Women’s Fashions and Politics in Seventeenth-Century Spain: The Rise and Fall of the Guardainfante *
Abstract Women’s clothes were at the center of political debate in the Spain of Philip IV (r. 1621–65), and no garment inspired more controversy than the wide-hipped farthingale, or hoopskirt, known as the guardainfante. Considered scandalous with its reputation for hiding illicit pregnancies, the guardainfante was banned in 1639. Nonetheless, the guardainfante became more popular than ever and turned into an enduring icon of Golden Age Spain during the reign of Philip’s second queen, Mariana of Austria (1649–65). Despite the guardainfante’s high level of visibility, most notably in court portraits by Diego Velázquez, very little is known about the historical experiences of the women who wore it. This article demonstrates that real women really did wear the guardainfante in a variety of contexts outside of portraiture and the theater. In Madrid and in cities throughout the Spanish empire, women of different stations and convictions participated in the political culture of their times by making, disseminating, and debating this controversial garment.
Beyond Luxury: Sumptuary Legislation in 17th-Century Castile
Sumptuary laws were passed intermittently during the Middle Ages and early modern period. They were anti-luxury laws which focussed almost always on items of apparel and which either prohibited certain groups from wearing certain types of clothing, and/or generally forbad excessive expenditure and luxury. Compared to matters of constitutional order, rights, liberties, and privileges, sumptuary laws may appear unimportant or irrelevant. However, they were one of the most frequently enacted forms of early modern legislation. And while they have no counterpart in modern times, they could be found in an impressive array of contexts in the pre-modern world. These ranged from ancient Greece and Rome to the late medieval and early modern Ottoman Empire, China, and Japan – all cultures which shared the common characteristic of resorting to the law to mark differences between social groups. This chapter examines 16thand 17th-century Castilian sumptuary legislation and tries to explain the particular legal features of a society in which luxury was condemned and even outlawed while at the same time it served as a marker publicly to define and emphasise status. To the modern observer it may appear that the strategies used to enforce this legislation were somewhat paradoxical. Those strategies, however, were representative of the principal characteristics of the system from which they emerged and oblige us to raise questions regarding how laws in general were applied and functioned during the early modern period. Durante la Edad Media y la época moderna se promulgaron de modo intermitente leyes suntuarias, las cuales han aparecido probablemente en cualquier cultura en la que las diferencias entre distintos grupos sociales estén legalmente establecidas o reconocidas. Se trataba de leyes contra el lujo centradas casi siempre en objetos de adorno y que bien prohibían a ciertos grupos el uso de determinados tipos de ropa o bien prohibían en general el lujo y los gastos excesivos. Comparadas con materias de orden constitucional, derechos, libertades y privilegios las leyes suntuarias pueden parecer irrelevantes o poco importantes. Son, sin Saúl Martínez Bermejo 94 embargo, uno de los productos más característicos de la legislación de la Edad Moderna y, si bien no tienen paralelos en la época contemporánea, pueden encontrarse en un gran número de contextos premodernos. Estos van desde la Grecia y Roma clásicas hasta China, Japón o el imperio Otomano en la Edad Moderna, culturas todas ellas que compartían la característica de recurrir a la ley para marcar las diferencias entre grupos sociales. Este capítulo examina la legislación suntuaria castellana de los siglos XVI y XVII para tratar de explicar las particularidades legales de una sociedad que reprueba y condena el lujo al mismo tiempo que lo emplea para la expresión pública del estatus. Más allá del lujo se descubre que las estrategias empleadas para su contención y para hacer cumplir la ley pueden resultar paradójicas a ojos contemporáneos. Tales estrategias refuerzan, sin embargo, los principales roles de ese sistema y nos obligan a replantear cuestiones como la aplicación de la ley y el funcionamiento de las leyes en la época moderna. Luxury And stAtus; exempLArity And order Two years after his accession to the throne in 1621, Philip IV issued a series of sumptuary laws devised to reform the “abuses” that had become widespread in Castile during previous years. These reforms were part of a wider program called the Capítulos de Reformación, or “reform chapters”, which addressed not only issues of proper apparel, but also public offices, state administration, and the judiciary. These measures were recommended by a special commission formed at the very end of Philip III’s reign, in 1618, to solve the problems then plaguing the kingdom. The recommendations were taken up in 1623 at the beginning of the reign of Philip IV. One of the “excesses” detected concerned the exaggerated number of servants, which was duly restricted. Indeed, the text of the law stated – for the first time in Castilian sumptuary legislation – that the monarch and his counsellors should take the lead in reducing the number of employees because “in order to assure the success of such an important matter, example should be given by the Prince and his ministers, whom have on their own – as well as by virtue of the offices they hold – sufficient authority so as not to find it lessened or increased by a larger or lesser number of servants”1. The suggestion that the king and his ministers should set an example for the rest of the subjects of the realm had originally appeared in a consulta [consultation, or report] the Council of Castile sent to Philip III on 1 February 1619. In this letter the President of the Council, Diego de Corral y Arellano, argued that “royal example is so influential that what laws and pragmáticas [royal decrees] cannot accomplish will be finally take place when Grandees, Lords, and others of middling status know that this is the king’s wish, and when those near his royal person, fearing his indignation, feel his Majesty’s disapproval of these excesses [in apparel]”2. In general terms the 1623 reform was remarkable both for its moralistic tone and for the sheer breadth of the restrictions that it aimed to introduce. Little space was left for Sumptuary Legislation in 17th-Century Castile 95 Law, sovereignty and compliance any kind of ornamentation in clothes, while the use of gold and silver was banned in the decoration of a wide range of other items, such as coaches, banners, and furniture. Special clauses also outlawed the wearing of exaggerated collars. Significantly, the date chosen to introduce the new regulation was 1 March 1623, the first day of Lent. Obviously, the officials who promoted these reforms hoped to harness the power of penance in their favour. Equally revealing is, however, the proclamation issued on 22 March 1623 that suspended the implementation of the law in Madrid until the end of the visit to the city by the Prince of Wales3. Charles Stuart had arrived secretly in Madrid on 17 March 1623 and was officially received at the Spanish Court on the 26th. His lengthy stay, whose purpose was to obtain the hand of princess Maria Anna, was an occasion that required the use of gold and silver ornament in clothing and in banners used to embellish buildings. Merchants were allowed to sell forbidden items, while embroiderers and other specialists in luxury clothing were authorised to continue working as they had done before the royal act of 1 March. Following this suspension, in late March the king addressed a letter to the highest nobility of the kingdom asking for help in “making the greatest demonstrations of solemnity and gratitude”4. He was indirectly suggesting that Madrid should show itself as sumptuously as possible. This occasion required more than individual efforts to display wealth and status. A whole monarchy had to be represented, and the vehicle to this end was the city of Madrid, in the guise of its habitants, its streets, and the façades of its buildings. As Ruth Lee Kennedy rightly argued, the new laws were forced to take second place to matters of appearance. English visitors had to be impressed with the opulence and magnificence of the Spanish monarchy and this was impossible if the court was decked out in “Quaker-like simplicity”5. All the same, one aspect of the new sumptuary law was to be maintained during the period of the visit. That was the ban upon the old-style collar adorned with lechuguilla [double ruff ]. This was an important symbolic gesture, even if a certain amount of ornament was permitted for the new collar (or golilla) which the king, some noblemen, and Charles Stuart himself wore6. Symbolic occasions such as weddings and funerals were specially suited to representations of status, and recognition of this fact worked against all efforts, legal or moral, to limit expenditures on them. In the particular context of 1623, respecting his own decree was less important for Philip IV than properly representing his status. The same also applied to his subjects: special circumstances and the need of social display obliged everyone who could, to contravene or circumvent sumptuary legislation. As Lyndal Roper has put it: “In the wedding the couple laid claim to their social prestige by displaying wealth – in giving, in dressing and in feasting”7. It is above all this characteristic Saúl Martínez Bermejo 96 of the early modern culture of appearances that best explains the incessant movement between the poles of sumptuary legislation and contravention of the law. Yet while this oscillating relationship between luxury and status is hardly surprising, it does not completely explain the inner logic of sumptuary legislation. The historian Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio argues that this legislation aimed to “establish a hierarchical order by criminalising plebeian access to luxury”8. Sumptuary laws, according to Alejandro López Álvarez, “insisted that luxury was necessary, precisely to distinguish estates, to separate social orders, and to consolidate the socio-political order”9. Darcy Donahue points out that it was the “distinctions between one social category and another which occasioned the efforts of both the Church and the secular authorities to regulate the possession and the display of garments and other bodily adornments”10. These affirmations correctly perceive how luxury was used to express status in a culture in which appearances were all important. However, extending this logic to the ways in which sumptuary legislation actually worked is a risky proposition. I will argue in the following section that it is misleading to interpret sumptuary legislation as simply one (higher) social group imposing rules upon others in order to affirm its own status. Moreover, the role the king and the judiciary system played in the maintenance of the sumptuary, as well as 
Experimental investigation of the geotechnical properties and microstructure of lime-stabilized saline soils under freeze-thaw cycling
Abstract The Song-Nen Plain in northeastern China holds one of the three largest expanses of soda saline-alkali soil in the world. Due to its disadvantageous geotechnical properties, the saline soil in this area is unable to meet the needs of construction projects. This study evaluates the stabilizing effect of adding lime to such soils. Specifically, it investigates how the physicochemical and mechanical properties and microstructure of soda saline-alkali soil are altered by lime and how these changes are affected by both freeze-thaw cycling and the duration of curing. The results reveal that adding lime to saline soil transforms clay particles into sand and silt particles and causes the pore size distribution (PSD) to become bimodal, with small-pore and macropore populations. An increase in lime content leads to an increase in the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) but a gradual decrease in both the cation exchange capacity (CEC) and plastic index. Freeze-thaw cycles break up coarse particles and aggregate finer particles, increasing the diameter of macropores and decreasing the USC; however, the effect on specimens with >9% lime is negligible. It is further shown that the geotechnical properties of the soil change immediately after the addition of lime, indicating that the cation exchange reaction takes place very quickly. Furthermore, the pozzolanic reaction leads to an increase in the percentage of sand-sized particles and a decrease in porosity after 28 days of curing. Overall, these results indicate that it is feasible to use lime to improve the engineering properties of soda saline-alkali soil in this area.