In recent years, urban historians have established that the period from 1560 to 1660 was a key era for London’s development from a relatively small European urban centre into a large dynamic global capital. This dissertation attempts to intervene in London scholarship by drawing attention to the economic, political, religious and – most significantly – cultural importance of clothing in the city in this period. Using material, visual, literary and archival sources, it explores the ways clothing contributed to the development of early modern London and, in turn, how London’s rapid growth changed the making, wearing, and meaning of clothing. This dissertation places material evidence at the fore using extant objects from museum collections. It also employs the new methodology of reconstruction to explore craft, ingenuity, and emotional self-expression in dress. As clothing infused economic and social life, it draws upon on a wide range of evidence, from London guild records, to portraits, travel accounts, personal letters, diaries and account books, plays, sermons and poems. With a focus on urban experience, this dissertation discusses not only elite luxury consumption, but also investigates the wardrobes of guildsmen, immigrant craftspeople, apprentices and maids – asking what they wore, what they thought about what they were wearing, and how they used clothing to navigate through the city during this time of rapid change. A chapter on the ‘London Look’ shows how inhabitants and visitors documented the visual and material styles of the city. Exploring the collaborative processes by which clothing was made, worn and appreciated by craftspeople and consumers, a chapter on making and buying clothing demonstrates how clothes were made and charts the emergence of a new consumer culture. Existing scholarship on sumptuary laws is challenged in a chapter that demonstrates how laws were enforced in the city while also integrating extant objects into the discussion for the first time. Finally, using a sample of London wills, the dissertation shows how Londoners owned, bequeathed and inherited clothing, and imbued it with emotional meaning. In sum, this dissertation aims to integrate scholarship on early modern London with material culture studies, and to promote the new methodology of reconstruction for historians. In revealing how London was conceived during a time of rapid change, clothing can be used as a lens through which to explore wider discourse about a city that by 1657 was being described as ‘Londinopolis.’ Clothing helped to make London into a wealthy, dynamic, and diverse urban centre, and these changes dramatically shaped the way clothing was made and appreciated.

La libéralité à caractère collectif est destinée à la collectivité ou à un groupe de personnes. Elle est au service d’une oeuvre, d’une cause. Profitant à des personnes physiques indéterminées et non individualisées, elle ne peut être réalisée directement. Pour atteindre son but, elle fait intervenir une personne juridique, le plus souvent une personne morale de droit public ou de droit privé à but non lucratif. Par le truchement de la personne morale, la libéralité profite aux bénéficiaires de l’oeuvre du groupement : du cercle de ses membres à un groupe de personnes, voire à la collectivité tout entière.Les mécanismes permettant de réaliser une libéralité à caractère collectif sont divers et pour certains la qualification libérale leur est refusée. Ils peuvent être regroupés en deux catégories selon le rôle joué par le bienfaiteur : une fondation, si l’oeuvre est initiée par lui ; une libéralité-participation, si le bienfaiteur vient soutenir une oeuvre déjà existante. À l’image des mécanismes, les techniques employées sont variées que l’acte repose sur une simple libéralité avec charge ou de façon plus originale sur une fiducie aux fins de libéralité ou un engagement unilatéral de volonté. Malgré cette diversité, des caractères communs transcendent la catégorie des libéralités à caractère collectif : elles sont affectées et intéressées. La notion de libéralité à caractère collectif délimitée, il est alors possible de mettre un peu d’ordre dans les règles qui s’y appliquent. À l’heure actuelle, celles-ci sont tout à la fois éparpillées, lacunaires et inopportunes. Le régime des libéralités à caractère collectif doit donc être repensé en tenant compte de leurs spécificités. / A liberality of a collective nature is aimed at the community, or at a group of people. It is to benefit a cause. Because it benefits undetermined and not individualized natural persons, this kind of liberality cannot be carried out directly. In order to reach its goal, it includes a juridical person, most often a notforprofit legal person of public law or private law.Through the legal person, the liberality benefits the beneficiaries of the grouping’s cause: these beneficiaries may be the members of grouping, to another group of people, or even to the wholecommunity. The ways to carry out a liberality of a collective nature are numerous and some of themare denied the designation of “liberality”. Two sorts of ways may be distinguished, according to the role played by the benefactor: either a Foundation, if the cause it initiated by the benefactor; or a liberality-participation, if the benefactor contributes to an existing cause. The techniques are varied:the operation may be based on a liberality with a charge, or more originally on a fiducia aimed at a liberality, or on a commitment by unilateral will. In spite of this diversity, liberalities of a collective nature have common features: they are earmarked and for-profit. Once the notion of liberality is mapped out, it becomes possible to sort out the rules that apply to it. Currently, these rules are scattered, insufficient and improper. The rules governing the liberalities of a collective nature must be redesigned by taking into consideration their specific nature.