Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Sartorial advice for the Christianity-challenged.

Disco is My Class War

12:05 / 15.05.06

So, there's a big party I'm going to on Saturday night, and the theme is 'Damnation', religious things, hell, devils, demons, perversion, etc.

I thought about getting up as a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence, but I'd really rather go as a queerish Brother. There are likely to be some Saint Sebastians, some scary preachers, some angels, etc. I'm looking to develop a character: Catholic, monkish, medieval, possibly involving a little performance-style self-flagellation. I'm a DIY costume person, don't like to go to the costume hire shop if I can help it. I have very little knowledge of what the correct garb for monks of this kind would be, or what order they might be from, or what accessories one might take along aside from the obvious (ie, a rosary, a whip). Can anyone advise?

I figure I should start with brown hessian. Does anyone know from which order a monk wearing brown hessian might be? How does one make a hair shirt? (Not a painful hairshirt, mind. A kind of faux hairshirt would do just fine.)

All Acting Regiment

12:15 / 15.05.06

You want a shaven head with a ring of hair remaining (some kind of wig, probably).

12:39 / 15.05.06

Friar Fuck? ...Of Robin Hood's Mary Men?

12:59 / 15.05.06

Franciscans wear brown I think... although aren't they also called the Greyfriars? Confusing.

Ex

13:13 / 15.05.06

I think (although loath to contradict Kit-Cat) that brown robes could make you a Franciscan (Benedictines wear black, Dominicans a combination of black and white). I know little of the Franciscans, but you could take a random stuffed pet with you in honour of the founder who preached to the birds. I suspect that wouldn't really say 'sexy', though.

Get a nice bit of toning rope (you could die magicians' rope with tea) for a belt and stick three big coiled knots in it - they symbolise the vows. I have no idea if this practice is ancient, modern or order-specific, but it looks cool, and you'll have some rope at a party which is rarely bad.

There's a fetish company who make authentic historical scourges - you could mock something up from the pictures. I'll find them later - I'm at work at present.

If you can bear to lose any hair, the tonsure of St John is a funky alternative to the one mentioned by Legba - you shave the front of your head from ear to ear. Basically for Klingon monks. A mainly Celtic thing.

Public self-flagellation - I just read about the Jesuits sent back into England under Elizabeth's reign, with accounts of their seminary at Louvaine. Volunteers allegedly paraded up and down during lunch whacking themselves until bloody to inspire the community. But that was a report from a spy who might have been milking the details. And is too late to be mediaeval.
The lily (I think) is the flower symbolic of martyrs.

Will have a think.

13:32 / 15.05.06

Franciscans as a whole are indeed traditionally known as "grey friars." (Dominicans = black friars, Carmelites = white friars.)

Of the three main branches of the Franciscans, none commonly wear grey any more. The Capuchin and Friars Minor Observant adopted the familiar brown habit, and the Conventuals, while officially still "grey friars," today mostly wear black.

Alternately, you could just wear a black suit and a rope around your neck.

Disco is My Class War

15:06 / 15.05.06

I notice in my Googlings that Opus Dei members go in for self-mortifcation in a big way. From that link:

One of the most controversial practices of some Opus Dei members is their regular self-mortification, which involves fasting, self-flagellation, and their frequent wearing of a type of cicile (a spiked leg band.)

Oh, the pain.

Friar Fuck of Robin Hood's Mary Men is quite wonderful, although I'm going for crazy, scary, moralistic Christian than jolly cheerful boozing Friar.

15:17 / 15.05.06

You could always go as Patricia Arquette from Stigmata.

That's kinda bloody.

Disco is My Class War

15:28 / 15.05.06

And thanks all.

17:47 / 15.05.06

I remember seeing a production of Red Noses -- play about a group of clowning monks during the Black Death, a flagellant plays a major role. The flagellant in this one was stripped to the waist, wore a crown of thorns and covered in bruises and welts. Looked almost like a crucified Christ, only more in-your-face. And blue (from the bruises, although also sort of stylized).

17:54 / 15.05.06

Conversely, get some stilts and go as a stylite. Particularly St. Simeon Stylites.

The, uh, dead dog would be optional.

Goodness Gracious Meme

18:12 / 15.05.06

some quite nice stuff on the flagellants here

Would it be interesting to work some reference to the common use of flogging/'showng one's stripes' in early Australian penal colony culture in there, or am I mad?

Goodness Gracious Meme

18:19 / 15.05.06

A stack of (mostly NSFW) images of scourges here

I'd imagine it'd be relatively easy to cheaply knock something like that together out of leather twine (or rubber twine if not a leather-wearer.)

Goodness Gracious Meme

18:22 / 15.05.06

Scourges: The mediaeval scourge as used by the Flagellants was of a cat type, made of leather thongs with knotted ends. Other implements in this period were made of whipcord (hemp): an example in the museum in Salzburg castle has tiny sharpened shards of metal threaded into the end of each tress.

OUCH

19:04 / 15.05.06

You could also use this for self-flagellation

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:37 / 15.05.06

Oh, and I meant to say, for a very quick and light primer on related monkish things: the costume and politics of various orders, the Medicant and Flagellant traditions etc, read/watch The Name of the Rose.