Here is a 16th.-Century Social Stereotype

& the Focus of my Current Research ,
dealing with Elizabethan Sumptuary Regulation of Apparel & Costume in Shakespeare's Plays & on His Stage

"the naturall dysposicion of an Englishman"--Boorde, p. 116-7
[I'm naked, as I can't settle what to wear. {in margin}]
I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musyng in my mynde what rayment I shall were;
For now I wyll were thys, and now I wyl were that;
Now I wyl were I cannot tel what.
[I like new fashions{in margin}]
All new fashyons be pleasaunt to me;
I wyl haue them, whether I thryue or thee
Now I am frysker, all men doth on me looke;
What should I do, but set cocke on the hoope?
What do I care, yf all the worlde me fayle?
[I'll get a garment to reach to my tail.{in margin}]
I wyll get my garment, shal reche to my tayle;
Then am I a minion, for I were the new gyse
The next yere after this I trust to be wyse,
Not only in wering my gorgious aray,
[Next year I'll take to learning. {in margin}]
For I wyl go to learnynga hoole somers day;
I wyll learne Latyne, Hebrew, Greeke and Frenche,
And I wyl learne Douche, sittyng on my benche.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Yet aboue al thinges, new fashions I loue well,
And to were them, my thryft I wyl sell.
In all this worlde, I shall haue but a time;
Holde the cuppe, good felow, here is thyne and myne!

--This woodcut and its accompanying text are invoked with predictable regularity in 16th-Century Social Commentary on the wearing of allegedly outragious apparel in England , beginning with Andrew Boorde's Introduction and Dyetary (1542, dedicated to the Princess Mary). For example, the main arguments re-appear in the Elizabethan bishops' An Homily Against Excess of Apparel(1563), in William Harrisons' Description of England(1587) and in Philip Stubbes' Anatomy of the Abuses in England(1583), which also reproduces the above woodcut

So far I have researched the nature and significance of Tudor Sumptuary Regulations (primarily the texts of Statutes and Royal Proclamations, as well as enforcement evidence available in British national and some municipal archives) and traced their influence in papers examining the following plays by Shakespeare:

Love's Labor's Lost;

Cymbeline;

The Merry Wives of Windsor;

The Taming of the Shrew;

The Twelfth Night; and

As You Like It
Access to the Text of my Magic in the Web . . . Presentation (M/MLA,1996)
Access to the text of my Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew as a Comedy of Marriage, not Courtship Paper (M/MLA, 1997).
Access to the text of my Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost As An Anatomie of Abuses PaperSubmitted to the Central Renaissance Conference, Kansas City, 1998).

I have also examined and read a paper on Henslowe's Diary as a source for costuming practices on the Elizabethan stage. My reason for placing that information here is that I hope and expect to provoke responses from other scholars working on or interested in this "hitherto largely unexamined"(a valid claim, for a change!) influence on Shakespeare and his plays. Thank you, cpb

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