El color negro: luto y magnificencia en la Corona de Castilla (siglos XIII-XV)

Abstract

Black colour, whose symbolic meanings were consolidated in the Crown of Castile during the 13 th
and 15 th centuries, experienced an important development not only in the funerary context, but also
in connection with the notion of magnificence, throughout the late Middle Ages. From 1502, black
became the only colour of mourning, consolidating an old symbolism in the Castilian area. At the
same time, the use of black as an expression of courtesan magnificence, in a way that simultaneously
insisted on the ideas of humility and authority, become widespread since the central decades of the
15th century, due to the arrival of fashions from Northern Europe.