Premodern cities encoded occupations into distinctive dress

Evidence

Occupation, too, was signaled by dress. The lawyers of medieval France, for example, were distinguished by their round caps or mortiers and the executioners of the period were forced to wear a special coat of red or gold so that they would be readily recognizable in a crowd (Lacroix, 1963:523, 413). — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 243

Categorization

• SEED: The executioners forced into red/gold coats is a striking image—an essay angle on how societies branded stigmatized occupations with visibility.