The fundamental cause of all this legislation was sheer conservatism. [Sidenote: Spirit of conservatism] Primitive men and savages have so strong a feeling of the sanction of custom that they have, as Bagehot expresses it, fairly screwed themselves down by their unreasoning demands for conformity. A good deal of this spirit has survived throughout history and far more of it, naturally, was found four centuries ago than at present, when reason has proved a solvent for so many social institutions. There are a good many laws of the period under survey—such as that of Nuremberg against citizens parting their hair—for which no discoverable basis can be found save the idea that new-fangled fashions should not be allowed.
Economic reasons also played their part in the regulation of the habits of the people. Thus a law of Edward VI, after a preamble setting forth that divers kinds of food are indifferent before God, nevertheless commands all men to eat fish as heretofore on fast days, not as a religious duty but to encourage fishermen, give them a livelihood and thus train men for the navy.
A third very strong motive in the mind of the {484} sixteenth-century statesmen, was that of differentiating the classes of citizens. The blue laws, if they may be so called in this case, were secretions of the blue blood. To make the vulgar know their places it was essential to make them dress according to their rank. The intention of An Act for the Reformation of excess in Apparel, [Sidenote: Apparel according to rank] passed by the English Parliament in 1532, was stated to be,
the necessary repressing and avoiding and expelling of the excess daily more used in the sumptuous and costly apparel and array accustomably worn in this Realm, whereof hath ensued and daily do chance such sundry high and notorious detriments of the common weal, the subversion of good and politic order in knowledge and distinction of people according to their estates, pre-eminences, dignities and degrees to the utter impoverishment and undoing of many inexpert and light persons inclined to pride, mother of all vices.
The tenor of the act prescribes the garb appropriate to the royal family, to nobles of different degree, to citizens according to their income, to servants and husbandmen, to the clergy, doctors of divinity, soldiers, lawyers and players. Such laws were common in all countries. A Scotch act provides "that it be lauchful to na wemen to weir [clothes] abone [above] their estait except howries." This law was not only "apprevit" by King James VI, but endorsed with his own royal hand, "This acte is verray gude."
Excessive fare at feasts was provided against for similar reasons and with almost equal frequency. By an English proclamation [Sidenote: 1517] the number of dishes served was to be regulated according to the rank of the highest person present. Thus, if a cardinal was guest or host, there might be nine courses, if a lord of Parliament six, for a citizen with an income of five hundred pounds a year, three. Elsewhere the number of guests at all {485} ordinary functions as well as the number and price of gifts at weddings, christenings and like occasions, was prescribed.
[Sidenote: 1526]
Games of chance were frequently forbidden. Francis I ordered a lieutenant with twenty archers to visit taverns and gaming houses and arrest all players of cards, dice and other unlawful games. This did not prevent the establishment of a public lottery, [Sidenote: 1539] a practice justified by alleging the examples of Italian cities in raising revenue by this means. Henry III forbade all games of chance "to minors and other debauched persons," [Sidenote: 1577] and this was followed six years later by a crushing impost on cards and dice, interesting as one of the first attempts to suppress the instruments of vice through the taxing power. Merry England also had many laws forbidding "tennis, bowles, dicing and cards," the object being to encourage the practice of archery.
Tippling was the subject of occasional animadversion by the various governments, though there seemed to be little sentiment against it until the opening of the following century. The regulation of the number of taverns and of the amount of wine that might be kept in a gentleman's cellar, as prescribed in an English law, [Sidenote: 1553] mentions not the moral but the economic aspect of drinking. The purchase of French wines was said to drain England of money.
Though the theater also did not suffer much until the time of Cromwell, plays were forbidden in the precincts of the city of London. The Book of Discipline in Scotland forbade attendance at theaters. [Sidenote: 1574] Calvin thoroughly disapproved of them, and even Luther considered them "fools' work" and at times dangerous.