Reconciling the Privilege of a Few with the Common Good: Sumptuary Laws in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

The ample record of medieval and early modern sumptuary laws represents an extensive historical period and a broad geographical area. Though scholars have not completely ignored these laws, they deserve far more attention and schould be explored from many critical approaches. This study offers just such a comparison of the laws enacted in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and England between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Close analysis indicates that these laws were flexible enough to operate on various levels simultaneously: they controlled individual interests while maintaining collective practices. Sumptuary legislation always made use of an aesthetic rationale. This revealed both local specificities and common recurrences, both disparate and analogous aims pursued in different political and social periods and contexts.