4 - ‘Blessedly clothed with gems of virtue’: Clothing and Imitatio Christi in Anchoritic Texts for Women

Summary

And þan at þe biddyng of pylate, þat he sholde be scourgete & beten.’ oure lord was despoilete, bonden to a pilere, & harde & sore scourgete, & so stant he nakede before hem alle. […] Aftere he was vnbonden fro þat pilere. þey laden him so beten & nakede about þe house sekynge after hese cloþes, þat were cast in diuerse places of hem þat despoiled him. And here haue compassion of him in so grete colde quaking & tremelyng, for as þe gospeller witnesseþ it was þanne harde colde. And when he wolde haue done on hees cloþes. sume of þoo moste wikkede wiþstoden & comene to pylate & seide, Lorde, he þis made him self a kynge. Wherefore let vs cloþe him & corone him as a kynge. And þen þei token an olde silken mantelle of redde, & kast on him, & maden a garlande of sharpe þornes, & þrist vpon his hede & putten in his hande a rede as for a sceptre, & alle he paciently suffreþ, & after when þei knelede & saluede him in scorne, seyinge heile kynge of Jewes he helde his pees & spake not.

Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world.

Cited as ‘the most important literary version of the life of Christ in English before modern times’, Nicholas Love's fifteenth-century Mirrour of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ was a cornerstone of religious writing in English during the Middle Ages. Detailing Christ's Passion, the extract above describes his persecution before Pontius Pilate, a punishment in which clothing plays a key role. Christ's nakedness obviates his vulnerability as, stripped to be beaten, his mortified body is left unprotected from the ‘harde colde’. In ‘scorne’ of his claims to be the Son of God, the Romans dress him in a cruel parody of kingship's earthly trappings, draping him in red silk and crowning him with thorns and a reed sceptre. They invest Christ ironically with these tradi-tional symbols of kingship in brutal recognition of his lack of worth, marking their refusal to accept his divine status.