Is the color purple really a symbol for royalty and if so what can back up that statment?

Question

Is the color purple really a symbol for royalty and if so what can back up that statment?

Answer 1

I know that in certain European countries back in the day, that only royalty was allowed to wear purple. Any one else who wore it probably would have been killed.

Answer 2

Purple is a difficult colour to produce from nature, not many purple flowers or plants are really useful as dyes.

In ancient times, the only way to get a purple colour was with certain sea creatures through a difficult process.

Because the dye was rare and hard to get, it was very expensive (like saffrom is today), and in ancient times only the wealthiest people could afford to have garments and other items dyed purple.

Therefore, the colour purple became associated with wealth and power.

Over time, it became recognised as the 'royal' colour in Europe.

In other countries, such as Japan and Thailand, the 'royal' colour is yellow, whereas elsewhere red is considered the colour for royalty.

Cheers :-)

Answer 3

Why was purple considered the royal color? The answer lies in economics not in aesthetics. Purple is rare in nature. A Toga's worth of Tyrian purple die, about 1.5 grams, required the beating, drying and extracting of mucus from the hypobranchial gland of some twelve thousand Murex mollusks.

Legend credits its discovery to Herakles, or rather to his dog, whose mouth was stained purple from chewing on snails along the Levantine coast. King Phoenix received a purple-dyed robe from Herakles and decreed the rulers of Phoenicia should wear this color as a royal symbol.

The practice was later adopted by the Romans; to wear purple, therefore, was to show off your great wealth. Purple is an interesting example of a snob or Veblen good because it is clear that if purple had not been expensive it would not have been greatly desired. Indeed, do we see any great demand for purple today? If purple paint were say 25 or 50% more expensive then people would switch to substitutes but make it 500 or 1000 times as expensive and it becomes a fashion statement.

best of luck to you!

Answer 4

i live in windsor UK near the castle. now i know why the signs as u enter windsor are purple!

Answer 5

Purple is an ancient symbol for royality because it was expensive to produce and clothing of this color was usually imported for far away distant lands.

The best purple dyes in Antiquity came from Tyre (Phoenicia,now in present-day Lebanon).  This specific hue was called "Tyrian Purple."  Vergil makes many references to it in books III & IV of his epic "The Aeneid."  Aeneas -- the mythical founder of the Roman race -- prolongs his romantic affair with the "Tyrian" queen of Carthage, Dido.  Thus, Vergil uses the color in a negitive way to illustrate changes in Aeneas (like monarchal desires) which bar him from fulfilling his pre-destined mission.

However, evidence of purple's association with royality predates this poem several hundred centuries, but this example showcases one thing:  purple was a color of the Middle-East (mainly Phoencia, Babylon, & Persia).  Another Classical example comes from Book III of Herodotus's "The Histories" (c. 440 BCE).  King Cambyses (of Persia) sends an embassy to Ethopia, and one of the expensive gifts they bear include a purple robe (which fascinates the Africans) [1].  This example displays that purple wasn't found everywhere in the world, and because it was rare it was valuable (hence the reason a king sent it as a lavish gift to ally himself with a foreign peoples).

Alexander the Great's invasion of Persia introduced purple as the royal color to the West because after he began ruling that country, he adopted many Eastern practices that most Greeks considered "savage" or "barbarian."  One of those customs included wearing the royal purple robe [2].

Romans Senators themselves wore a broad purple stripe along the edge of their "toga praetexta" [which was the equivalent of our modern-day "business suit"].  And only members of that elite class could wear this specific design [3].  

According to tradition, the 7 Kings of early Rome also wore purple.  This probably derived from an earlier Etruscan influence, and the Etruscans had many Middle-Eastern customs.  Therefore, the Roman Emperors themselves adopted this dress for two possible reasons:  1)  because of the ties to the earlier pre-Repubic monarchy, and/or 2) to look more like the Hellenstic kings, who dressed in purple because of Alexander's precedent.  

This was the reason Christ was clothed in purple (as someone mentioned) as a parody of the fact that only kings wore purple, and people claimed he was the "King of the Jews."

When the Western Roman empire fell in the 5th Century CE, the Eastern Empire (based in Turkey) continued to flourish and the emperors there maintained the distinction of purple as their color.  

When the royal institution began to redevelop in the Middle Ages, purple once again accessorized the monarchy.  Pope Leo III placed a purple robe on Charlemagne during his coronation in 800 CE as a symbol to connect this ruler with the earlier Roman leaders [4].

Since Charlemange became the first major king after Rome's fall, he impacted later royal protocol.  This is why purple is a color of all the European royal houses.  Even self-made emperors (like Napoleon) wore purple at their coronation to legitimize their reign.

Answer 6

Yes, it is the color of royalty.  

What always comes to mind for me when purple is used in relation to royalty is Jesus.  When he was arrested by the Roman Soldiers they gave him a purple robe to mock him.  This being because Jesus said he was the "son of God" and he was going to "his kingdom" to live with God.  Therefore, they gave him a purple robe in reference to his royalty in declaration of believing that he was lying about his kingdom.

Answer 7

Royal Purple. In medieval Europe, blue dyes were rare and expensive, so only the most wealthy or the aristocracy could afford to wear them. (The working class wore mainly green and brown.) Europeans' idea of purple shifted towards this more bluish purple known as royal purple because of its similarity to the royal blue worn by the aristocracy. This was the shade of purple worn by kings in medieval Europe.