Plague Prosperity Triggered Sumptuary Laws

The Black Death raised the wages and personal wealth of the peasants, and in 1363 the English Parliament passed the Statute Concerning Diet and Apparel to prevent the lower classes from eating, drinking and dressing like the elite. Population loss had consolidated property and liberated many previously bonded laborers, allowing ordinary people to display their new prosperity. The law prescribed what food, drink and clothing might be used by various social groups in an attempt to preserve visible class distinctions. First introduced in England and Wales, Poynings' Law extended it to Ireland in 1495.

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