It was an age of interference in the affairs of men, the strong against the weak. It was in these trade regulations, and in sumptuary laws, the superstition of political economy and social statics, that the science of ignorance culminated. It was then that learned men threw dust into the air, cast a cloud about their own intellect, and labored hard to inculcate the principles of nescience into the minds of men. In England the number of servants a nobleman might have was fixed by law, as was also costume, and the number of courses at dinner. Soup and two dishes legally constituted a Frenchman's dinner in 1340.
Ferdinand and Isabella were, perhaps, the most parentally inclined of all. No affair, religious, moral, political, judicial, economical, literary, industrial, mechanical, or mercantile could escape their attention. From the regulation and organization of the high councils, and of the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, to the ordinances for the leather-dressers and cloth-shearers; from the decrees concerning the universities and the literary and scientific bodies, to the orders that prescribed the weight of horseshoes; from the general laws on commerce and navigation, to those which fixed the expenditure at weddings and baptisms, and the amount of wax to be burned at funerals; from the highest interests and rights of religion and of the throne, down to the most humble and mechanical industries—all were considered, legislated upon, and seen to by their Catholic Majesties, with infinite pains and vigilance. In 1510, thinking the colonists of Española too fond of ostentation and extravagance, Ferdinand issued a proclamation, forbidding them to wear rich silks, brocades, or gold or silver lace. Owners of vessels, in times of peace, were forced to engage at fixed prices in perilous voyages of discovery or commerce.
In England it appears that the dress of the men commanded the special attention of their rulers. Spaniards made men and women alike to feel the iron heel of sumptuary legislation; while the English, in laws of nearly coincident date, for the most part omitted the sex. By distinctive qualities, Edward IV., 1461-1483, regulated the dress of his people—from the royal cloth-of-gold down to the two-shillings-a-yard, and under, cloth of the laboring classes; but, if we may believe Sanford, he took care to exempt his women subjects from the provisions of this act, save only the wives of the two-shillings-a-yard boor, who might be expected to have other things to attend to.