Abstract

This study is an examination of attempts to control dress in late medieval England. Concerns about dress expressed in sumptuary legislation and conduct literature were demonstrative of deeper anxieties about gender, class, status, the interrelationship between medieval contemporaries, nationhood and morality. Clothing was especially targeted because it was an important marker of status and of individuals' morals. However, the lack of evidence of enforcement of sumptuary legislation and the limited scope of this type of legislation demonstrates a certain ambivalence towards a strict control of what individuals wore. Clothing played an important role in social negotiations. Late medieval society was extremely hierarchical and yet these hierarchies were somewhat fluid, which was both a source of confusion and opportunity.