14th/15th Century English Sumptuary Law

[Cellach_macChormach]

We have a grad student in our group who is looking for primary sources for English sumptuary law in the 14th and 15th century. Anyone good any good sources? Thanks.

[^]

Well firstly a grad student should have no problems finding them but the major English statutes are in the Statutes of the Realm.

[Karen Larsdatter]

Unfortunately, I'm not finding the relevant volumes of the Statutes of the Realm online, but that's the best primary source on the subject. Has the grad student found a copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1153172771?ie=UTF8&tag=suggestion-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1153172771">Sumptuary legislation and personal regulation in England</a> yet?

There's also a useful bit in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1843830361?ie=UTF8&tag=suggestion-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1843830361">Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England</a>; especially useful is this footnote:

Statutes of the Realm, i, 280-1, for the text of the ordinance; C.R. Bell and E. Ruse, 'Sumptuary Legislation and english Costume: An Attempt to Assess the Effect of an Act of 1337', Costume, vi (1972), 22-31. For sumptuary laws in England, see F.E. Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England (Baltimore, 1926) and N.B. Harte, 'State Control of Dress and Social Change in Pre-Industrial England', in D.C. Coleman and A.H. John (eds), Trade, Government an dEconomy in Pre-Industrial England: Essays Presented to F.J. Fisher (London, 1976), 132-65.

And another useful bit in the article on English dress and textiles in wills in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1843831236?ie=UTF8&tag=suggestion-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1843831236">Medieval Clothing and Textiles I</a>.

Also, I found this page via Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=jRsLUV ... aw&f=false

This is a secondary source, but interesting:
http://books.google.com/books?id=LCMDAA ... 36&f=false

[Cellach_macChormach]

Thank you! Looks like some good leads

[Tailoress]

Some great info about sumptuary laws concerning fur can be found in Elspeth Veale's The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages. There is also a book called Fur in Dress by Elizabeth Ewing with some decent references to fur regulations in the first chapter or so, IIRC.

[RandallMoffett]

Something to keep in mind is that instances of these laws in use are fairly limited. I'd also recommend reading Heraldy, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England.

An interesting topic but one that can be really blown into left field at times.

RPM

[EnglishSteel]

The fact that they keep updating the laws indicates how much attention people paid to them

[^]

There aren't that many so that logic fails. Also don't assume they weren't enforced, that has long been an assumption of the statute of laborers which recent scholarship has indicated that they were enforced far more then believed before.

[RandallMoffett]

Piers,

Unless there is some lost royal rolls I doubt it really was (though there is always the possibility of more royal accounts I suspect). I have looked through much of the royal rolls Henry III to Henry VII page by page and never seen one case of this being enforced. One would expect at least something if this were even somewhat common. I suspect I might have missed a few but if it were common it'd be impossible to miss that many entries. The only thing I figure is they codified already existing cultural norms in some cases so perhaps it was a non-issue. That said I have seen tons of people with items that violate the laws that have never had reprocussions.

As far as the statute of labourers... I'd not blow that too far the other way either. We need to avoid the 0 to 60 mentality.

RPM

[^]

Unless there is some lost royal rolls I doubt it really was (though there is always the possibility of more royal accounts I suspect). I have looked through much of the royal rolls Henry III to Henry VII page by page and never seen one case of this being enforced. One would expect at least something if this were even somewhat common.

Actually they aren't necessarily in royal rolls. If you look at violations of gaming statutes you find them in places like town accounts and manor courts.
And while I have not read the latest dissertation on the subject if the law is largely consistent with what the population is doing you won't see but a hand full of cases. Also as I'm sure you know many cases of that sort don't make it to the level of being in royal rolls because of how criminal case levels are handled in England. Bellamy's Criminal Trial in Late Medieval England talks about the upper half of these ie Felony vs Misdemeanor but I'm not aware of a book that looks at things that would typically just fines.

[RandallMoffett]

True but I'd still suspect there to be appeals in Royal records as it was more or less where the buck stopped. People with even very distant relations or ties to the crown would likely try to get their way with an appeal or petition. Having limited to no evidence there would seem most unusual for any kingdom/'national' laws.

Aside from that I have never seen any in civic records either, from what I can remember, and I have hit some of the major English towns and cities for the 14th and 15th. I'd imagine city and town books of fines would include them if they were enforced in these locations, most having their own judicial rights. I don't think I've seen them in places like London, York, Norwich, among others which would also be a bit odd. I will look around for some as I am rereading Southampton's book of fines for the 15th right now and see if I cannot locate anything like it.

Personally I figure if they do not show up in at least some of these records fairly often that the enforcement would be fairly low to nil. That said I may have missed a few little blurbs here and there. I also only have only looked into ecclesiastical records on a limted basis, usually for wills and the likes, and have heard the clergy did have some manner of enforcement of their own dressing and such codes.

RPM

[^]

It is an issue of the jurisdiction of the crime. You don't go to a major criminal court that deals with felonies to pay a fine for a small speeding ticket. That becomes a problem in the larger towns as well because most of the towns of any size whose records I've looked at have court divisions and the lowest courts are least published and least extant.

And while I am not saying they were ever really enforced the frequency of enforcement is going to be in part determined on how different the proscribed dress in the law is from actual practice. There is a dissertation I believe written by one of Hanawalt's students who looks at material culture and uses I believe mainly wills and uses Sumptuary laws as one of the comparison points.

Ecclesiastical records do have cases and fines that deal with this but it is mostly confined to clergy and based on canon law.

[Karen Larsdatter]

Enforcement of sumptuary law also varies from country to country. (See "Problems of Enforcement and the Failure of Sumptuary Law" in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199247935?ie=UTF8&tag=suggestion-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0199247935">Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500</a>, for example.)

More relevant to this topic, though, is <a href="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117989257/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0">Masculinities and the Medieval English Sumptuary Laws</a> in Gender & History; and also Echoes of the Sumptuary Impulse: Considering the Threads of Social Identity, Economic Protectionism, and Public Morality in the Proposed Design Piracy Prohibition Act.

[RandallMoffett]

Karen,

A very good point. I have not done enough study, especially of primary sources, outside England to really say one way or the other. Thanks for the info regarding the secondary sources! I have read some works much like the first you mentioned but they are now a decade or more old. I do remember reading some primary accounts that indicated the author was either for and against such laws in Italy. Seems very much divided by pro- and con- new noblity for the most part if my memory serves me correctly, though it has been five or more years ago now since I read them.

Piers,

I understand fairly well how the legal system works in England but I'd still say that period infractions even less severe than speeding tickets, maybe parking violations?, end up being appealed so legal jurisdiction is not really an issue.... Some case or cases would have ended up going to the higher court. People then, just as now, dispute everything to anyone they think will be more helpful or even just listen. One such example from Southampton includes a gent who had a small fine for fighting and he petitioned to Edward IV to get out of it. The fine was maybe a few pennies. Fighting in a town clearly is a local and town related law issue but it still got appealed to the king. Likely the paper used to appeal the case was more than the fine. At least he got out of it...

RPM

[^]

At least for me it would take more then that. I might have accepted that before finding fines for playing illegal games. That dissertation also looks at the relationship between the laws and items owned by people but I've not read it all. One problem with those laws in particular is that there is like a hundred years between the first and the second one. Would be interesting to go through all the quarter sessions and what not from the 1460s and 70s to see if there is anything on them in there although I'm not sure how well they have survived.

Are you finished with your degree yet?

[Baron Alcyoneus]

Yo, can always appeal to the King for a Writ of Right, I think, even in modern times. The Winslow Boy was about that, it is a pretty decent movie.

The current issue of Renaissance Magazine has an article about sumptuary laws. I didn't get a chance to look in it, but you may be able to mine the footnotes for better info.

[RandallMoffett]

Baron A,

I will look around for it. I am ok with mining.

Piers,

Very true. I imagine that might be a good place to look for them. I looked in the Southampton book of fines from the last quarter of the 15th on into the 16th but did not see anything. It may also depend on where you live etc.

I did indeed finish... I got my degree awarded in January. Just working on finding a job, some articles and such at the moment.

RPM