Clothing and Vigilance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

This conference explores the interplay between clothing practices and vigilance in various contexts in late medieval and early modern Europe, focusing on sensory perception, disguise, mistrust, questions of identity and shame, and the issue of latency—that is, the potential to conceal something through clothing or to suspect that something is being concealed due to a particular clothing practice.

Building on existing research on sumptuary laws, the theater, and the history of clothing, while responding to new archival discoveries and recent scholarship on the concept of vigilance, the conference asks: Who ensures that people dress in accordance with legal, social, and moral expectations? We seek to avoid a top-down approach and focus on the specific situations and mechanisms in which clothing became the object of increased attention from authorities, ordinary people, and in artistic contexts.

For more information, please visit the CRC “Cultures of Vigilance”website.
Contact: benjamin.steiner@lmu.de