Fig. 138.—The hat of a bishop of the Stuart Period showing a stage at which the stiffening now seen in the mortar-board was becoming necessary (after Fairholt).
There is a likeness between the round hat of the doctor and the Tudor flat cap, and Fairholt would derive the mortar-board from the same head-dress; and as illustrating the story of its evolution, he compares the cap shown in the portrait of Cranmer (see Figure [137]) in the British Museum with that of a bishop of the time of Charles I (see Figure [138]); and here again the need for stiffening is obvious, if the enlargement of the crown of the cap be carried any further.
[XXIII]
LEGAL DRESS
VESTIGES OF THE COIF—HOODS AND GOWNS—SIGNS OF MOURNING
It would be strange if the majesty of the law did not depend to some extent upon dress, and there is no doubt but that an impressiveness which would otherwise be absent from our courts is given by wigs and gowns. The wigs themselves are an interesting survival, and presumably are not more uncomfortable to the few who now wear them than they were to many in times gone by. We will describe here a few interesting vestiges among those which are to be met with in legal costume.
Any one who has an opportunity of looking on to the top of a judge’s wig will notice a small circular depression about three inches across. (See Figure [139].) This has a very interesting history, and in order to trace it we shall have to look at the long wigs of the serjeants-at-law, from whose ranks in the past most of the judges used to come. On the serjeant’s wig we shall find that there is a similar depression, and that it is filled with a circular white patch, having a black centre, and reminding one of two large pieces of court plaster, one stuck over the other. (See Figure [140].)
