studies

This page highlights studies of sumptuary law.

It covers -

• introduction
• perspectives
• pre-industrial regimes
• contemporary debate

     introduction

The major overviews remain Governance of the consuming passions: a history of sumptuary law (New York: St Martins 1996) by Alan Hunt and the 1926 Sumptuary Legislation & Personal Regulation in England (rpr New York: AMS Press 1994) by Frances Baldwin.

A concise version of Hunt's argument is provided by his 'The governance of consumption: sumptuary laws and shifting forms of regulation' in 25(3) Economy and Society (1996) 410-427, complemented by 'Narrating the Social Order: Medieval Clothing Laws' by Claire Sponsler in 21(3) Clio (1992) 265-283.

     perspectives

Perspectives are offered in Dress and Morality (Oxford: Berg 2003) by Aileen Ribeiro, Seeing Through Clothes (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 1993) by Anne Hollander, Who Are You? Identification, Deception & Surveillance in Early Modern Europe (New York: Zone 2007) by Valentin Groebner, Culture & Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities (Bloomington: Indiana Uni Press 1988) by Grant McCracken, 'Reformation, Regulation and the Image: Sumptuary Legislation and the Subject of Law' by Paul Raffield in 13(2) Law and Critique (2002) 127-150, 'Fashion, Sumptuary Laws, and Business' by Herman Freudenberger in 37(1) Business History Review (1963) 37-48, A World of Strangers: Order and Action in Urban Public Space (New York: Basic Books 1974) by Lyn Lofland, 'Unlawful passions: Sumptuary Law and the Roman revolution' by Porter in 28 Melbourne Historical Journal (2001) 1-18, Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression (Oxford: Berg 2005) by Jennifer Craik, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1971) by Erving Goffman, The Consumption Reader (London: Routledge 1973) by David Clarke, Marcus Doel & Kate Housiaux, Defining Dress: Dress as object, meaning and identity (Manchester: Manchester Uni Press 1999) edited by Amy de la Haye, Elizabeth Wilson & Judith Clark, 'Undressing Difference: The Hijab in the West' by Anita Allen in Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice (2008) here and Gender and Human Rights in Islam and International Law (The Hague: Kluwer Law 2000) by Shaheen Sardar Ali.

Works on uniforms include the glib Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 2002) by Paul Fussell, 'The Uniform: A Sociological Perspective' by Nathan Joseph & Nicholas Alex in 77(4) American Journal of Sociology (1972) 719-730, Men in Black (London: Reaktion 1995) by John Harvey, Sex and Suits (New York: Knopf 1995) by Anne Hollander, The Three-Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity: England, 1550-1850 (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 2002) by David Kuchta, 'Of Uniform Appearance: a Symbol of School Discipline and Governmentality' by Daphne Meadmore & Colin Symes in 17(2) Discourse (1996) 209-225 and 'Trying to Look Different: Hijab as the Self-Presentation of Social Distinctions' by Norma Moruzzi in 28 Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East (2008) 225-234.

Anxieties regarding particular textiles and patterns are highlighted in The Cultural Politics of Fur (Ithaca: Cornell Uni Press 1997) by Julia Emberley, The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes & Striped Fabric (New York: Columbia Uni Press 2001) by Michel Pastoreau.

     regimes

Among more detailed studies are -

• Italy
  Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500 (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2002) by Catherine Killerby, 'Sumptuary laws and social relations in Renaissance Italy' by Diane Hughes in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1983) edited by John Bossy, 'Sumptuary laws and prostitution in late medieval Italy' by James Brundage in 13 Journal of Medieval History (1987) 343-355, 'Practical problems in the enforcement of Italian sumptuary law, 1200-1500' by Catherine Kovesi-Killerby in Crime and Disorder in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1993) edited by Katherine Lowe 99-120, Gilding the Market: Luxury and Fashion in Fourteenth-Century Italy (Philadelphia: Uni of Pennsylvania Press 2006) by Susan Stuard, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, & Fine Clothing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 2002) by Carole Frick, ''Pagare le pompe': Why Quattrocento Sumptuary Law Did Not Work' by Jane Bridgeman in Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society (Oxford: Ozford Uni Press 2000) 209-221 and 'Distinguishing Signs: Ear-Rings, Jews and Franciscan Rhetoric in the Italian Renaissance City' by Diane Hughes in 112 Past and Present (1986) 3-59.
• Germany and Switzerland
  'Ira Dei, Material Culture, and Behavior in the Late Middle Ages: Evidence from German-speaking Europe' by Gerhard Jaritz in 18 Essays in Medieval Studies (2001) 53-66, Sumptuary Law in Nürnberg: A Study in Paternal Government (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Vol. XXXVI) (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 1918) by Kent Greenfield, Costume and Conduct in the Laws of Basel, Bern and Zurich 1370-1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni Press 1935) by John Martin Vincent, 'Sitten und Mode: Fashion, Gender, and Public Identities in Hamburg' by Katherine Aaslestad in Gender in Transition: Discourse and Practice in German-Speaking Europe 1750-1830 (Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press 2006) edited by Ulrike Gleixner & Marion Gray,
• France
  'Anxiety, Hierarchy, and Appearance in Thirteenth-Century Sumptuary Laws and the Roman de la rose' by Sarah-Grace Heller in 27(2) French Historical Studies (2004) 311-348, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the ancien régime (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1996) by Daniel Roche
• Spain
  'Dressing Up and Dressing Down: Clothing and Class Identity in the Novelas ejemplares' by Darcy Donahue in 24(1) Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America (2004) 105-18.
• England
  Body Narratives: Writing the Nation and Fashioning the Subject in Early Modern England (New York: St Martin's Press 2000) by Susanne Scholz, 'Tudor Sumptuary Laws and Academical Dress: An Act Against Wearing of Costly Apparel 1509 and an Act for Reformation of Excess in Apparel 1533' by Noel Cox in 6 Transactions of the Burgon Society (2006) 15-43, 'State control of dress and social change in pre-industrial England' by Harte in Trade, Government and Economy in Pre-industrial England (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1976) 132-65, 'Masculinities and the Medieval English Sumptuary Laws' by
  Kim Phillips in 19(1) Gender & History (2007) 22-42 and 'Silk and Sumptuary Legislation in England' by Negley Harte in La Seta in Europa, Sec. XIII-XX (Florence: Istituto Internazionale di Storia economica 1993) edited by Simonetta Cavaciocchi.
• China
  'Spatial order and police in imperial Beijing' by Alison Dray-Novey in 52(4) Journal of Asian Studies (1993) 885-922, 'Dressing for power: Rite, costume, and state authority in Ming Dynasty China' by Yuan Zujie in 2(2) Frontiers of History in China (2007) 181-212
• Japan
  'Sumptuary regulation and status in early Tokugawa Japan' by Shively in 25 Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (1965) 123-134.

     contemporary debate

Works on current clothing regimes are highlighted here.

They include The Politics of the Veil (Princeton: Princeton Uni 2007) by Joan Scott, Human Rights & Religion: The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford: Hart 2007) by Dominic McGoldrick, 'It's not because you wear a hijab, it's because you're Muslim: Inconsistencies in South Australia's discrimination laws' by Anne Hewitt in QUT Law & Justice Journal (2007) here, 'The Islamic Scarf in the European Court of Human Rights' by Carolyn Evans in Melbourne Journal of International Law (2006) here and 'Covering Islam: Burqa and Hijab - Limits to the Human Right to Religion' by Paul Morris in 2 Human Rights Research Journal (2004) (PDF).

Points of entry to the literature on Australian discrimination law are here.





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