ABSTRACT
Sumptuary legislation was not a new idea in the sixteenth century. Indeed, centuries before, Roman legislators had addressed many of the concerns about excesses in apparel that were worrying governments across early modern Europe. The lex Julia or Julian law of 46 BC sought to control access to luxury fabrics and the colour purple, while the emperor Tiberius banned men from wearing silk and Nero restricted use of the purple dyes amethystine and Tyrian purple.1 With the rise of Christianity, wanting and wearing fine clothes were considered to be evidence of luxury which was synonymous with lust, one of the seven deadly sins. In spite of this, sumptuary legislation has been described as an ‘identifying characteristic’ of the early modern period.2 So it is not surprising that Henry VIII passed four sumptuary laws or acts of apparel in 1510, 1514, 1515 and 1533 (Table 1.1 – pages 29-39).3 The laws were hierarchical in their structure, with social status being directly linked to the quality of cloth that an individual was allowed to wear.4 Expensive, imported silks, furs and metal thread acted as material signifiers of status and the individuals permitted to wear them were clearly identified as the elite. These clothes were an essential expression of social identity but the possession of the clothes alone would not make a man, or a woman for that matter, a member of the elite.
