(Leges Sumptuariae), are laws made to restrain excess in apparel, costly furniture, eating, &c.

Most ages and nations have had their sumptuary laws; and some retain them still, as the Venetians, &c. But it is observed, that no laws are worse executed than sumptuary laws. Political writers have been much divided in opinion with respect to the utility of these laws to a state. Montefquieu observes, that luxury is necessary in monarchies, as in France, but ruinous to democracies, as in Holland. With regard to England, whose government is compounded of both species, it may still be a dubious question, says Judge Blackstone, how far private luxury is a public evil; and as such cognizable by public laws.

The sumptuary laws of the ancient Locrian legislator Zaleucus are famous: by these it was ordained, that no woman should go attended with more than one maid in the street except she were drunk: that she should not go out of the city in the night, unless she went to commit fornication: that she should not wear any gold or embroidered apparel, unless she proposed to be a common strumpet; and that men should not wear rings or tiaras except when they went a whoring, &c.

Among the Romans, the sumptuary laws were very numerous: By the Lex Orchia, the number of guests at feasts was limited, though without any limitation of the charges: by the Fannian law, made 22 years afterwards, it was enacted, that more than 10 asses should not be spent at any ordinary feast: for the solemn feasts, as the Saturnalia, &c. an hundred asses were allowed; ten of which, Gellius informs us, was the price of a sheep, and a hundred of an ox. By the Didian law, which was preferred 18 years after, it was decreed, that the former sumptuary laws should be in force, not only in Rome, but throughout all Italy; and that for every transgression, not only the master of the feast, but all the guests too, should be liable to the penalty.

The English have had their share of sumptuary laws, chiefly made in the reigns of Edward III. Edward IV. and Henry VIII. against those with long points, short doublets, and long coats; though all repealed by statute 1 Jac. I. c. 25. As to excess in diet, there remains still one law unrepealed. Under King Henry IV. Camden tells us, pride had got so much into the foot, that it was proclaimed, that no man should wear shoes above fix inches broad at the toes. And their other garments were so short, that it was enacted, 25 Edward IV. that no person, under the condition of a lord, should from that time, wear any mantle or gown, unless of such length, that, standing upright, it might cover the lower part of the trunk of his body.