Legal - Clergy - Academic - Choir

The Origins of Legal Dress

Rulers of all the states of Europe realized early that for the sake of obtaining an uncontested power for themselves the law must be freed from ecclesiastical influence, and in nearly all countries by the time that a definitely legal costume emerged clergy had vanished from the civil courts. In Italy and Germany, the feudal lords soon began to hand over their real power in the civil courts to deputies, and as a result professional judges imitated after a fashion the dress of the nobles they succeeded. It was, however, in Austria, Spain, Portugal, France, and England that the judges became powerful as the direct servants of their sovereign and were clothed by him as his legal representatives in exercising the royal prerogative. In these countries they were encouraged to assume a costume that any noble might envy.

In legal costume the influence of ecclesiastical dress was therefore only slight, and the armelausa in England, which is sometimes said to have been a result of ecclesiastical influence, was doubtless borrowed from the dress of French judges who in their turn had taken it from the Chevaliers d'epee in 1297. In general, it may be said that legal dress, as it was in later times, resulted from lay dress adapted to its own particular use during the medieval period and greatly modified during the sixteenth century.

In some form or another legal dress was preserved throughout Western Europe into thirteenth century, and in modern times its use has been re-established rather than neglected and abandoned. The reason for this is that rulers have always considered it to be vital to preserve the dignity of the law, and one of the best ways of doing this is to give their officers a dignified costume. A robe can produce the effect of detached dignity which military uniform or court dress cannot. Where, as in Austria, France, North Germany, and Scandinavia, the long costume was abandoned as a result of the policy of revolutionary or 'enlightened' governments, it was later reassumed.
- Excerpts from "A History of Legal Dress In Europe", W.N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley

Back to Top

The Origins of Legal Institutions

At the end of the thirteenth century in the majority of western European countries we find, in addition to a body of ecclesiastical lawyers, a legal profession of a civil character emerging. Except in France where it appeared in its own right this profession was at first subordinated to the great landlords of the feudal system. In England this was not so, for it was the churchmen who in that country held the great power in the courts until the latter part of the reign of Henry III. The organization of law as we know it in England dates from Edward I's time when the legal personnel, except the Chancellor and the Keeper of the Rolls, became lay instead of clerical.

In all countries of Western Europe during the fourteenth centuries, a fully organized legal profession with strict discipline and recognized ranks came into being. Judges by this time were in criminal cases usually answerable to the king alone, and in civil cases were more often than not deputies of the feudal lords only in name. In England judges were chosen from the Serjeants-at-Law, who were the members of the Order of the Coif, who were the original Pleaders in courts, had their own Inns, the Serjeants' Inns. Those ranking below the degree of the Coif were organized in the Inns of Court and Chancery, which attained their final form at this period.
- Excerpts from "A History of Legal Dress In Europe", W.N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley

Back to Top

The Origin of King's (Queen's) Counsel

King's counsel are supposed to have been created in the sixteenth century as assistants to the Attorney-General and Solicitor-Genera, but they did not come into any prominence until 1604 when they appear as barristers favoured by the king and court, gaining their position as often as not by means of flagrant corruption. They are not a separate order - the title is merely an honorary one- king's counsel being selected as leaders of the Bar from the general barristers.

Thus their origin was obscure and their status irregular and so it continued to be; indeed it was not until the time of William IV that they ceased to be merely a handful of court favourites.

Considering their origin and their connection with the royal court it is not surprising that king's counsel should adopt some rich and foppish form of Bar dress, and like gentlemen-commoners among commoners take to a silk instead of a stuff gown. This open black silk gown was of the flap-collared, winged-sleeved variety. The gowns were decorated with lines of black braid and black tufts on sleeves and skirt. In the eighteenth century these tufts were given up and gimp was substituted as the decoration.

At the end of the seventeenth century, King's Counsel began to wear richly laced cravats, which together with their silk gown and full-bottomed wig, remain their full dress to the present day.
- Excerpts from "A History of Legal Dress In Europe", W.N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley

Order Form

Back to Top - Legal - Products