Threads of Conflict: Attire, Authority, and Local Disputes in 17th-Century Castile and New Spain

Throughout the seventeenth century, inhabitants across the Spanish Empire experienced increasingly restrictive sumptuary laws – statutes that barred select groups from wearing certain garments or using particular status items. “Threads of Conflict” examines how subjects on both sides of the Atlantic shaped and contested the enforcement of these regulations at the local level. Placing Castile and New Spain in dialogue, this paper examines appellate criminal cases and viceregal complaints that stemmed from the targeted arrest and harassment of individuals accused of violating sumptuary restrictions. Focusing on disputes over prohibited attire, this study highlights how inhabitants acted as frontline arbiters of imperial law, reporting alleged violations, providing testimony, and protesting claims about their right to wear restricted clothing and accessories. Through a comparative reading of cases involving an Indigenous noble in southwestern Mexico and a member of the Basque elite in northern Spain, "Threads of Conflict" evaluates the legal strategies deployed by individuals on opposite sides of the empire. Despite different contexts, both men relied on parallel legal arguments to defend their sartorial choices. Rather than treating sumptuary legislation as a static or symbolic framework, this paper demonstrates its dynamic role in everyday governance. Denunciations initiated complex investigations that relied on multiple witnesses and personal testimony and could result in tangible punishments, including imprisonment and financial penalties. Considered together, these cases show how both authorities and inhabitants across the empire used sumptuary laws to police social boundaries and pursue status mobility.