Preserving the World's Rarest BooksThe Fabric of Everyday Life: Sumptuary Laws in Early Modern France

In his essay on sumptuary laws, the sixteenth-century French writer and statesman Michel de Montaigne argued that:

Sumptuary laws that restricted items like turbot or velvet to maintain distinctions between different social groups were some of the most common forms of legislation throughout the premodern world. From ancient Rome to medieval Scotland, the colonial Americas and Tokugawa Japan, statutes regulating luxury proliferated. Early modern France was no exception. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, sumptuary edicts and ordinances were issued at an astonishing rate. According to Johanna B. Moyer, this trend peaked during the 1560s with 11 laws published in a single decade. In 1563, sumptuary laws represented over 20 percent of all laws enacted that year. The following century saw only a slight reduction in this pace: Louis XIV alone would issue 52 sumptuary laws, more than any other French king. 

Yet historians have traditionally echoed Montaigne’s rather dim view of sumptuary laws as not only ineffective, but perhaps even counterproductive. After all, if you limit finery to a fashionable elite, it can hardly be a surprise when everyone wants to emulate those at the top of the social hierarchy. The role of sumptuary law in the rise of early modern fashion is an intriguing subject in its own right. In this blog, though, I’m going to focus on a different question. If sumptuary laws were largely unenforceable, what motivated the French crown to publish so many of them (aside from cracking down on people flouting the rules?)

To understand why curbing luxury became such an important priority, we need to look more closely at these edicts and ordinances. Printed laws were one of the main ways in which early modern authorities communicated with their subjects. From the varied matters thought worthy of official regulation, we can gain insight into the everyday concerns of rulers as well as their people. Although we tend to think of sumptuary laws as pertaining to dress, they also targeted a much wider range of material culture and practices from foodstuffs to banqueting, weddings, furniture, dishware, and even modes of transport. Amongst other things, the 1617 ordinance above banned ‘all workers from gilding or ordering to be gilded any carriages in the future’. 

In part, this anti-luxury drive was motivated by the Catholic Reformation. Luxuries were seen as potentially leading to the sins of gluttony and lust, and became associated with the excesses of the clergy and the nobility. By the late sixteenth century, these groups were no longer exempt from sumptuary laws, which began to include all ‘subjects of whatever estate and rank’. Anxiety about finite resources – especially food shortages – also played a role. The belief that nobles were accumulating wealth at the expense of everyone else inspired ordinances, like this one from 1583, mandating that a portion of the fines collected for sumptuary violations was to be distributed to the poor.

While restrictions on different goods changed over time, by far the most consistent theme of French sumptuary law was the prohibition of ornamentation with precious metals, as in the edict below from 1601, which outlawed the wearing of ‘any cloths or fabrics of gold or silver’. In the seventeenth century, these measures were given new impetus by mercantilist ideas about preventing the hoarding of bullion and promoting the circulation of specie to increase employment among the poor.

Even if they weren’t always followed, sumptuary laws were by no means ignored by French subjects. The diarist and collector Pierre de l’Estoile relates how he purchased a reprint of the 1601 edict in 1608. Although this law was ‘cried and renewed every year’, a copy was still worth keeping as valuable information about the government’s policies. Sumptuary ordinances spawned much commentary and debate, including pamphlets (USTC 6034710), satirical verses (USTC 6009336) and engravings.

The courtier in this image, ‘following the latest edict’, has exchanged his lavish apparel for a plainer outfit, claiming not altogether convincingly in the accompanying rhyme that ‘Because luxury inconveniences me / I heartily approve of this change’. Yet sumptuary laws were not just an issue for nobles, but men and women across society, as they touched on numerous daily goods and practices. We should not underestimate the far-reaching impact of these edicts and ordinances on early modern life.