Removing clothing as an act of subjugation began when the Assyrians routinely humiliated their captives by making them strip naked.
The Greeks amended this by requiring their new servants to strip only from the waist up.
By the Middle Ages, a serf had to remove only his hat in the presence of his superiors.
Following these gestures of respect for the master is the reason Christian men remove their hats in church and why Muslims leave their shoes by the mosque door.
