English Sumptuary Laws.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1860, 21 February 1888, Page 2

English Sumptuary Laws.

A statute of Edward the Third narrates that, •' through the excessive and over- many costly meats which the people of this realm have used moro than elsewhere, many mischiefs have happened ; for the great men by these excesses, have been sore grieved, and the lesser people, who only endeavor to imitate the great ones iv such sorts of meat, are much impoverished, whereby they are not able to aid themselves nor their liege lord in time of need as they ought, and many other arils have happened; as well to their souls as their bodies " ; and enacts that no man, of whatever condition or estate, shall be allowed more than two courses at dinner or supper, or more than two kinds of food in each course, except on the principal festivals of the year, when three courses at the utmost are to be allowed. All who did not enjoy a free estate of .£IOO per annum were prohibited from wearing furs, skins,' or silk, and the use of foreign cloth was allowed to the royal family alone. Another Act in tbs same reign declares " that the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers persons against their state and degree is the destruction and impoverishment of the land " ; and it describes the apparel of the various classes into which it distributes the people. Scotland has also a similar class of statutes. The Scottish Parliament attempted to regulate the dress of the ladies, to save the purses of the " puir gentlemen, their husbands and fathers/ There was the prohibition against their covning to kirk or market with the face muffled in a veil ; and statutes were passed against superfluous banqueting, afrd the inordinate use of foreign spices " brocht from thepairts beyond the sea, and sauld to monie folk that ara very unable to sustain* that coaste." Neither in England, Scotland, or France do these laws appear to have been practically observed to any great extent ; in fact, the kings of France and England contributed far more, by their love of pageantry, to excite a taste for luxury among their subjects, than by their ordinances to repress it. Mr. Froude suggests that such statutes may have been regarded, at the time when they were issued, rxther as authoritative declarations of what wise and good men considered right, than as laws to which obedience could bo enforped?/ Enactments of this, kind have lon'g^ been considered to be an unwarrantable meddling with the liberty of the subject.