by Charlemagne in Westphalia put every
Saxon to death who broke his fast during Lent. James II. of Arragon, in
1234, ordained that his subjects should not have more than two dishes,
and each dressed in one way only, unless it was game of his own killing.

The Statute of Diet of 1363 enjoined that servants of lords should have
once a day flesh or fish, and remnants of milk, butter and cheese; and
above all, ploughmen were to eat moderately. And the proclamations of
Edward IV. and Henry VIII. used to restrain excess in eating and
drinking. All previous statutes as to abstaining from meat and fasting
were repealed in the time of Edward VI. by new enactments, and in order
that fishermen might live, all persons were bound under penalty to eat
fish on Fridays or Saturdays, or in Lent, the old and the sick excepted.
The penalty in Queen Elizabeth's time was no less than three pounds or
three months' imprisonment, but at the same time added that whoever
preached or taught that eating of fish was necessary for the saving of
the soul of man, or was the service of God, was to be punished as a
spreader of false news. And care was taken to announce that the eating
of fish was enforced not out of superstition, but solely out of respect
to the increase of fishermen and mariners. The exemption of the sick
from these penalties was abolished by James I., and justices were
authorized to enter victualing houses and search and forfeit the meat
found there. All these preposterous enactments were swept away in the
reign of Victoria.

Of all the petty subjects threatening the cognizance of the law, none
seems to have given more trouble to the ancient and mediaeval
legislatures than that of dress. * * * Yet views of morality, of
repressing luxury and vice, of benefiting manufacturers, of keeping all
degrees of mankind in their proper places, have induced the legislature
to interfere, where interference, in order to be thorough, would require
to be as endless as it would be objectless.

Solon prohibited women from going out of the town with more than three
dresses. Zaleucus is said to have invented an ingenious method of
circuitously putting down what he thought bad habits, namely, by
prohibiting things with an exception, so that the exception should, in
the guise of an exemption, really carry out the sting and operate as a
deterrent. Thus he forbade a woman to have more than one maid, unless
she was drunk; he forbade her to wear jewels or em