Editing Black (section)

====16th and 17th centuries====
[[File:Black cat eyes.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Black cat]]s have been accused for centuries of being the [[familiar spirit]]s of witches or of bringing bad luck.]]
While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America. [[John Calvin]], [[Philip Melanchthon]] and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the pope and his cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly.<ref>Michel Pastoureau, ''Noir – Histoire d'une couleur'', pp.&nbsp;146–47.</ref> In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.<ref>Michel Pastoureau, ''Noir – Histoire d'une couleur'', pp.&nbsp;152–53.</ref>

In the Protestant Netherlands, [[Rembrandt]] used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like [[Rubens]], went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new [[Baroque]] churches of the [[Counter-Reformation]] were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.<ref>Michel Pastoureau, ''Noir – Histoire d'une couleur'', pp.&nbsp;150–51</ref>

<gallery widths="160" heights="180" class="center">
File:Increase Mather.jpg|[[Increase Mather]], an American Puritan clergyman (1688).
File:Rembrandt van Rijn - Self-Portrait - Google Art Project.jpg|[[Rembrandt]], ''Self-portrait'' (1659)
File:Portrait of John, Duke of Braganza c. 1630 (The Royal Castle in Warsaw).png|John, Duke of Braganza, later King [[John IV of Portugal]] (1628)
File:Infantry Armor MET DP277181.jpg|Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22279?&searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=infantry&offset=0&rpp=80&pos=5 |title=Infantry Armor &#124; German, Nuremberg &#124; the Met |access-date=10 January 2021 |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806222006/https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22279?&searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=infantry&offset=0&rpp=80&pos=5 |url-status=live }}</ref>
</gallery>

[[File:Matthewhopkins.png|thumb|upright=0.8|An English manual on witch-hunting (1647), showing a witch with her [[familiar spirit]]s]]
In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of [[witchcraft]].  People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a [[Black Mass]] or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their [[familiar spirit]]s, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval [[Flanders]], in a ceremony called ''Kattenstoet,'' black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of [[Ypres]] to ward off witchcraft.<ref>Stefano Zuffi, ''Color in Art'', p. 279.</ref>

Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious [[Salem witch trials]] in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap,"  and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM|title=The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692|first=Prof.|last=Linder|access-date=30 December 2016|archive-date=18 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161218225227/http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/calef/calef.html |title=More Wonders of the Invisible World |publisher=Salem.lib.virginia.edu |date=14 February 2006 |access-date=7 November 2012 |archive-date=7 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120907003044/http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/calef/calef.html |url-status=live }}</ref>