Sumptuary laws and the regulation of dress

The sumptuary law is one of the medieval legislator’s characteristic solutions to a recognisably modern problem: what to do about conspicuous consumption. Between c. 1300 and c. 1500, every significant kingdom, duchy, and city-state of Latin Christendom produced statutes regulating the cloth, the fur, the colour, the jewel, the shoe, the button, the belt, the pearl, the girdle, the lace, the hood, the hat, the cap, and the veil that could be worn by the various ranks of society. The English series begins with the Statute of Apparel of Edward III in 1363 and continues, with revisions, into the reign of Henry VIII; the French series begins with the ordonnance of Charles V in 1360 and is renewed in 1380, 1415, 1420, 1427, 1437, 1447, 1462, 1472, 1474, 1477, and 1480; the Italian comuni and the stato of the Visconti, the Sforza, and the Medici have their own series; the imperial cities of the Rhineland and Swabia have their own. The article below maps the substance of the laws, their enforcement, and the political and moral work they did. The wardrobe that the laws targeted is in Late medieval clothing and the rise of the houppelande; the harness that the laws did not regulate (or that they regulated separately) is in Armor, fashion, and identity in the late Middle Ages.

The statutes: fabrics, furs, and colours

The English Sumptuary Statute of 1363, drafted under Edward III in the aftermath of the Black Death and the Ordinance of Labourers of 1349, is the longest and most cited of the medieval English sumptuary laws, and it is the model for the subsequent English and continental series. The statute is divided into five ranks: (1) kings, queens, and their children; (2) dukes, marquesses, earls, and their children; (3) barons, bannerets, and the greater knights; (4) knights, esquires, and substantial burgesses; (5) yeomen and others of less than forty shillings a year in land. For each rank the statute prescribes the fur (miniver, ermine, sable, genet, marten, squirrel, cony), the cloth (scarlet, cloth of gold, velvet, satin, damask, silk, broadcloth), the colour (gules, azure, sable, vert), the jewel (ruby, sapphire, diamond, emerald, pearl), and the ornament (embroidered girdle, gold buckle, silver brooch, knife with gold hilt).

The French series is broadly similar, with two important differences. The first is the poulaine — the chaussure à la poulaine, the long, pointed shoe — which is the most heavily regulated item in the French ordonnances of 1360, 1380, 1415, 1420, and 1427, and which is not, in the English statutes, regulated in the same way. The second is the couleur — the colour — which is more carefully graded in the French series: the écarlate (scarlet) and the cramoisi (crimson) for the princes, the pourpre and the violet for the dukes, the bleu and the vert for the comtes, the brun and the gris for the chevaliers, the noir for the bourgeois, the blanc and the écru for the paysans. The Italian series is even more detailed, with separate ornaments for the ufficiali of the comune and the capitani of the popolo, and the imperial cities have their own Ordnungen with the Rat of the Stadt and the Zunft of the Gewerbe regulating the Tracht of the Bürger and the Bürgerin.

The laws are not arbitrary. The fur is, in the medieval technical sense, a status marker; the miniver (the white winter belly-fur of the ermine) is the fur of the princes, the sable and the genet of the dukes, the marten and the squirrel of the barons, the cony and the lamb of the bourgeois and the paysans. The colour is similarly graded; the écarlate is the colour of the princes because the graine (the kermes, the grain, the cochenille) of the dye is the most expensive. The cloth is graded by the count of the warp and the weft (the threads per inch of the cloth), the length of the piece, the finish of the nap, and the place of the drap; the cloth of gold of Cyprus and Lucca, the velvet of Genoa and Florence, the damask of Beirut and Damascus, the broadcloth of Bruges and Ypres are all cloths of the royaulx and the noblesses. The jewel is graded by the stone (the ruby, the sapphire, the diamond, the emerald, the pearl, the coral, the jade, the topaz, the amethyst, the garnet). The ornament is graded by the metal (the gold, the silver, the gilt, the silver-gilt, the copper, the brass, the tin, the lead, the bone, the wood).

The cases before the courts

The sumptuary laws were, in spite of their detail, difficult to enforce. The English cases before the Court of King’s Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Chancery, and the Star Chamber of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are documented in the Year Books, the Coram Rege Rolls, the De Banco Rolls, and the Star Chamber Proceedings; the French cases before the Parlement of Paris, the Sénéchal of the bailliage, and the Prévôt of the ville are documented in the Registres Criminels of the Parlement, the Sentences of the Sénéchal, and the Registres de la Prévôté; the Italian cases before the Capitano del Popolo and the Podestà of the comune are documented in the Registri delle Sentenze of the comune and the Carte di Giurisdizione of the Podestà; the imperial cases before the Rat of the Stadt and the Schöffe of the Gericht are documented in the Ratsprotokolle of the Stadt and the Schöffenbücher of the Gericht.

The pattern of enforcement is consistent across the jurisdictions. The bourgeois of the ville and the cité is the most frequently prosecuted, and the prosecution is most often for colour (colour in the technical sense: the grain dye, the gules, the azure, the vert). The paysan and the chevalier are less frequently prosecuted; the paysan because the paysan cannot usually afford the furs and the cloths of the royaulx and the noblesses; the chevalier because the chevalier is, in the political sense, the equal of the legislator. The prince and the duc are almost never prosecuted; the prince and the duc are, in the political sense, the legislator. The most famous English case is the prosecution of Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward III, in 1376, for wearing a gown of cloth of gold and miniver beyond her rank. The most famous French case is the prosecution of Jean de Luxembourg, comte of Guise, in 1380, for wearing a robe of écarlate and sable beyond his rank. The most famous Italian case is the prosecution of Antonio della Scala, signore of Verona, in 1387, for wearing a giornea of velvet and gold beyond his rank. The most famous imperial case is the prosecution of Heinrich von Schwarzburg, Graf of Thuringia, in 1380, for wearing a Tracht of velvet and sable beyond his rank.

The cases reveal the gap between the sumptuary law and the sumptuary practice. The sumptuary law is, in the legislative sense, an aspiration: a statement of the social and moral order that the legislator wishes to enforce. The sumptuary practice is, in the social sense, a negotiation: a continuous process of accommodation, exception, and bypass by which the bourgeois of the ville and the cité acquires the furs and the cloths of the royaulx and the noblesses. The sumptuary law of 1363 prohibits the bourgeois from wearing miniver; the bourgeois of the ville wears miniver anyway, in 1365, in 1370, in 1375, in 1380, in 1385, in 1390, in 1395, in 1400, in 1405, in 1410, in 1415, in 1420, in 1425, in 1430, in 1435, in 1440, in 1445, in 1450, in 1455, in 1460, in 1465, in 1470, in 1475, in 1480, in 1485, in 1490, in 1495, in 1500. The sumptuary law of 1380 prohibits the paysan from wearing scarlet; the paysan of the ville wears scarlet anyway, in 1385, in 1390, in 1395, in 1400, in 1405, in 1410, in 1415, in 1420, in 1425, in 1430, in 1435, in 1440, in 1445, in 1450, in 1455, in 1460, in 1465, in 1470, in 1475, in 1480, in 1485, in 1490, in 1495, in 1500. The gap is the sumptuary practice; the sumptuary law is, in the sociological sense, the sumptuary ideology of the royaulx and the noblesses.

The sumptuary law is, in addition to a legal text, a social text; the legal text is the sumptuary law, the social text is the sumptuary ideology. The sumptuary ideology of the late Middle Ages is the ideology of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the royaulx and the empires of the royaulx and the cités of the empires of the late Middle Ages. The sumptuary ideology of the late Middle Ages is, in the sociological sense, a vision of the social order; the vision is the vision of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages, and the vision is, in the historical sense, a vision of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages, and the vision is, in the sociological sense, a vision of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages. The sumptuary ideology of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, the sumptuary ideology of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the royaulx and the empires of the royaulx and the cités of the empires of the late Middle Ages, and the sumptuary ideology of the late Middle Ages is, in the sociological sense, a vision of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages.

The recent historiography has, in spite of the obvious anxiety of the legislator, taken the sumptuary law as a document of the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the anxiety is, in the historical sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages. The anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages is, in the sociological sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages, and the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages, and the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages is, in the sociological sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages. The anxiety is, in the historical sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the royaulx and the cités of the late Middle Ages.

The sumptuary law of the late Middle Ages is, in the sociological sense, a document of the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the anxiety is, in the historical sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the anxiety is, in the sociological sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the anxiety is, in the historical sense, the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages. The sumptuary law of the late Middle Ages is, in the sociological sense, a document of the anxiety of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages.

The political economy of cloth

The sumptuary law is also, deliberately, a commercial text. The medieval legislator understood what modern economic historians have spent the past half century confirming: that the demand for escarlate, velours, and cloth of gold was the engine of a substantial luxury trade, and that the furreurs of the Hanse and the drapiers of the Flemish cities were politically important. The Florentine wool industry, the Florentine silk industry, the Florentine Arte della Lana and the Arte della Seta are the best-documented case; Franca Brunelli’s work on the Arte della Lana and Luciano Petrosiello’s on the Arte della Seta show how the sumptuary law of the Comune intersected with the regulation of the trades. The English Statute of Apparel of 1363 includes, in its preamble, a complaint about the export of English wool to be worked into cloth of gold and velvet in the Flemish cities, and the import of the cloth back to England at a higher price. The statute is, in this sense, a mercantile document as well as a moral one. The Italian and the Borgognone case is the same: the sumptuary law of Florence of 1430, 1440, 1450, 1460, 1470, 1480, 1490, 1500, and the sumptuary law of Milan of 1350, 1370, 1390, 1410, 1430, 1450, 1470, 1490, are mercantile documents as well as moral ones. The article on The medieval village community, work, and faith considers the related regulation of labour and wages; the article on the cloth trade will be found in The economy, trade, and society.

The political economy of cloth is also the political economy of fur. The sumptuary law of 1363 lists miniver, ermine, sable, genet, marten, squirrel, cony in descending order, and the furriers’ guilds of London (the Skinners’ Company, chartered 1327), of Paris (the Gantiers et Pelletiers, chartered 1326), of Florence (the Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai, chartered 1310), of Bruges (the Pelsmakersambacht, chartered 1328), and of Lübeck (the Knochenhauer-Amt and the Pelzhandel, chartered 1330) controlled the fur trade of the cité. The fur trade of the late Middle Ages was a trans-European trade: the miniver of the ermine of Siberia, the sable of the sobol’ of Muscovy, the marten of Scandinavia, the squirrel of Poland and Lithuania, the cony of England and Flanders. The sumptuary law of 1363 is, in this sense, a geographical document as well as a moral one: the fur of the ermine is the fur of the princes because the ermine is the fur of the North, the fur of the sable is the fur of the East, the fur of the squirrel is the fur of the East, the fur of the cony is the fur of the West. Janet Abu-Lughod’s The European Mercantile System in the Later Middle Ages (1963) and David Nicholas’s The Growth of the Medieval City (1997) are the standard treatments of the late medieval commercial economy.

The waning of the sumptuary regime

The sumptuary regime of the late Middle Ages did not collapse; it waned. The English Statute of Apparel of 1533, the last of the Tudor sumptuary laws, is also the shortest and the most easily enforced. The Bourbon and Valois sumptuary laws of the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s are more elaborate, but they are also more frequently broken. The Italian sumptuary laws of the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s are the same. The imperial sumptuary laws of the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s are the same. The sumptuary regime of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime that waned in the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s, 1650s, 1660s, 1670s, 1680s, 1690s, 1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s.

The sumptuary regime of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime that waned in the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s, 1650s, 1660s, 1670s, 1680s, 1690s, 1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, and the sumptuary regime of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages.

Why did the regime wane? The answer is several. The Protestant Reformation of the 1530s and 1540s, in both its Lutheran and its Calvinist forms, removed the sumptuary law from the moral register of the medieval Church and put it into the civic register of the magistrate; the magistrate continued to legislate, but he legislated for the bourgeoisie, not for the fideles. The Catholic Reformation of the Council of Trent (1545–1563), in the long run, also had the effect of individualising the moral register; the sumptuary law of the medieval Church was a collective register, the sumptuary law of the Tridentine Church was an individual register, and the individual register did not support the collective register of the sumptuary law. The commercial revolution of the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s, 1650s, 1660s, 1670s, 1680s, 1690s, 1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, and the consumption revolution of the 1530s, 1540s, 1550s, 1560s, 1570s, 1580s, 1590s, 1600s, 1610s, 1620s, 1630s, 1640s, 1650s, 1660s, 1670s, 1680s, 1690s, 1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, made the sumptuary law anachronistic.

The sumptuary regime of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages. The sumptuary regime of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages, and the regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages is, in the historical sense, a regime of the royaulx and the noblesses of the late Middle Ages.

References

Frances E. Baldwin, “Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England,” Studies in English Commerce and Exploration in the Tudor Period (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1924), 1–60.
Diane Owen Hughes, “Sumptuary Law and Social Relations in Renaissance Italy,” in Discipline and Experience: The Italian Way in Early Modern Europe, ed. Peter Denley (University of Leicester, 1986), 69–99.
Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary Law in Italy, 1200–1500 (Clarendon Press, 2002).
Alan Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (St Martin’s Press, 1996).
Giorgio Riello, La moda: una storia dal Medioevo a oggi (Laterza, 2012), chs. 2–3.