ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Historica Upsaliensia 269 Utgivna Av Historiska Institutionen Vid Uppsala Universitet Geno
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ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Historica Upsaliensia 269 Utgivna av Historiska institutionen vid Uppsala universitet genom Margaret Hunt och Maria Ågren Astrid Pajur Dress Matters Clothes and Social Order in Tallinn, 1600–1700 Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Sal IX, Universitetshuset, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, Friday, 5 June 2020 at 13:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Special Supervisor in History Janine Maegraith (Newnham College, University of Cambridge). Abstract Pajur, A. 2020. Dress Matters. Clothes and Social Order in Tallinn, 1600-1700. Studia Historica Upsaliensia 269. 279 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0942-2. This dissertation explores the relationship of clothes and social order in early modern Europe. The period has often been characterised as inert and immobile, with especially middling and poorer people living in a sartorially drab world, but a number of historians have demonstrated that it was also a period of profound material change, with consumer demand, democratisation of fashion and global trade engendering cosmopolitan sensibilities earlier than thought. Based on an examination of seventeenth-century Tallinn, I analyse how social order influenced sartorial expression and how clothes shaped order through affirmation, negotiation and subversion. The interaction between clothes and social order was complex, with both elements acting as moving parts within the ideal. While on the normative level, clothes were thought to have the primary function of visualising order, on the everyday level clothes could often obscure order and complicate the desired visualisation. Through the circulation of clothing as fungible items and as mediators of intricate emotions and social relations, much of clothes’ complexity in the seventeenth century stemmed from their resistance to being anchored to a single function, whether manifesting status, demonstrating appreciation or helping poor people survive. The results arrived at have two key implications. Firstly, Tallinn, while undeniably an unequal and hierarchical society, was hardly static. The inherent dynamism suggests that social order, rather than being considered as an independent structure, should be viewed as negotiable and requiring the participation of people, space and materiality. Secondly, the study problematises the chronology that has a modern consumer society gradually replacing the ancien régime of fashion. Rather than an uncomplicated narrative of progress, I argue that aspects of both systems co-existed in parallel within a society that did not necessarily demonstrate any of the other tendencies assumed by proponents of ‘consumer revolution’. Keywords: dress history, material culture, seventeenth century, social order, Sweden, Tallinn, social hierarchy, early modern guilds, consumer revolution, fashion, clothing Astrid Pajur, Department of History, Box 628, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Astrid Pajur 2020 ISSN 0081-6531 ISBN 978-91-513-0942-2 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-407017 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-407017) Table of Contents Foreword ....................................................................................................................... ix Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ xi CHAPTER 1 Introduction and Research Framework .......................................... 13 1.1 Delimitations of the study .......................................................................... 15 1.1.1 Why clothes? ...................................................................................... 15 1.1.2 The consumer revolution and its critics ........................................ 19 1.2 Analytical concepts ...................................................................................... 21 1.2.1 Clothes as material culture .............................................................. 21 1.2.2 Social order ........................................................................................ 23 1.3 Design of the study ..................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 2 Method and Source Material ............................................................ 29 2.1 Method .......................................................................................................... 30 2.2 Sumptuary laws and the control of clothing ........................................... 31 2.3 Taking stock: inventories ........................................................................... 35 2.4 Early modern wills: negotiating relationships ......................................... 40 2.5 Social history through the lens of court records .................................... 44 2.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 49 CHAPTER 3 Tallinn in the Seventeenth Century ................................................. 51 3.1 A divided town ............................................................................................ 53 3.2 The social composition of Tallinn ............................................................ 57 3.3 A rigid corporatist system? ......................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 4 Distinguishing Difference ................................................................. 65 4.1 Discursive orders ......................................................................................... 66 4.1.1 Men within and beyond the corporatist framework ................... 68 4.1.2 The women of Tallinn ..................................................................... 74 4.1.3 Servants .............................................................................................. 79 4.1.4 Ethnicity ............................................................................................. 81 4.2 Sartorial signs ............................................................................................... 82 4.2.1 Fabric .................................................................................................. 82 4.2.2 Accessories ......................................................................................... 87 4.2.3 Financial value ................................................................................... 90 4.2.4 Occasion and space .......................................................................... 90 4.3 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 92 CHAPTER 5 Knowing Me, Knowing You ............................................................ 95 5.1 Motivating order .......................................................................................... 96 5.1.1 A godly worldview ............................................................................ 98 5.1.2 An orderly economy ....................................................................... 101 5.2 Observing and ordering people............................................................... 105 5.3 Negotiating order ...................................................................................... 109 5.3.1 Clothes and corporatist conflicts .................................................. 109 5.3.2 Hat honour ...................................................................................... 117 5.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 120 CHAPTER 6 Something Old, Something New: Clothing Resources of Early Modern Households ................................................................................................. 123 6.1 Clothing in inventories ............................................................................. 123 6.2 Going through the wardrobe ................................................................... 130 6.2.1 Taking stock of silk......................................................................... 130 6.2.2 All fur coats and no knickers ........................................................ 133 6.2.3 Bells and whistles ............................................................................ 136 6.2.4 Old and new garments ................................................................... 139 6.2.5 Colour ............................................................................................... 140 6.2.6 Change and continuity in the seventeenth century ................... 141 6.3 The tales clothes can tell .......................................................................... 155 6.3.1 A complicated family story – merchant Jürgen Schade and his wife Catharina Gorries ............................................................................. 155 6.3.2 ‘A poor widow’ – butcher’s wife Birgitta Falck ......................... 158 6.3.3 Intermediary of the Orient – doctor Hartmann Graman ........ 160 6.3.4 The small luxuries of journeyman Marcus Hasse ...................... 165 6.3.5 Inconspicuous yet comfortable – town council cook Johan Ast .......................................................................................................... 167 6.4 Clothes – transgressive or compliant? .................................................... 168 6.4.1 Ambiguities and inconsistencies ..................................................