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SUMPTUARY LAWS (from Lat. sumptuarius...

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 85 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SUMPTUARY See also:

LAWS (from See also:Lat. sumptuarius, belonging to cost or expense, sum plus) , those laws intended to limit or regulate the private See also:expenditure of the citizens of a community. They may be dictated by See also:political, or economic, or moral considerations. They have existed both in See also:ancient and in See also:modern states. In See also:Greece, it was amongst the Dorian races, whose See also:temper was austere and rigid, that they most prevailed. All the inhabitants of See also:Laconia were forbidden to attend drinking entertainments, nor could a Lacedaemonian possess a See also:house or See also:furniture which was the See also:work of more elaborate implements than the See also:axe and saw. Among the Spartans proper See also:simple and frugal habits of See also:life were secured rather by the institution of the pheiditia (public meals) than by See also:special enactments. The See also:possession of See also:gold or See also:silver was interdicted to the citizens of See also:Sparta, and the use of See also:iron See also:money alone was permitted by the Lycurgean legislation. " Even in the cities which had See also:early departed from the Doric customs," says K. O. See also:Muller, " there were frequent and strict prohibitions against expensiveness of See also:female attire, prostitutes alone being wisely excepted." In the Locrian See also:code of See also:Zaleucus citizens were forbidden to drink undiluted See also:wine. The Soloman sumptuary enactments were directed principally against the extravagance of female See also:apparel and dowries of excessive amount; costly banquets also were forbidden, and expensive funeral solemnities. The Pythagoreans in Magna Graecia not only protested against the luxury of their See also:time but encouraged legislation with a view to restraining it.

At See also:

Rome the See also:system of sumptuary edicts and enactments was largely See also:developed, whilst the See also:objects of such legislation were concurrently sought to bA attained through the exercise of the censorial See also:power. The code of the Twelve Tables contained provisions limiting the expenditure on funerals. The most important sumptuary laws of the See also:Roman See also:commonwealth are the following:— (I) The See also:Oppian See also:law, 215 B.C., provided that no woman should possess more than See also:half an See also:ounce of gold, or See also:wear a See also:dress of different See also:colours, or ride in a See also:carriage in the See also:city or within a mile of it except on occasions of public religious ceremonies. This law, which had been partly dictated by the See also:financial necessities of the conflict with See also:Hannibal, was repealed twenty years later, against the See also:advice of See also:Cato. See also:Livy (xxxiv. 1–8) gives an interesting See also:account of the commotion excited by the proposal of the See also:repeal, and of the exertions of the Roman See also:women against the law, which almost amounted to a female emeute. (2) The Orchian law, 187 B.C., limited the number of guests at entertainments. An See also:attempt being made to repeal this law, Cato offered strong opposition and delivered a speech on the subject, of which some fragments have been preserved. (3) The Fannian law, 161 B.C., limited the sums to be spent on entertainments; it provided amongst other things that no See also:fowl should be served but a single See also:hen, and that not fattened. (4) The Didian law, 143 B.c., extended to the whole of See also:Italy the provisions of the Fannian law, and made the guests as well as the givers of entertainments at which the law was violated liable to the penalties. After a considerable See also:interval. See also:Sulla anew directed legislation against the luxury of the table and also limited the cost of funerals and of sepulchral monuments.

We are told that he violated his own law as to funerals when burying his wife Metella, and also his law on entertainments when seeking to forget his grief for her loss in extravagant drinking and feasting (Plut. Sidi. 35). See also:

Julius See also:Caesar, in the capacity of praefectus moribus, after the See also:African See also:War re-enacted some of the sumptuary laws which had fallen into neglect; See also:Cicero implies (Ep. ad AU. xiii. 7) that in Caesar's See also:absence his legis. lation of this See also:kind was not attended to. Suetonius tells us that Caesar had See also:officers stationed in the See also:market-places to seize such provisions as were forbidden by law, and sent See also:lictors and soldiers to feasts to remove all illegal eatables (Jul. 43). See also:Augustus fixed anew the expense to be incurred in entertainments on See also:ordinary and festal days. Tiberius also sought to check inordinate expense on banquets. and a See also:decree of the See also:senate was passed in his reign forbid-ding the use of gold vases except in sacred See also:rites, and prohibiting the wearing of See also:silk garments by men. But it appears from See also:Tacitus (See also:Ann. iii. 5, where a speech is put into his mouth very much in the spirit of See also:Horace's" Quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt? ") that he looked more to the improvement of See also:manners than to See also:direct legislative See also:action for the restriction of luxury.

Suetonius mentions some regulations made by See also:

Nero, and we hear of further legislation of this kind by See also:Hadrian and later emperors. In the time of See also:Tertullian the sumptuary laws appear to have been things of the past (Apol. c. vi.). In modern times the first important sumptuary legislation was: in Italy that of See also:Frederick II.; in See also:Aragon that of See also:James I., in 1234; in See also:France that of See also:Philip IV.; in See also:England that of See also:Edward II. and Edward III. In 1294 Philip IV. made provisions as to the dress and the table expenditure of the several orders of men in his See also:kingdom. See also:Charles V. of France forbade the use of See also:long-pointed shoes, a See also:fashion against which popes and See also:councils had protested in vain. Under later See also:kings the use of gold and silver See also:embroidery, silk stuffs and See also:fine See also:linen wares was restricted —at first moral and afterwards economic motives being put forward, the latter especially from the rise of the See also:mercantile theory. In England we hear much from the writers of the 14th See also:century of the extravagance of dress at that See also:period. They remark both on the See also:great splendour and expensiveness of the apparel of the higher orders and on the fantastic and deforming fashions adopted by persons of all ranks. The See also:parliament held at See also:Westminster in 1363 made laws (37 Edw. III. c. 8-14) to restrain this undue expenditure and to regulate the dress of the several classes of the See also:people. These statutes were repealed in the following See also:year, but similar ones were passed again in the same reign.

They seem, however, to have had little effect, for in the reign of See also:

Richard II. the same excesses prevailed, apparently in a still greater degree. Another See also:statute was passed in the year 1463 (3 Edw. IV. c. 5) for the regulation of the dress of persons of all ranks. In this it was stated that " the See also:commons of the See also:realm, as well men as women, wear excessive and inordinate apparel to the great displeasure of See also:God, the enriching of See also:strange realms, and the destruction of this realm." An See also:act of 1444 had previously regulated the clothing, when it formed See also:part of the See also:wages, of servants employed in husbandry: a See also:bailiff or overseer was to have an See also:allowance of 5s. a year for his clothing, a See also:hind or See also:principal servant 4S., and an ordinary servant 3S. 4d.—sums See also:equivalent respectively to 50S., 4os. and 33s. 4d. of our money (See also:Henry). Already in the reign of Edward II. a See also:proclamation had been issued against the " outrageous and excessivemultitude of meats and dishes which the great men of the kingdom had used, and still used, in their castles," as well as " per-sons of inferior See also:rank imitating their example, beyond what their stations required and their circumstances could afford "; and the See also:rule was laid down that the great men should have but two courses of flesh See also:meat served up to their tables, and on See also:fish days two courses of fish, each course consisting of but two kinds. In 1336 Edward III. attempted also to legislate against luxurious living, and in 1363, at the same time when costumes were regulated, it was enacted that the servants of gentlemen, merchants and artificers should have only one See also:meal of flesh or fish in the See also:day, and that their other See also:food should consist of See also:milk, See also:butter and See also:cheese. Similar acts to those above mentioned were passed in See also:Scotland also. In 1433 (temp. James I.), by an act of a parliament which sat at See also:Perth, the manner of living of all orders in Scotland was prescribed, and in particular the use of pies and baked meats, which had been only lately introduced into the See also:country, was forbidden to all under the rank of See also:baron.

In 1457 (temp. James II.) an act was passed against " sumptuous cleithing." A Scottish sumptuary law of 1621 was the last of the kind in Great See also:

Britain. In See also:Japan sumptuary laws have been passed with a frequency and minuteness of See also:scope such as has no parallel in the See also:history of the western See also:world. At the beginning of the 11th century we find an Imperial See also:edict regulating the See also:size of a house and even imposing restrictions as to the materials of which it is to be built. But it was during the See also:Tokugawa period that sumptuary laws and regulations were passed in the most bewildering profusion; every detail of a See also:man's life was regulated down to the least particular—from the wearing of a See also:beard or the dressing of the See also:hair down to the cost of his wife's hairpins or the See also:price of his See also:child's See also:doll A. See also:Ferguson and others have pointed out that " luxury " is a See also:term of relative import and that all luxuries do not deserve to be discouraged. See also:Roscher has called See also:attention to the fact that the nature of the prevalent luxury changes with the See also:stage of social development. He endeavours to show that there are three periods in the history of luxury—one in which it is coarse and profuse; a second in which it aims mainly at comfort and elegance; and a third, proper to periods of decadence, in which it is perverted to vicious and unnatural ends. The second of these began, in modern times, with the emergence of the Western nations from the See also:medieval period, and in the ancient communities at epochs of similar transition. Roscher holds that the sumptuary legislation which regularly appears at the opening of this stage was then useful as promoting the See also:reformation of habits. He remarks that the contemporary formation of strong governments, disposed from the consciousness of their strength to interfere with the lives of their subjects, tended to encourage such legislation, as did also the See also:jealousy. See also:felt by the hitherto dominant ranks of the rising See also:wealth of the See also:citizen classes, who are See also:apt to imitate the conduct of their superiors. It is certainly desirable that habits of wasteful expenditure and frequent and wanton changes of fashion should be discouraged.

But such action belongs more properly to the spiritual than to the temporal power. In ancient, especially Roman, life, when there was a confusion of the two See also:

powers in the See also:state system, sumptuary legislation was more natural than in the modern world, in which those powers have been in See also:general really, though impertectly, separated. Political economists are practically unanimous in their reprobation of the policy of legislative compulsion in these matters. In a well-known passage See also:Adam See also:Smith protests against the " impertinence and presumption of kings and ministers in pretending to See also:watch over the See also:economy of private people and to restrain their expense, being themselves always and without any exception the greatest spendthrifts in the society." Yet he does not seem to have been averse from all attempts to See also:influence through See also:taxation the expenditure of the humbler classes. The modern taxes on carriages, coats of arms, male servants, playing See also:cards, &c., ought perhaps not to be regarded as resting on the principle of sumptuary laws, but only as means of proportioning taxation to the capacity of bearing the See also:burden. The loci classici on Roman sumptuary laws are See also:Gellius, Nodes atticae, ii. 24, and See also:Macrobius, See also:Saturn. In. 17. For Great Britain see Henry of See also:Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum (" Rolls See also:Series," ed. T. See also:Arnold, 1879) ; W.

See also:

Cunningham, Growth of See also:English See also:Industry and i See See also:Captain F. Brinkley's Japan, its History, Arts and Literature (1904), i. 138, 205, 140-144, ii. 98, 99, iv. 157-162; Trans. of the See also:Asiatic See also:Soc. of Japan, vol. xix., " Notes on See also:Land See also:Tenure and See also:Local Institutions in Old Japan," ed. by See also:Professor J.H.Wigmore; trot. xx., " Materials for the Study of Private Law in Old Japan," by Professor Wigmore. See also:Commerce; W. J. See also:Ashley, introduction to English Economic History and Theory (1893); W. See also:Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century (1888). One of the best extant treatments of the whole subject is that by Roscher, in his See also:essay, Uber den Luxus, republished in his Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft auf dem geschichtlichen Standpunkte (3rd ed., 1878). (J. K.

End of Article: SUMPTUARY LAWS (from Lat. sumptuarius, belonging to cost or expense, sum plus)

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