Sumptuary Law

Any law designed to restrict excessive personal expenditures in the interest of preventing extravagance and luxury. The term denotes regulations restricting extravagance in food, drink, dress, and household equipment, usually on religious or moral grounds. Such laws have proved difficult or impossible to enforce over the long term.

In France, Philip IV issued regulations governing the dress and the table expenditures of the several social orders in his kingdom. Under later French kings the use of gold and silver embroidery, silk fabrics, and fine linen was restricted. (Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Sumptuary Law)

In medieval Europe excessive displays of riches or exotic food and drink were considered pagan threats to the Christian’s soul. Rulers strove to control even such details as lengths of robes, heights of headdresses, and points of shoes. Sumptuary laws also enforced social distinctions within the feudal system. Thus, in England, the quality of textiles permitted for wearing apparel was strictly graded. The greatest lords were entitled to finest quality linens and woolens with bright colors, yeomen could have durable but drab fabrics, and villeins [i.e. peasants] could wear rough worsteds.

In the New World the Puritans, although primarily stressing religious conformity, had shared this view. In 1634 the Massachusetts general court, because of “the greate [sic], superfluous and unnecessary expenses occasioned by some new and immodest fashions,” prohibited a list of luxury imports.

Frontier austerity and democracy rendered sumptuary laws largely irrelevant in 19th-century America, and the rise of free enterprise capitalism and mass production of consumer goods throughout the Western world rendered them generally obsolete. (Encyclopedia Americana, Sumptuary Laws)

By convention, [sumptuary laws] have come to be largely associated with the regulation of apparel, their most frequent target.

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Rulings in effect between 1337 and 1604 in medieval and renaissance England, for example, reflect multiple (and by no means mutually exclusive) goals: resisting new fashions, protecting public morals, preserving the public peace, maintaining social distinctions, and – extremely important to this commercial nation – defending the domestic economy and promoting home industries.

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One of the intended outcomes of much sumptuary law is that of separation, the division of people into explicit categories. Modern examples tend to differentiate by religion, whether by choice (the Amish cap) or by coercion (the yellow star). In earlier times, a populace was more likely to be divided by class than be creed; and in hierarchical societies in which ritualized honors were due those of superior rank, status had to be readily recognizable if people were neither to insult their betters (by failing to offer the proper marks of respect) nor embarrass themselves (by extending undeserved courtesies to those beneath them). (Encyclopedia Of Clothing And Fashion, Sumptuary Laws)

Pirates delighted in mocking the laws of their countries and members of high society. What better slight against members of the social and political elite than dressing up as wealthy landowners and aristocratic men of property?

From the early 14th century, most European countries – particularly England and France – enacted and actively enforced sumptuary laws. Simply put, sumptuary laws were a legal means by which the ruling classes could separate themselves from commoners by regulating what the latter could wear, drink, and in some cases, even where they could live.

In England, during the reigns of King Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the laws were exceedingly tight, separating the varying stratas of nobility and sex. Stiff monetary penalties to imprisonment in the stocks awaited any man or woman who dared to thumb their nose at the sumptuary laws.

In France during the reign of Louis XIV (1634-1715), the importation of costly fabric was not permitted. The expression you can tell a man by the cut of his coat, or lack thereof, summed up the sumptuary law. One’s class and social standing were immediately apparent by what a person wore. Clergymen advanced this so-called “God-given” theory by preaching that it was “heresy” to rise above one’s social class in dress or living conditions. Some of the items prohibited to commoners included fabrics (silk, satin, velvet, brocade, grosgrain, taffeta, damask, lace, any gold- or silver-threaded cloth or lace, foreign wool); colors (gold, silver, purple, scarlet); adornment (pearls, gold, silver, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, gemstones); and furs (mink, sable, fox). (Selinger 235-6)

Other factors that nurtured the pirate trade were laws that forbade colonists to trade with foreigners and thus encouraged smuggling. (Encyclopedia Americana, Pirate)