Masculinities and the Medieval English Sumptuary Laws

Abstract

Clothing maketh the man. Andrew Borde knew this when he began his Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge with the image of a definitive Englishman striding confidently forward, naked apart from a tight loincloth and plumed hat, a pair of scissors in one hand and length of cloth over the other: I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here Musyng in my mynde, what rayment I shall were For now I wyll were thys and now I wyl were that Now I wyl were I cannot tel what All new fashyons be plesaunt to me I wyl haue them, whether I thryue or thee. 1 Richard II knew it when he paid £9 for two cloths of gold to make livery for himself and George Fellbrigge, an esquire of the royal household, at a time when an English yeoman or minor merchant might have earned £5 a year and a labourer would have earned no more than £2. Total royal wardrobe expenses that year were £128 13s. 2d. 2 Lorenzo de Medici also knew the value of clothing when he spent over 5,054 florins on his wardrobe in 1515, as did wealthy Florentine silk merchant Marco Parenti in 1454 in paying 177 florins for two fine cloaks for himself, one of red wool lined with miniver and the other black velvet lined with marten fur. 3 An average university professor's annual salary at the time was perhaps 75 florins and the most successful lawyers might earn 200 to 500 florins per annum. 4 English legislators of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had no doubt about the power of clothing when they regularly petitioned for the regulation of dress. This sumptuary legislation has long been the subject of discussion among medievalists, usually to illustrate the complex gradations of status in late medieval English society and anxieties attached to post-Plague social mobility. 5 Unlike similar legislation in other contemporary European societies -notably Italian city-states -the English case has not been examined through the lens of gender. This is surely because the English legislators seem relatively unconcerned about the dress of women, and 'women' and 'gender' have not quite ceased to be synonymous in academic discourse. With all the important work on masculinity that has emerged over the past decade it is apparent that the medieval sumptuary laws need to be re-examined for their constructions of masculinity. They are, after all, primarily attempts to regulate the apparel of men. The

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“…107 Hierarchies of masculinity existed that placed wealth, refined dress and manners, the possession of horses and expensive weapons, education, profession, guild leadership, carrying out the duties of civic engagement, exercising the role of a paterfamilias, and dominance over subordinates (such as masters over journeymen and apprentices) as a distinction that marked the well-to-do as more masculine than lower-status men. 108 Vagabonds and the working poor who could not even support themselves or a family were feminized by contemporary ideas associating laboring men in urban societies with irrationality, laziness, and moral weakness. Sharon Farmer has shown that clerical authors in western Europe likened poor men, especially those who begged, to women because they believed these men wore makeup to fake their ailments, cried false tears to gain sympathy, and used deception like the female sex to live a life of idleness.…”

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“…The wearing of fur and animal skins has a long history within human dress history and varies across time and cultures. From the 12 th century in England sumptuary laws were enacted by Parliament governing the use of luxury items by social hierarchy (Phillips 2007). Most of the items regulated are items of dress, and fur is mentioned in many.…”

“…Ermine also had associations with virtue, the 1585 'ermine' portrait of Elizabeth I is understood as an allegory of her virginity and chasteness. While in general, English sumptuary laws paid little attention to women's attire, one exception was the wearing of fur by prostitutes such that they might be not be mistaken for virtuous female citizens (Phillips 2007). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the sumptuary discourse became less about social divisions and standing, and more a moral discourse on material excess and Puritanical debates about the control of female sexuality (Bolton 2005).…”

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“…21 Her focus was primarily on the construction of masculine identity as developed through sumptuary legislation. 22 At about the same time Maria Hayward came full circle, describing the urban middling classes as social aspirants, who used the language of clothing to express their social and economic ambitions. 23 She succinctly summed up the core of the idea which led to the multitude of attempts to control physical and visual expression of the self, in that material goods were used as a physical tool through which the medieval and early modern subject could 'claim, confi rm and assert social identity'.…”