Edward III introduces Sumptuary Laws
During the reign of Edward III, aristocratic luxuries began to appear, introduced from France.
English manufacturers were quick to make these available to anyone who wanted to buy them.
Many subjects began to wear finer garments, lined with fur, and made from superior linen.
Jewels, gold and silver plate, and rich furniture, was also readily available.
The availability of these costly items, led many people to overvalue their appearance.
Each tried to outdo their neighbours with their finery, and soon this started to spill over to the lower classes.
The rising wealth of the merchant class, threatened the nobility.
They were worried that people would confuse them with mere merchants!
So, together with the King, England’s government passed a number of different laws to make sure that, no matter how well a merchant or his wife might dress, they could never dress as well as the royals.
Edward III introduced these Sumptuary Laws on 19th January 1363.
Sumptuary laws made it easier to identify which individuals had the most power in society.
These laws were addressed to the entire population, but the brunt of regulations was directed at women ~ and the middle classes.
The laws focused on what people could and could not wear.
Limiting the use of fur, colour, fine fabrics, adornments, and even the kinds of necklines that could be worn.
This prevented ‘commoners’ from imitating the appearance of aristocrats.
An act was also passed to restrict prostitutes to wear clothing more in keeping with respectable women.
So special forms of dress for courtesans were introduced.
A striped cloak, or a striped hood, were often the ‘uniform’ to distinguish a ‘lady of the night’
Over time, these were reduced to distinctive bands of fabric attached to the arm or shoulder, or tassels on the arm.
One act included the following:
“no knight under the estate of a lord, esquire or gentleman, nor any other person, shall wear any shoes or boots having spikes or points which exceed the length of two inches, under the forfeiture of forty pence.”
Edward III was described as “the king who taught the English how to dress”
Oddly, Edward also tried to restrict merchants and the servants of gentlemen, from eating more than one meal of flesh or fish, per day…..
