The details here given respecting mediaeval university costume are abridged from a long and exhaustive paper by Prof. E. C. Clark in vol. 50 of the Archaeological Journal.
There is no doubt that the university dress of the middle ages is an adaptation of monastic costume. The original schools from which the universities were developed were of a clerical character, and their members wore clerical dress. The dress of the mediaeval universities was international, unlike the costume worn to-day; hence the following account, while primarily concerned with the English universities, will serve as a description of Continental university dress as well.
The system of degrees was developed in France by the end of the thirteenth century. There were four grades: first, the ordinary scholar or undergraduate; then the determinant; thirdly the licentiate; and fourthly the master, professor or doctor. The undergraduate resided, attended lectures, and argued on questions in the schools; the determinant 'determined' or decided on questions upon which he had previously merely argued; the licentiate received the chancellor's 'licence' to incept (i.e., take the steps necessary for obtaining the master's degrees), to lecture, and to dispute in school exercises. The mastership was the highest grade, and it included the regent, who was engaged in teaching, and the non-regent, who had ceased to teach. From the second grade probably sprung the baccalaureat; the bachelor was at first a kind of supernumerary teacher, whose lectures were probably recognised only within his own university.
The robes are thus described:
1. Toga or roba talaris, the simplest and most general form of university dress, probably originally derived from the Benedictine habit. It was full and flowing, open in front, with wide sleeves through which the arms passed their whole length. Subsequent modifications curtailed the sleeves for undergraduates (retaining the fuller form for mourning), and (in England) introduced distinctive marks for the various colleges. The modern Bachelor and Master of Arts gown is derived from this dress combined with other garments. In certain colleges in Oxford it was directed to be sewn up from the wearer's middle to the ground. In Clare Hall, Cambridge, fellows were permitted to line it with fur. Gona and Epitogium, which we meet with in certain mediaeval statutes, are probably synonyms of this.
2. Hood. The hood (caputium) was originally the head-covering in bad weather; it was afterwards dropped on the shoulders, and then assumed the form of a small cape. A large tippet is sometimes seen beneath this cape in representations of academical costume. The Undergraduate's or Scholar's hood was black, not lined, and to it a long liripipe or streamer was sewn at the back; the Graduate's was furred or lined, with a short liripipe. The various degrees were indicated by differences of lining; bachelors wore badger's fur or lamb's wool; licentiates and regents wore minever or some more expensive fur; non-regents wore silk. When the undergraduates abandoned hoods (before sixteenth century; exact date uncertain) they became a distinctive mark of the attainment of a degree.
The liripipe was also called tipetum or cornetum. The latter may be the origin of the French cornette, a silk band formerly worn by French doctors of law, and a possible origin for the modern English scarf. The word liripipe is also used to denote pendant false sleeves, and also the tails of long-pointed shoes. This, however, lies rather in the region of everyday costume. In 1507, at Oxford, we find typet or cornetum used to denote an alternative for the toga talaris allowed to Bachelors of Civil Law. This is clearly not the tail of a hood, but its exact significance is uncertain.
3. Mantellum. The origin and meaning of this word are alike uncertain. The use of 'mantelli or liripipia, commonly called typets,' was prohibited to fellows and scholars of Magdalen College, Oxford, by a statute dated 1479, except infirmitatis causa. From this we may infer that the mantellus (also called mantella or mantellum) was something akin to the liripipe. In another notice (1239) they are coupled with cappae: certain riotous clerks had to march in a penitential procession 'sine cappis et mantellis.' Prof. Clark infers from these passages and from other sources that the academical mantellum 'is not a hood, but is worn either instead of, or in addition to, the hood, with the cope, or else instead of the cope or long tabard.'
4. Cassock. This was at one time worn by all members of universities under their gowns. Doctors of divinity, doctors of laws, cardinals, and canons wore scarlet. Certain days at present are called 'Scarlet Days' in the English universities, on which doctors in all faculties wear scarlet. This may be a survival of the ancient scarlet cassock.
5. Surplice. 'A dress of ministration, used in college chapels by non-ministrants, more as a matter of college discipline than as academical costume.'