Materializing Politics in the Holy Roman Empire: Liveries as visual communication at the Bavarian court, 1507–1550

This article examines the livery books of dukes Wilhelm IV and Ludwig X of Bavaria to investigate how princes and their tailors in the Holy Roman Empire used liveries in ritual politics. Liveries were the uniform clothing given out biannually to high-ranking vassals by potentates in the late medieval and sixteenth-century Empire. Designs for garments are illustrated in the books alongside texts chronicling events between 1507 and 1550. This article analyses individual liveries depicted in the context of the occasions where they were worn, thereby tying specific elements of dress including codpieces to themes of masculinity and hierarchy in an exploration of internal conflict between the dukes, competition between courts, and the friction caused by expanding Habsburg hegemony. Histories of political ritual and court culture in the Holy Roman Empire acknowledge the importance of liveries as political communication, but the material evidence for them is as yet understudied. This article, the first close examination of the Bavarian livery book since the nineteenth century, addresses this gap in the field.