ABSTRACT
DURING the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the custom of wearing mourning dress
percolated down to the lesser aristocracy and middle classes, though the Courts of
Heralds continued to prosecute those who trespassed on aristocratic mourning dress
regulations. The Heralds tried in vain to prevent such infringements, but the rising
merchant class-with money but no rank-were determined to compete socially with the
nobility. Punishment for their presumption was no deterrent. It did not hold them back
from trying again. In the Low Countries the Court of Heralds introduced an edict on 14
December 1616 forbidding commoners the use of honours belonging to nobles (including
It was to no avail. In 1668 Jean Helmen,
Baron de Willebroeck, and his wife were both prosecuted for wearing over-long trains on
their mourning gowns at an uncle’s funeral. They were fined 240 florins.144 The infringements continued, despite the heavy fines.
