, they should not be too fine or too soft. In color, they should not be too bright, nor darkened in any other way beyond what the purpose of a religious manner of life requires.1 In cut, garments should be arranged becomingly and devoutly, bearing the mark of humility — that is, not too large or trailing, not too loose or flowing, nor too tight, nor twisted in any other way according to the vanity of the world.2 The way garments are fitted and worn pertains to how one carries oneself. For there are certain foolish people who, desiring to please the foolish, arrange their garments around themselves with a certain artifice. Others, with even greater absurdity, twist their garments about ridiculously; still others, in order to make a display of themselves, spread them out and stretch them as wide as they can. Others gather their wrinkled garments carelessly into a bunch, while still others twist and wrap them around themselves.

The Whirlwind of Vanity

With vivid satire the author catalogues ever more extravagant displays of vanity in dress, invoking the Psalmist's image of the wicked as dust driven by the wind, and laments that men have adopted the follies of women and even harlots.

Others strain and tear at their garments with all their might, exposing every outline of their body for onlookers to count, in a display of the most shameless disgrace. Others, by tossing and brandishing their clothes, reveal the lightness of their mind through the very instability of their dress. Others walk with a sinuous trailing robe, sweeping the ground, and with hems hanging down — tails following behind them reaching all the way to the back — they cover their own footprints in the likeness of foxes. Truly it is well that, once they have passed through, their memory should perish, lest they be any longer in the remembrance of those living on earth.✦ These people, to show that they belong to the number of those about whom the Psalmist says, 'Not so the wicked, not so, but like dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth' — wherever they go, like a whirlwind of a storm they stir up dust, and being sons of darkness, they withdraw from the eyes of men that light which within, by their blinded mind, they have lost.✦✦ There is one respect, however, in which we may take vengeance on them even in this present life: because with those same garments of theirs, which they use to throw a cloud of dust into our eyes, they wipe away the mud of the streets from the path before our feet, smoothing the road for us. What more shall I say? I am weary of counting all the displays of vanity, in which the foolish and senseless carry off their pursuits from women — no, from harlots themselves — and with as much disgrace as superstition in their dress, they have nearly changed their very sex.

The Servant of God Must Despise Vanity

The author exhorts the servant of God to despise all vain display, noting that those who pursue it become contemptible, while those who despise it gain honor before God and man; he warns that costly adornment is condemned by the apostle and illustrated by the rich man in purple who was buried in hell.

There are a thousand ways in which the most vain and superstitious people want to put themselves on spectacle for those watching them. But the servant of God ought to despise all these things with great constancy, since he sees that no one but fools and those most worthy of mockery devotes themselves to pursuits like these. For all these things are contrary to true religious life, and everyone who gives their zeal and attention to them clearly shows how far estranged they are from that life. But by the grace of God, all who are now established in religious life and devote themselves to such things, wanting to please men through them, become more worthless and contemptible in everyone's eyes. And on the other hand, those who despise these things for the sake of God are dearer and more honorable not only before God, but also before men. So now let them go, the wretched and the foolish and those ignorant of all decency; let them go and dress up their garments, since they don't understand how justly the adornment of costly clothing is condemned in men who have professed a religious life, which is forbidden even to women through the apostle Paul — not, he says, in costly clothing. Let them see, therefore — not with what reproach, I say, but with what shame, or rather with what damnation they are worthy — those who, in their profession of religious life, devote themselves to the adornment of costly garments, since that rich man who in the Gospel was clothed in purple and fine linen is afterwards buried in the torments of hell, to be tormented eternally.✦ What is in purple except color and cost, and —

The Rich Man's Purple and the Wrath of God

Drawing out the meaning of the Gospel's rich man in purple and fine linen, the author argues that such adornment reveals pride and dissolute living, warns that those who misuse another's almsgiving for pride face even greater condemnation, and invokes prophetic denunciations of those who consume the people's sins.

What is found in fine linen if not softness and effeminacy, which is rightly condemned? Since, then, it is said that he clothed his own body in the elegance of purple and the softness of fine linen, he is shown beyond any doubt to have been at once both proud and dissolute. Therefore, the one who first unlawfully offered his own body the encouragements of vice justly received this — to be afterward tortured by the flame of torments. And yet that rich man had not yet renounced his possessions, but because he refused to practice moderation in the things he held, after his illicit use of worldly goods he arrived at eternal punishment.✦ If, then, that man earned such great condemnation because he abused his own possessions, what do we think will happen to those who, having no possessions of their own, do not fear to lavish another's almsgiving on the adornment of their pride? Woe to them, because they themselves — as it is said through the prophet — devour the sins of the people and divert sacrifices into the abyss, since what others offer for the redemption of their own souls, these men, receiving it, turn through their own illicit use to the damnation of their own souls.✦ Woe to the crown of Ephraim's pride and to the fading flower, because all flesh is grass and all its glory like a flower of the field.✦ The grass has dried up and the flower has fallen, because the spirit of the Lord's wrath has blown upon it.✦

Dust, Worms, and the Flesh That Remains

Quoting Isaiah 40:8 on the enduring word of God, the author turns to the frailty of human nature—ashes, smoke, rot, worms—and urges religious to prefer the adornment of character over the pomp of garments.

The grass has dried up and the flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord remains forever.✦ What, then, can ashes and dust be proud of — a vanishing smoke, a vapor that appears for just a moment? . What is man but rot, and the son of man but a worm?✦ A worm himself, and a worm his inheritance — for man will inherit worms, beasts, and serpents.✦✦ However much the flesh is cultivated and adorned, what is it but flesh? What good is it, then, to seek glory in a habit that clings to the outside for a time, and not to consider the rot of corruption that is in us and always remains? Those who love the religious life ought to show by their actions how much they despise earthly things, and not cultivate with excessive care the flesh that is about to die, but prefer the adornment of character to the pomp of garments.

A Rule for the Rebellious

The author concludes by prescribing concrete, humble clothing—cheap, coarse, rough, dull-colored, carelessly made—and insists that rebellious spirits must be held to the letter of fixed rules with no room for evasion.

Love garments that are more cheap than costly, more coarse than fine, more rough than soft, more dull-colored than bright, more carelessly put together than precisely arranged or tailored — to the extent that, if they cannot cut away every comfort from their clothing, they should nevertheless never presume to use their clothes for show.34 These guidelines might perhaps have been enough for well-disposed people as instruction in modesty and humility, but I know that hard and rebellious spirits, unless they've been reined in by sharper bridle-bits, won't easily turn aside from the path of their former error.56 Indeed, those who need it must be held to account in every observance to the very letter, and so that no room for deviation is left to evasion, they must be bound at every step by fixed and specific rules.789

Read the original Latin

In habitu quinque modis disciplina custoditur, in genere et qualitate, in colore et formatione et coaptatione vestimentorum. In genere, scilicet ne sint vestimenta nostra nimis pretiosa. In qualitate, ne nimis sint subtilia vel mollia. In colore, ne nimis sint nitida, sive quolibet alio modo supra quam proposito religiosae conversationis expetit fuscata. In formatione, ut sint decenter et religiose composita, et humilitatis signum habentia, id est non nimis magna aut dependentia, aut fluxa, nec nimis stricta, sive quolibet alio modo secundum saeculi vanitatem detorta. Coaptatio ad modum portandi pertinet, nam sunt quidam stulti qui stultis placere cupientes, quodam artificio vestimenta sua circa se componunt. Alii vero majori scurrilitate ridiculose transvertunt, alii autem ut pompam de se faciant, explicant ea, et quantum possunt, latius distendunt. Alii temere corrugata in unum colligunt, alii contorquentes et complectentes involvunt.

Alii toto conamine stringentes et findentes ea, omnia corporis sui lineamenta, inverecundissima quadam turpitudine aspicientibus numeranda exponunt. Alii jactando et ventilando pannos suos, levitatem mentis suae ex ipsa habitus sui mobilitate ostendunt. Alii incedentes sinuoso syrmate terram verrunt et limbis dependentibus, imo retro consequentibus caudis in similitudinem vulpium vestigia sua obducunt. Bene profecto, ut postquam pertransierint, pereat memoria illorum, ne sint amplius in recordatione in terra viventium. Qui ut ostendant de numero illorum se esse, de quibus Psalmista dicit: Non sic impii non sic, sed tanquam pulvis quem projicit ventus a facie terrae , quacunque perrexerint, quasi turbo tempestatis pulverem concitant, et ipsi filii tenebrarum illud lumen foris oculis hominum subtrahunt, quod intus caecata mente perdiderunt. Est tamen in quo de eis etiam in praesenti vita vindictam capimus, quia iisdem suis pannis quibus nebulam pulveris luminibus nostris injiciunt, ad complanandam viam pedibus nostris, lutum platearum abstergunt. Quid amplius dicam? Taedet me omnia vanitatis ostentamenta numerare, in quibus stulti et vecordes, mulieribus, imo meretricibus studia sua auferunt, et tanto dedecore quanta superstitione cum habitu pene sexum mutaverunt.

Alii sunt mille modi quibus homines vanissimi et superstitiosissimi spectaculum de se intuentibus praebere concupiscunt. Sed haec omnia servus Dei magna debet constantia despicere, cum videat nullos nisi stultos et irrisione dignissimos studiis talibus deservire. Haec enim omnia verae religioni contrariae sunt et omnes qui studium et curam his adhibeant, quantum a religione alieni sint, patenter ostendunt. Sed gratia Dei omnes qui modo in religione constituti talibus student, et per haec hominibus placere cupiunt, omnibus hominibus magis viles et contemptibiles fiunt. Et econverso qui haec propter Deum despiciunt non solum coram Deo, sed etiam coram hominibus chariores et honorabiliores existunt. Eant ergo nunc miseri et stulti ac omnis honestatis ignari, eant et comant pannos suos, qui non intelligunt quam juste in viris religiosam vitam professis cultus pretiosarum vestium reprehenditur, qui per apostolum Paulum etiam feminis prohibetur, non, inquit, in veste pretiosa . Videant ergo quanta non dico reprehensione sed confusione, imo potius quanta damnatione digni sunt, qui in propositio religionis, cultui pretiosarum vestium student, quia dives ille qui in Evangelio purpura et bysso induitur, postea in tormentis inferni aeternaliter cruciandus sepelitur . Quid autem in purpura nisi color et pretium, et.

quid in bysso nisi mollities reprehenditur? Cum ergo carni suae et in purpura decorem, et in bysso mollitiem adhibuisse dicitur, procul dubio superbus simul et luxuriosus fuisse comprobatur. Qui ergo corpori suo prius illicite fomenta vitiorum exhibuit, jure postmodum hoc cruciandum flamma tormentorum accepit. Et tamen dives iste nondum propriis rebus abrenuntiaverat, sed quia in iis quae possidebat temperantiam servare noluit, post illicitum usum rerum temporalium ad poenam sempiternam pervenit. Si igitur ille quia propriis abusus est tantam damnationem meruit, quid putamus isti facient, qui propria non habentes alienam eleemosynam cultui suae elationis impendere non pertimescunt? Vae eis quia ipsi (sicut per prophetam dicitur) peccata populi comedunt , et victimas in profundum declinant , quia quod alii pro redemptione animarum suarum offerunt, hoc ipsi accipientes per illicitum usum ad damnationem animarum suarum convertunt. Vae coronae superbiae Ephraim et flori decidenti , quia omnis caro fenum et omnis gloria ejus quasi flos agri. Exsiccatum est fenum et cecidit flos, quia spiritus iracundiae Domini exsufflavit in illud.

Exsiccatum est fenum et cecidit flos, verbum autem Domini manet in aeternum . Quid igitur superbit cinis et pulvis , fumus evanescens et vapor ad modicum parens? . Quid est homo nisi putredo, et filius hominis nisi vermis? Vermis ipse, et vermis haereditas ejus, haereditabit enim homo vermes, bestias, serpentes . Quantumcunque excolatur et ornetur, quid est aliud caro quam caro? Quid igitur prodest in habitu qui foris ad tempus adhaeret, gloriam quaerere, et corruptionis putredinem, quae in nobis est et semper permanet, non considerare? Propterea debent amatores religionis opere demonstrare quantum ipsi terrena despiciant, nec carnem quae moritura est cultu superstitioso excolere, sed pompae indumentorum, morum ornamenta anteferre.

Vestimenta plus vilia quam pretiosa, plus grossa quam subtilia, plus aspera quam mollia, plus fusca quam nitida, plus neglecte quam accurate composita vel adaptata amare, quatenus si non possint in vestimentis suis per omnia commoditatem abscindere, nunquam tamen praesumant eis uti ad ostentationem. Poterant haec fortassis benevolis ad eruditionem modestiae et humilitatis sufficere, sed scio duros et rebelles animos, nisi ad haec mordacioribus lupatis frenati fuerint, non facile a via pristini erroris declinare. Quos quidem oportet in cunctis observationibus usque ad unguem stringere, et ut nullus deviandi locus tergiversationi relinquatur, ad singula vestigia determinatis praeceptionibus obligare.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.69.28 — Let iniquity be added to their iniquity, and let them not come into your righteousness.
  2. ↩Ps.1.4 — Not so the wicked; but they are like chaff that the wind drives away.
  3. ↩Luke.16.8 — And the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the people of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the people of light.
  4. ↩Luke.16.19 — Now there was a certain rich man, and he used to dress in purple and fine linen, celebrating every day in splendor.
  5. ↩Luke.16.19-Luke.16.31 — Now there was a certain rich man, and he used to dress in purple and fine linen, celebrating every day in splendor. Luke.16.20 — And a certain beggar named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores. Luke.16.21 — and longing to be fed from what fell from the rich man's table; but even the dogs came and kept licking his sores. Luke.16.22 — And it happened that the poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. Luke.16.23 — And in Hades, while he was in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus at his side. Luke.16.24 — And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.' Luke.16.25 — But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you received your good things during your life, and Lazarus likewise received bad things. But now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.' Luke.16.26 — And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who wish to cross from here to you are not able, nor can any cross over from there to us. Luke.16.27 — Then he said, 'I ask you, therefore, father, to send him to my father's house— Luke.16.28 — For I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Luke.16.29 — But Abraham says, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to those.' Luke.16.30 — And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' Luke.16.31 — But Abraham said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.'
  6. ↩Hos.8.13;Ezek.22.25 — They sacrifice the meat of my offerings and eat it, but the LORD does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt. Ezek.22.25 — A conspiracy of her prophets is within her, like a roaring lion tearing prey; they have devoured lives, they take away wealth and treasure, they have made many widows within her.
  7. ↩Isa.40.6-Isa.40.8 — A voice says, "Cry out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its faithfulness is like the flower of the field. Isa.40.7 — The grass withers, the flower fades, for the breath of the LORD blows upon it; truly, the grass is the people. Isa.40.8 — The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
  8. ↩Isa.40.7 — The grass withers, the flower fades, for the breath of the LORD blows upon it; truly, the grass is the people.
  9. ↩Isa.40.8 — The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
  10. ↩Job.25.6 — how much less, then, is man—a maggot—and the son of man—a worm!
  11. ↩Isa.66.24 — And they shall go out and see the corpses of the men who rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
  12. ↩Mark.9.48 — where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩fuscata rendered as 'darkened' — the sense is that garments should not be artificially dyed or altered in color beyond the simple, modest standard proper to religious life.
  2. 2 ↩coaptatione rendered as 'arranged' in the sense of how garments are fitted and put on the body; see sentence 6 for the fuller explanation of this term.
  3. 3 ↩commoditatem rendered 'comfort' in the sense of personal convenience or ease; the Latin covers suitability and advantage broadly.
  4. 4 ↩quatenus is rendered 'to the extent that' to capture its limiting/conditional force; it could also carry a purposive sense ('in order that'), but the limiting reading fits the context better.
  5. 5 ↩lupatis (literally 'wolf-bits') rendered 'bridle-bits' to preserve the equine-restraint metaphor in natural English; the image is of a severe bit used to control a stubborn animal.
  6. 6 ↩mordacioribus lupatis rendered 'sharper bridle-bits'; mordax means 'biting,' intensifying the metaphor of harsh discipline.
  7. 7 ↩usque ad unguem is an idiom meaning 'to the fingernail,' i.e., exactly, to the letter; rendered idiomatically.
  8. 8 ↩ad singula vestigia rendered 'at every step'; vestigium literally means 'footprint, track,' used here metaphorically for each point of conduct.
  9. 9 ↩ut introduces a purpose clause ('so that'); the subjunctive relinquatur confirms the final sense.

De Institutione Novitiorum (On the Instruction of Novices) companion

Keep the novice's rule going, one morning at a time

The Chosen Portion app serves a short historic devotional reading and prayer each day, so your new rule has content waiting for you every morning.

Hugh trained novices with fixed daily portions of instruction; Chosen Portion continues that method by delivering one fixed devotional portion each day.

  • A 2-minute historic reading and prayer delivered every morning
  • Texts drawn from 78 works of royal and monastic devotion, 1000-2020
  • Free on iOS — start day 8 of your rule the moment you finish the checklist
Chosen Portion — Daily Prayer (free iOS app) →