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Fashion in History: A Global Look Tutor: Giorgio Riello Week 4 Tuesday 27 October 2009 Curbing Fashion Medieval Sumptuary Laws in Europe and Beyond. 1. What is a Sumptuary Law. Sumptuary Laws are: The laws that since medieval times limited the consumption of certain items of apparel But
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Fashion in History: A Global Look Tutor: Giorgio Riello Week 4 Tuesday 27 October 2009 Curbing Fashion Medieval Sumptuary Laws in Europe and Beyond
1. What is a Sumptuary Law • Sumptuary Laws are: • The laws that since medieval times limited the consumption of certain items of apparel • But • They regulated not just ownership, but also display, especially at • weddings (what types of gifts could be given, what type of food could be eaten, how much one could spend for one’s wedding); • funerals (the cost of the funeral, the types of cloth that could be used, the number of candles that could be burned)
1. What is a Sumptuary Law What type of consumption does it regulate? Not all forms of consumption but what is considered to be superfluous: luxury The definition of what luxury is changes depending on the person
1. What is a Sumptuary Law Venice Florence
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? • When • Non existent before 1150 • After that date they emerged and continued to be produced in several parts of Europe • 2. Where • They are not to be found everywhere in Europe • They concentrate in the most economically active parts of the continent (Italy, Southern France, Catalonia, and later England)
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? Explanations: 1. Maintaining the existing social hierarchy – Tool of social control 2. Upholding moral values 3. Encouraging economic prosperity
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? • Explanation 1: Tools of Social Control • Re-establish the formal divisions between the different parts or classes in society. • b. To stop certain parts of society from using dress as a way to ‘better themselves’. • ↓ • c. the sumptuary laws acted as a way to fight against fashion, against change and choice through the regulation of appearance
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? Explanation 1: Tools of Social Control Not just used by the social superiors (princes, aristocrats, lawmakers) to exclude their social inferior. Often sumptuary laws were used by social inferiors (ex. artisans) to limit the splendor and luxury of their social superior.
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? Explanation 2: Moral conduct and good government To ensure a good ‘statum civitas’ (the well being, or commonwealth of the population), by preventing moral degeneration (through the corruption of luxury) that in turn would have created economic disaster and social unrest.
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Effects of Good Government, Siena, 1338-40
2. Why were Sumptuary Laws Used? Explanation 3: Encouraging Economic Prosperity to guide expenditure ↓ Limit use of luxuries (that are often imported goods) ↓ to avoid expenditure on imported commodities ↓ give work to local artisans ↓ Increase tax revenue ↓ More income for the state/city.
3. Who was Regulated by the Sumptuary Laws They were for the rich/elite who could afford to wear forbidden items (such as silver and precious silks) Rather than the majority of the population who could not afford such items Nobles were often exempted from Sumptuary Laws but They were warned against the perils of luxury and overindulgence
3. Who was Regulated by the Sumptuary Laws Sumptuary Laws and Women - Sumptuary Laws were written by men…although they were often target at women - Women had inferior social position and little ‘agency’ (capacity to determine their destiny) - Sumptuary Laws were seen as a way to govern the female tendency to overvalue appearance (as opposed to the intellectual, moral and religious dimensions of life)
3. Who was Regulated by the Sumptuary Laws • Who was excluded from Sumptuary Laws? • Foreigners: people coming from different states or cities – They were regulated by the laws of their city of provenance. • Doctors: people who attended university - a title not acquired by birth
Swabian School, The Lovers, c. 1470. Cleveland Museum of Art. Venetian Courtesan, from Vecellio, c. 1590
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488. Mixed technique on wood. 77 x 49 cm. Museo Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid
Where Banquet of Herod, mid fifteenth Century, MET, New York Hunting with falcons at the court of Philip the Good, Fifteenth century, Versailles
6. The Enforcement of Sumptuary Laws The Law People should not wear gold trimmings Students must submit their essays by 22 October at 11.35 The Practice People did not wear gold trimmings Students submitted their essays ► ↓ We tend to imply this because there is a law establishing it. But the law does not tell us what people really did What we need are documents showing that people were prosecuted, but these are few. What does it mean?
6. The Enforcement of Sumptuary Laws • Why are there so few documents on prosecution? • The archival hypothesis • The documents were not kept • 2. The ‘failure’ hypothesis • They were inefective • ‘in spite of all these strong ordinances, outrages remained; and though one could not have cut and figured cloth, they wanted striped cloth and foreign cloth, the most that they could have, sending as far as Flanders and Brabant for it, not worrying about the cost’ (Giovanni Villani, Cronica, 1330). • ‘those who are neither of the nobility, gentility nor yeomanry, no, nor yet any magistrate, or officer in the commonwealth, go daily in silks, velvets, satins, damasks, taffetas and such like, notwithstanding that they be both base by birth, mean by estate and servile by calling’ (Philip Stubbes, 1583).
6. The Enforcement of Sumptuary Laws Why are there so few documents on prosecution? 2. The ‘failure’ hypothesis (continue) Who enforced the law? How did it work? Many cities appointed officials to uphold the law. Florence, for instance, appointed in 1330 the so-called ‘Ufficiali delle Donne’ (Clerks of Women) who had the power to stop people and seach them. 3. The ‘success’ hypothesis There are no prosecutions as the laws were widely respected
Rank Badge, Back Panel of a Embroidered Silk Festival Roundel, Ming (16th-17th centuries) Gold wrapped silk thread; silk; silk floss; embroidery. The Matcaggart Gallery, University of Alberta 2005.5.235
A Winter Party, by Utagawa Toyoharu, Edo Period (|18th century)
Ottoman Empire Mahmud II, 1785-1839, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1808-38
