Thursday, December 10, 2009

Primary Source 3

Sumptuary laws - Statutes of Apparel given by Elizabeth I

http://elizabethan.org/sumptuary/who-wears-what.html

In thinking about rules for clothing during the era, as part of my research touches on cross-dressing in Merchant of Venice, I found that there were specific laws governing what specifically a person could wear even if they were in the correct gendered clothing. A modernized-spelling version of one of the sumptuary statutes can be found at the link. Although sumptuary laws were rarely very effective, the idea was to restrict certain fabrics or jewels to only the highest ranking members of royalty. I could not find any decrees against cross-dress, perhaps because it was already fairly socially taboo. It was interesting that there seemed as many restrictions on men's dress (perhaps more when taking swords, scabbards, horse harnesses, etc. into account) than there were for women. Dress was a primary way of indicating status outside of your primary social arena, so even for those wealthy merchants or lower nobility that could afford it, it was forbidden to pretend to a rank one could never hold (short of marriage).

Side-note: Elizabeth I refers to her "princely clemency" towards her subjects - playing on gender roles again.

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