사회의 변화에 맞추어 법령 새로 해석하기－튜더 초기 사치금지법의 예를 중심으로－

Abstract

Most historians thought that the studies on the Sumptuary Laws in England had been studied almost exhaustively with Frances Baldwin's Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England in 1926. One of the prime reasons was that the book comprehensively introduced all the major articles of the laws accompanying almost complete interpretations relating to the laws. It was, however, too soon to declare the virtual end of the historiography of the topic. After Baldwin, historians have experienced revolutionary development in communication and challenge of postmodernism. With the influence of the two significant trends, historians are able to see many new aspects of the laws. They now understand the historiographies of the laws in major European countries and realize that their national historical experiences of the sumptuary laws, including English experience, basically share the major characteristics of the laws in Europe. The postmodernists also have stimulated to reveal hidden natures of the laws. In the view of postmodernism, the sumptuary laws were not social but ideological laws, the legislators made the articles of the laws only as 'text' in postmodern sense, and they left the text to the 'readers' that is also a postmodern terminology. This study discusses various interpretations of the laws reflecting recent studies of the laws in European and postmodern context laying emphasis on the English sumptuary laws in the early Tudor period. The English sumptuary laws had a few different characteristics compared to those of the continent; they were the laws of centralized government based on Parliamentary statutes, the English tried to regulate men's sumptuary practices, not women's which were prime concerns in the continent, and the numbers of the English laws were significantly smaller than those of continental countries and cities. However, other than these English characteristics, basic features of the English laws were similar to those of the continent. Approving postmodern views, we can also understand many new aspects of the sumptuary laws. The English sumptuary laws, like the continental ones, were the products of culture of the day and we can see the society and culture through the lens of the laws. The legislators tried to manipulate culture and tradition to keep the society in order and to maintain traditional visible code and legibility related to apparels and decorations of the body. The laws were not effectively enforced and it is even possible to imagine that the sumptuary laws were designed not to eradicate sumptuary behavior but to discipline imagined lower class members to obey unwritten ideological custom of the day. The legislators left the laws as text. The authorities of the day read the laws as they wished to do so, and contemporary and future historians will also read the text as they like to do and will suggest extremely diverse views on the texts. The studies of the sumptuary laws have not been finished with Baldwin's monumental work.