] 76 Dress According to Statute. 



book being inoperative, no fresh law was enacted, embracing 

 the whole subject of dress, till the third year of Edward IV. 

 After the troubles in Richard the Second s reign, an act was 

 passed, forbidding husbandmen and labourers to wear sword, 

 buckler, or dagger, but this was not so much in restraint of 

 extravagance as a police regulation, being tantamount to an 

 order for the disarming of those who had lately been so trou- 

 blesome and formidable. A statute of the 20 Richard II. 

 also particularized those who only might wear another's livery, 

 but this too was rather meant to put a stop to those Capulet 

 and Montagu faction disturbances, which were so rife among 

 the followers of the English noblemen. 



The 3 Edward IV., c. 5, recites, " Item prayen the 

 Commons in the said Parliament assembled to our said sove- 

 reign lord the king to reduce to his gracious remembrance 

 that in the time of his noble progenitors divers ordinances 

 and statutes were made in this realm of England for the 

 apparel and array of the Commons of the said realm, as 

 well of men as of women, so that none of them ought 

 to use nor wear any inordinate and excessive apparel, but 

 only according to their degrees, which statutes and ordi- 

 nances notwithstanding, for default of punishment and putting 

 them in due execution, the Commons of the said realm, as 

 well men as women, have worn and daily do wear excessive 

 and inordinate array and apparel, to the great displeasure of 

 God and impoverishing of this realm of England, and to the 

 enriching of other strange realms and countries to the final 

 destruction of the husbandry of the said realm." It is then 

 ordered that no knight under the degree of a lord, nor his wife 

 or child, shall (C wear any manner cloth of gold, or any courses 

 wrought with gold, or any furr of sables," under a penalty of 

 £20. No knight bachelor, nor his wife, to wear " cloth of 

 velvet upon velvet," except such knights as be of the Order of 

 the Garter ; and none but a lord to wear purple silk, under a 

 penalty of £10. 



2. No esquire or gentleman under the degree of a knight 

 to wear any " velvet, satin branched, nor any counterfeit cloth 

 of silk resembling to the same, or any courses wrought like to 

 velvet or to satin branched, or any furr of ermine." 



:!. No man having less than £40 a year to wear any "furr 

 of martrons (Fanes) 3 letuse [pure gray or pure nryniver]." 



4. No widow having less than £40 a year to wear any 

 " coverchief whereof the price of a plito shall exceed the sum 

 of iij shillings, four pence." 



5. Persons with less than forty shillings a year were not to 

 wear any " fustian, bustian, nor fustian of Naples, scarlet cloth 

 in grain, nor no furr, but black or white lamb." Women were 



