Chats on Costume

by G. Woolliscroft Rhead

Some form of hood was, doubtless, the earliest covering for the head, either as a separately made-up article, or, as in the case of the Greeks and Romans, formed by the drawing of the pallium or toga over the head to serve as protection during inclement weather. The Romans had a hooded cloak (cucullus) which was worn by the commoner people, and which, in some form or another, has been in use during all subsequent periods. It is, in fact, generally worn at the present day in most parts of the Continent of Europe, and forms an extremely reasonable and convenient article of attire.

The hood formed the principal covering for the head of both sexes during the twelfth, thirteenth, and part of the fourteenth centuries. The hood (chaperon) was a separate article of dress as distinct from the cowl (capuchon), which was attached to and formed part of the cloak or other article of dress, although the two terms are indiscriminately used by the earlier writers.

The hood assumed, in the first instance, more or less the form of the Phrygian cap. The tippet, or tail, was afterwards developed to a considerable length, in the thirteenth century reaching almost to the ground. Dante is usually represented in such a hood, with long tippet, and in the portrait of Cimabue by Simon Memmi, c. 1300, the painter appears wearing a hood with a tippet reaching a little below the middle.

The cap or hood worn by "fools" was simply the hood of the fashion of the particular period, with the addition of the cock's comb, the pair of ass's ears and the bells, occasionally worn all together, and often parti-coloured.

In the wardrobe accounts of Henry VIII. occurs—"Item, for making a doublet of worsted, lined with canvass and cotton, for William Som'ar, our fool; item, for making of a coat and cap of green cloth fringed with red crule and lined with frize for our said fool."

The men's turbaned head-dress of the reign of Richard II. and later is sufficiently remarkable to warrant a description. It was a long cloth, wound round and round the head—the edges cut, clipped and jagged in various ways—one end of which either stood up on the top of the head or was allowed to fall over the side of the turban, the other end hanging down in front of the body, longer or shorter according to the fancy or caprice of the wearer, the whole presenting a very fantastic appearance, occasionally, however, not ungraceful.

HUNTING HAT.
Orcagna, Campo Santa, Pisa.

The beginning of this head-dress was simply a different way of wearing the hood, as Mr. Planché has shown by means of two diagrams in his "Encylopedia of Costume." It occurred to some ingenious soul to insert his head in the oval opening in the hood made for the face, to gather up in the form of a fan the portion which covered the shoulders, and to bind it in position by winding the long tippet round the head and tucking in the end of it. Later, no doubt, the head-dress was formally made up by the hatter or tailor, as the case may be, and assumed a more complex character.