It seems that somewhere midway between 1307 and 1327 men suddenly dropped their long robes, loosely tied at the waist, and appeared in what looked uncommonly like vests, and went by the name of ‘cotehardies.’
It must have been surprising to men who remembered England clothed in long and decorous robes to see in their stead these gay, debonair, tight vests of pied cloth or parti-coloured silk.
Piers Gaveston, the gay, the graceless but graceful favourite, clever at the tournament, warlike and vain, may have instituted this complete revolution in clothes with the aid of the weak King.
Sufficient, perhaps, to say that, although long robes continued to be worn, cotehardies were all the fashion.
There was a general tendency to exaggeration. The hood was attacked by the dandies, and, instead of its modest peak, they caused to be added a long pipe of the material, which they called a ‘liripipe.’
Every quaint thought and invention for tying up this liripipe was used: they wound it about their heads, and tucked the end into the coil; they put it about their necks, and left the end dangling; they rolled it on to the top of their heads.
The countryman, not behindhand in quaint ideas, copied the form of a Bishop’s hood, and appeared with his cloth hood divided into two peaks, one on either side of his head.