Fashion as the Regulation of Bodies: A Study in Medieval and Early Modern Sumptuary Regulations

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dc.contributor.advisorButler, Sara
dc.creatorPicht, Emma
dc.date.accessioned2021-04-29T21:33:18Z
dc.date.available2021-04-29T21:33:18Z
dc.date.issued2021-05
dc.description.abstractSumptuary laws were applied to all sexes during the Medieval and Early Modern era, but their propensity for specifically regulating women's fashion is incomparable to many other laws from the period. Florence established an entirely separate government office to exclusively deal with the excessive dress women wore and the fact that they were constantly circumventing regulations. To argue that these laws do not have a gendered aspect to their enactment is contrary to all of the evidence of how they were actually practiced in society. In fact, the key purpose of these laws was to regulate the bodies and sexuality of women and the poor. This practice is rooted in Early Christian traditions of asceticism which led to the creation of a 'culture of modesty'. This research project endeavors to explore exactly why sumptuary laws were created and applied to society, regardless of what their authors claimed the true intent to be. Sumptuary laws and fashion as topics of historical study are often overlooked for their reputation of being irrelevant to serious academic inquiry. Instead, clothing, behavior, and diet, all things regulated by sumptuary laws affected every status and class of people in near constancy. These primary sources are crucial to actually understanding the moral and ecclesiastical views on women and sexuality that influenced Medieval and Early Modern society.en_US
dc.description.academicmajorAcademic Major: Historyen_US
dc.description.embargoNo embargoen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1811/92642
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherThe Ohio State Universityen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesThe Ohio State University. Department of History Undergraduate Research Theses; 2021en_US
dc.subjectclothingen_US
dc.subjectfashionen_US
dc.subjectsumptuary lawen_US
dc.subjectreproductive rightsen_US
dc.subjectmedievalen_US
dc.subjectmodesty and asceticismen_US
dc.titleFashion as the Regulation of Bodies: A Study in Medieval and Early Modern Sumptuary Regulationsen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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