I have an infant’s cap with two squares of lace set in the crown, one over each ear. The lace is of a curious design; a conventionalized vase or urn on a standard. I recognize it as the lace and pattern known as “pot-lace,” made for centuries at Antwerp, and worn there by old women on their caps with a devotion to a single pattern that is unparalleled. It was the “flower-pot” symbol of the Annunciation. The earliest representation of the Angel Gabriel in the Annunciation showed him with lilies in his hand; then these lilies were set in a vase. In years the angel has disappeared and then the lilies, and the lily-pot only remains. It is a whimsical fancy that this symbol of Romanism should have been carefully transferred to adorn the pate of a child of the Puritans. The place of the medallion, set over each ear, is so unusual that I think it must have had some significance. I wonder whether they were ever set thus in caps of heavy silk or linen to let the child hear more readily, as he certainly would through the thin lace net.
The word “beguine” meant a nun; and thus derivatively a nun’s close cap. This was altered in spelling to biggin, and for a time a nun’s plain linen cap was thus called. By Shakespere’s day biggin had become wholly a term for a child’s cap. It was a plain phrase and a plain cap of linen. Shakespere calls them “homely biggens.”
I have seen it stated that the biggin was a night-cap. When Queen Elizabeth lost her mother, Anne Boleyn, she was but three years old, a neglected little creature. A lady of the court wrote that the child had “no manner of linen, nor for-smocks, nor kerchiefs, nor rails, nor body-stitches, nor handkerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor mufflers, nor biggins.”
In 1636 Mary Dudley, the daughter of Governor John Winthrop, had a little baby. She did not live in Boston town, therefore her mother had to purchase supplies for her; and many letters crossed, telling of wants, and their relief. “Holland for biggins” was eagerly sought. At that date all babies wore caps. I mean English and French, Dutch and Spanish, all mothers deemed it unwise and almost improper for a young baby ever to be seen bare-headed. With the imperfect heating and many draughts in all the houses, this mode of dress may have been wholly wise and indeed necessary. Every child’s head was covered, as the pictures of children in this book show, until he or she was several years old. The finest needlework and lace stitches were lavished on these tiny infants’ caps, which were not, when thus adorned and ornamented, called biggins.
Infant’s Adjustable Cap.
A favorite trimming for night-caps and infants’ caps is a sort of quilting in a leaf and vine pattern, done with a white cord inserted between outer and inner pieces of linen—a cord stuffing, as it were. It does not seem oversuited for caps to be worn in bed or by little infants, as the stiff cords must prove a disagreeable cushion. This work was done as early as the seventeenth century; but nearly all the pieces preserved were made in the early years of the nineteenth century in the revival of needlework then so universal.
Often a velvet cap was worn outside the biggin or lace cap.
I have never seen a woollen petticoat that was worn by an infant of pre-Revolutionary days. I think infants had no woollen petticoats; their shirts, petticoats, and gowns were of linen or some cotton stuff like dimity. Warmth of clothing was given by tiny shawls pinned round the shoulders, and heavier blankets and quilts and shawls in which baby and petticoats were wholly enveloped.