172 Dress According to Statute. 



by the year (?) might wear six-mark cloth, but ' of none 

 higher price/ They might not wear cloth of gold, nor cloak, 

 mantle, or goun that was c furred with miniver/ nor sleeves 

 of ermine, nor anything that was set with precious stones, 

 excepting the head-dress ; they were not to use any ' turning up 

 of ermines, nor of letuses, ne clieres.' All knights and ladies 

 having land or rent exceeding the value of 400 marks by the 

 year, and not more than £1000 a year, might wear what they 

 liked, except ermine and letuse, and apparel adorned with 

 pearls and precious stones, though they might wear jewels in 

 their head-dresses. 



6. All clerks whose degree in college or church, and the 

 clerks of the king whose position required the use of fur, might 

 do according to the constitution of their society. All other 

 clerks having 200 marks a year out of land might do as knights 

 having the same rent ; and clerks having less than this amount 

 from rent were to be subject to the same restriction as esquires 

 with £100 a year of rent. It was also provided that f all 

 knights and clerks who by this ordinance may wear furr in 

 winter, shall wear lawn in summer/ 



7. Carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, oxherds, 

 cowherds, shepherds, deyars (dairymen) and swineherds, and 

 all other keepers of beasts, threshers of corn, and all manner 

 of people of the estate of a groom attending to husbandry, and 

 all other people that had not forty shillings of goods, " shall 

 not take nor wear no manner of cloth, but blanket and russet 

 (wool) of twelve pence; and shall wear the girdles of linen 

 according to their estate ; and that they come to eat and drink 

 in the manner as jpertaineth to them, and not excessively" 



The penalty provided as the sanction to this elaborate law 

 was forfeiture to the king of all the apparel worn " against the 

 form of this ordinance." 



There seems to be some doubt whether this statute was 

 not repealed the year after it was passed, though Hawkins and 

 several other editors of the statutes are of opinion that it was 

 not repealed till the 24 Hen. VIII., c. 13, and finally and com- 

 pletely by 1 Jac. I., c. 25. There is certainly in the words 

 of the short second chapter of the first statute passed in 

 38 Edward III. something more than a suggestion that the 

 law of the previous parliament was meant to be repealed, 

 but the meaning is not clear, and the wording being very 

 ambiguous, any conclusion arrived at from it must be very 

 far from satisfactory. The preamble to the first sumptuary 

 law of Edward IV., which is given further on, would lead one 

 to suppose that Edward III/s statute had not been repealed, 

 but had only been inoperative because it had not been put in 

 action. 



