Middle English Literature

Sumptuary
Church writers, national and local administrations, and interested observers
of society regularly condemned their contemporaries’ extravagant behavior
and appearance. Manners, carriage, gestures, diet, drink, clothing, makeup,
and hairstyles all formed a complex aggregation thought to be specific to
particular estates, classes, genders, sexualities, and occupations (see “Feasts,”
p. 190). The pestilences of the later fourteenth century stimulated anxieties
about social movement and personal transgressions, as evidenced in the
legislation to control labor (see “Pestilence,” p. 169, and “Ordinance and
Statute of Laborers,” p. 163). An additional sign of this concern may be
found in national and local legislation to restrict how people spent their
money on personal items.
The sumptuary legislation of 1363 followed closely the second outbreak of
the pestilence. It was the third such general law passed during Edward III’s
reign (the previous two were in 1336 and 1337), and it was repealed in
13
At Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Sumptuary
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216
Style and Spectacle
the following year. Nevertheless, various other attempts to institute laws
occurred in the Lancastrian era, but it was not until 1463–4 that parliament
passed another similar act, which was soon followed by two more in 1477
and 1483. Despite little evidence of enforcement, the laws signal attempts
to compel visible signs of class distinctions, curb practices that were believed
to have deleterious moral effects, and change people’s spending habits, par-
ticularly to favor local industries during the Hundred Years’ War.
Geoffrey de la Tour-Landry, in his instructions to his daughters, is charac-
teristically very concerned about women’s appearances, and his vituperative
tone is also typical. The passage from Dives and Pauper is from chapter 13
on adultery, the subject of the seventh commandment. For introductions to
Geoffrey’s Book and Dives and Pauper, see “Marriage,” p. 21.
Primary documents and further reading
Baldwin, F. E. (1926) Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hodges, L. F. (2000) Chaucer and Costume: The Secular Pilgrims in the General
Prologue. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Riley, H. T. (ed. and trans.) (1868) Memorials of London and London Life in the
XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth Centuries. London: Longmans, Green.
Scattergood, J. (1987) “Fashion and Morality in the Late Middle Ages.” In D.
Williams (ed.) England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton
Symposium. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell. 255–72.
Strohm, P. (1992) Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century
Texts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
The Statutes of the Realm, vol. 1 (1810). London: Eyre and Strahan. 37 Edward 3, stat. 10,
cc. 1– 6, 380–2.
Language: Latin
Date: 1363
Item: for the outrageous and excessive apparel of diverse people against
their estate and degree, to the great destruction and impoverishment of all
the land, it is ordained that grooms, servants of lords, as well as those of
mysteries and artificers, shall be served to eat and drink once a day of flesh
or of fish, and the remnant of other victuals, as of milk, butter, and cheese,
and other such victuals, according to their estate; and that they have clothes
for their vesture, or hosing, whereof the whole cloth shall not exceed two
marks, and that they wear no cloth of higher price of their buying nor

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otherwise, nor anything of gold nor of silver embroidered, enameled, nor of
silk, nor anything pertaining to the said things; and their wives, daughters,
and children of the same condition in their clothing and apparel, and they
shall wear no veils passing twelve pence a veil.
Item: that people of handicraft and yeomen shall neither take nor wear
cloth of a higher price for their vesture or hosing than within forty shillings
the whole cloth by way of buying nor otherwise, nor stone, nor cloth of silk
nor of silver, nor girdle, knife, button, ring, garter, nor ouche,
1
ribbon, chain,
nor any such other things of gold or of silver, nor any manner of apparel
embroidered, enameled, nor of silk in any way; and that their wives, daughters,
and children be of the same condition in their vesture and apparel, and that
they wear no veil of silk but only of yarn made within the realm, nor any
manner of fur nor of budge but only lamb, coney, cat, and fox.
Item: that esquires and all manner of gentlemen under the estate of a
knight who have not land or rent to the value of one hundred pounds a
year shall not take nor wear cloth for their clothing or hose of a higher price
than within the price of four and a half marks the whole cloth, by way of
buying or otherwise, and that they wear no cloth of gold, nor silk, nor
silver, nor any manner of clothing embroidered, ring, buttons, nor ouche of
gold, ribbon, girdle, nor any other apparel, nor harness of gold nor of silver,
nor anything of stone, nor any manner of fur; and that their wives, daughters,
and children be of the same condition as to their vesture and apparel, with-
out any turning up or purple; and that they wear no manner of apparel of
gold, nor silver, nor of stone. But that esquires who have land or rent to
the value of two hundred marks a year and above may take and wear cloths
of the price of five marks the whole cloth, and cloth of silk and of silver,
ribbon, girdle, and other apparel reasonably garnished of silver; and that
their wives, daughters, and children may wear fur turned up of miniver,
without ermine or lettice,
2
or any manner of stone but for their heads.
Item: that merchants, citizens, and burgesses, artificers, people of handi-
craft, as well within the city of London as elsewhere, who have clearly goods
and chattels to the value of five hundred pounds, and their wives and chil-
dren, may take and wear in the same manner as the esquires and gentlemen
who have land and rent to the value of one hundred pounds a year; and
that the same merchants, citizens, and burgesses, who have clearly goods
and chattels to the value of one thousand pounds, and their wives and
children, may take and wear in the same manner as esquires and gentlemen
1
A clasp, buckle, or brooch for holding together two sides of a garment.
2
A kind of light gray fur.
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Style and Spectacle
who have land and rent to the value of two hundred pounds a year; and
no groom, yeoman, or servant of merchant, artificer, or handicraftmen shall
wear otherwise in apparel than is above-ordained of yeomen of lords.
Item: that knights, who have land or rent within the value of two hundred
pounds shall take and wear cloth of six marks the whole cloth for their
vesture and of no higher price; and that they wear neither cloth of gold nor
cloaks, mantle, nor gown furred with miniver nor of ermins, nor any apparel
embroidered with stone, nor otherwise; and that their wives, daughters, and
children be of the same condition, and that they wear no turning up of
ermins, nor of lettices, nor any manner of stone but only for their heads;
but that all knights and ladies, who have land or rent over the value of four
hundred marks a year to the sum of one thousand pounds, shall wear at
their pleasure, except ermins and lettices, and apparel of pearls and stone,
but only for their heads.
Item: that clerks who have a degree in any church, cathedral, college, or
schools, or clerk of the king, that have such estate that requires fur, shall do
and use according to the constitution of the same, and all other clerks, who
have two hundred marks of land per year, shall wear and do as knights of
the same rent; and other clerks within the same rent shall wear as the
esquires of one hundred pounds of rent; and that all those, knights as well
as clerks, who by this ordinance may wear fur in winter in the same manner
shall wear linure
3
in the summer.
Item: that carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, oxherds, cowherds,
shepherds, swineherds, dairymen, and all other keepers of beasts, threshers
of corn, and all manner of people of the estate of a groom attending to
husbandry and other people that have not forty shillings of goods nor of
chattels, shall not take nor wear any manner of cloth but blanket and russet,
of wool, worth not more than twelve pence, and shall wear girdles of linen
according to their estate; and that they come to eat and drink in the same
manner that pertains to them and not excessively. And it is ordained that if
any wear or do contrary to any of the points aforesaid, that he shall forfeit
to the king all the apparel that he has so worn against the form of this
ordinance.
Item: to the intent that this ordinance for the taking and wearing of
cloths be maintained and kept in all points without blemish, it is ordained
that all the makers of cloths within the realm, men as well as women, shall
conform them to make their cloths according to the price limited by this
3
lawn.

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ordinance, and that all the drapers shall buy and purvey their items accord-
ing to the same price so that so great plenty of such cloths be made and set
to sale in every city, borough, and merchant town, and elsewhere in the
realm, that for default of such cloths the said ordinance be in no point
broken; and to that shall the said clothmakers and drapers be constrained by
any manner or way that seems best to the king and his council. And this
ordinance of new apparel shall begin at Candlemas next coming.
4
Offord, M. Y. (ed.) (1971) Geoffrey de la Tour Landry, The Book of the Knight of the Tower,
trans. W. Caxton. EETS, s.s. 2. London: Oxford University Press, 70–3.
Language: English (Southeast Midland)
Book date: 1484