ABSTRACT
Professional men were exempt from the sumptuary legislation but the details of their clothing were recorded with increasing levels of care in the law, possibly with the aim of ensuring standards. Members of the professions, namely academics and legal and medical men, mostly came from the middling sort. However, by the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the younger sons of the nobility and the gentry had also started to attend university where a number of them received a legal training, although they were less likely to use their training to earn a living.1 As a group, the specialist training of professional men could provide them with a route to advancement and potentially, royal service, either at court or in local government. Equally, as their careers progressed individuals in this group could move into the gentry, as in the case of Thomas Kebell of Leicestershire.2 He was a common lawyer, a JP, a landowner and a client of the earls of Huntingdon and through his hard work and connections he achieved gentle status. This chapter seeks to establish that this group had a distinctive style of dress associated with their professional lives, while acknowledging that they were upwardly mobile and so they could elect to wear fashionable dress when it suited them.3
