VIII
HATS, CAPS, AND BONNETS

Mad as a hatter? How comes an honest craft to be thus maligned? Hatters were never mad—that is, not more so than the rest of us—until they adopted the pot of the chimney as a model.[21]

Nature has provided in the hair a natural covering for the head. Hats are not really a necessity.

Dr. Jaeger ("Health Culture") discusses the probable reasons for the greater prevalence of baldness among men than among women. While rejecting the theory that the competition of the beard is precarious to the hair of the head, abstracting from the latter its due nourishment, and pointing out that the long beards and luxuriant heads of hair of our ancestors refute this theory that the more strenuous head-work which falls to the share of the male sex is responsible for the loss of hair; that the unnatural custom of cutting men's hair, first adopted when nature was abandoned in favour of the fashions of civilisation, is to blame for it; that drink, dissolute habits, or heredity is the cause—he finds that a far more probable cause is the difference between the male and female head-covering, "which latter is, as a rule, lighter, more airy, and more porous than the usually almost waterproof and exceedingly absurd male head-coverings, such as the stiff felt hats, and high hats, with the strip of leather which encircles the forehead and effectually retains the perspiration."

"The best head-covering would certainly be—none at all. But usage, and in many cases weather conditions, render this impracticable."... "Not only are the hard hats, now in such general use, injurious on account of the pores of the material being closed, impeding the passage of the exhalation from the head; but the shellac used in stiffening them has an injurious effect, from which the cherry gum used in the case of the soft hats is comparatively free." He adds: "Of course, soft hats cannot be worn in all cases—on ceremonial occasions the hard hat may be chosen; but ordinarily the hygienically superior soft hat should be worn." Why, however, on occasions of ceremony? Was ceremonial non-existent before the advent of the nineteenth century? It would rather appear that if the nineteenth century is conspicuous for anything it is for its absence of ceremonial. There is absolutely no reason why a hat of a particular density, or even of a particular shape, should be necessary to occasions of high ceremonial. Moreover, in this connection it may be very pertinently asked, Is artistic invention so utterly dead that it cannot devise a head-gear which shall fit in with its surroundings on such occasions as call for more dignity and impressiveness in the matter of costume? It is, however, an incontrovertible fact, as a well-known present-day writer has pointed out, that "revolutions are practicable in everything—in manners, morals, government, even religion—sooner than in clothes; and that sumptuary laws are the only laws that have always failed of being obeyed." It is universally admitted that modern dress is intolerably ugly; that it fails, not only upon its artistic side, but also upon the score of utility; yet every suggestion for its improvement is always met by a flat non possumus.

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.

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.

The Greeks, when travelling, protected their heads from the heat or the wet by means of a flat broad-brimmed hat, tied underneath the chin, and allowed to hang on the back when not required on the head. This fashion or device was continued during the Middle Ages, and the hat was often worn over the hood (although this would seem a superfluity), the strings were secured at the breast by means of a moveable ring, which, by being moved up underneath the chin, kept the hat in its place on the head. Such a hat was figured on the wall of the old Palace at Westminster, and has been published in the "Vetusta Monumenta" of the Society of Antiquaries.

During the greater part of the Norman and Plantagenet period the wimple or neck-cloth was common. It was a development of the Anglo-Saxon veil or head-cloth (couvre-chef), and an echo of the mailed coif of the period. It is thus referred to by John de Meun: "Par Dieu! I have often thought in my heart, when I have seen a lady so closely tied up, that her neck-cloth was nailed to her chin, or that she had the pins hooked into her flesh."

Such a wimple is figured from Orcagna (Campo Santo, Pisa) on the opposite page.

The golden net-caul (crestine, creton, crespine, crespinette) appeared during the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., worn either with or without the wimple and veil, and lasted, in its varying forms, well into the sixteenth century. It either enclosed the hair as within a bag or pouch, or assumed the form of a netted cap, as in the so-called "Beatrice d'Este," attributed to Leonardo da Vinci in the Brera at Milan; or the net-bag above alluded to was elongated so as to form a long pigtail, tied at intervals, often extending almost to the feet, as in the marriage scene in the fresco by Pinturicchio in the Piccolomini Library at Siena. It was often richly ornamented with jewels—

This, however, refers to the chaplet or garland commonly worn by the ladies of the fourteenth century.

Piers Plowman, Description of Meed (Bribery).

The hair was now wound up on either side of the head, the coils either worn without any covering or enclosed within a caul; the veil or curtain being extended at the sides. This marked the commencement of those horned head-dresses which were speedily developed to such an extravagant degree, and so excited the wrath of the satirists of the time.

John de Meun, who completed "The Romaunt of the Rose," observes that these horns appear to be designed to wound the men, and adds: "I know not whether they call gibbets or corbels that which sustains their horns, which they consider so fine, but I venture to say that St. Elizabeth is not in Paradise for having carried such baubles."

In a volume entitled "Jougleurs et TrouvÈres," by M. Jubinal, is a satire on horned head-dresses, under the title of "Des Cornetes," from a MS. in the BibliothÈque Royale at Paris, of the beginning of the fourteenth century. In this poem it appears that the Bishop of Paris had preached a sermon directed against extravagance in women's dress, their horns and the bareness of their necks. "If we do not get out of the way of the women we shall be killed; for they carry horns with which to kill men."

This same sermon is quaintly referred to by the Knight of la Tour-Landry in his advice to his daughters: "He said that the women that were so horned were lyche to be horned snails and hertis and unicornes." "I doute that the develle sitte not betwene her hornes, and that he make hem bowe doun the hede for ferde of the holy water." Also the good knight told how there was "onis a gentille woman that come to a fest so straungely atyred and queintly arraied to haue the lokes of the pepille, that all that sawe her come ranne towardes her to wonder lik as on a wilde beaste, for she was atyred with highe longe pynnes lyke a jebet, and so she was scorned of alle the company, and saide she bare a galous on her hede."[22]

The preaching in the Middle Ages appears to have been remarkably effective. Monstrelet, in his Chronicles, relates a story of one Thomas Conecte, a preaching friar, who attacked the steeple head-dresses with great zeal and resolution. His eloquence was such that the women flung down their head-dresses in the middle of his sermon and made a bonfire of them within sight of the pulpit. He frequently had an audience of 20,000 people, the men ranging themselves on one side of the pulpit and the women on the other, the latter appearing "like a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds."

The impression he created was, however, not a lasting one; as soon as his back was turned the horns again began to grow: "The women that, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out again as soon as the danger was over."

The horn-shaped head-dress appears in no pictorial documents or monuments older than the reign of Henry IV. The heart-shaped head-dress began with a flat pad on the top of the head, with the sides slightly turned up, enclosed in a silken net, which was often jewelled, the hair being worn in coils above the ears, at the back, or hanging down, as the case may be. The sides were then turned up sharply in the shape of a V, and the head-dress heightened. This was developed in a variety of ways.

The steeple head-dress varied in its height—from a matter of 18 inches or less, to 3 feet—in its ornamentation and colour; it was either plain, or decorated with simple bands or ribbons wound crosswise; it varied, however, chiefly in the veiling. There was a veil thrown over the whole, and falling over the sides of the face, or, the veil was attached to the summit of the steeple and allowed either to hang loose, or was looped at some point at the back. There was also a veil which was attached to the lower border of the steeple at its point of contact with the head, and which completely shrouded the head, front and back; there was also the remarkable arrangement of the veil, which was built up on a system of wires, and which was called the "hennin."

A variation of the "hennin" was the "butterfly," in which the steeple which formed the base of the head-dress was reduced to a comparatively short "caul," and the veil extended itself on either side like the wings of an insect; this, in a slightly different form, continued to the Tudor period.

There was also the "balloon" or turban. This, like the heart-shaped head-dress, commenced with a flat pad, like a cake, which in its earlier stage was invariably richly ornamented, offering no particular variety in its form; when it became round, it developed a second roll around the forehead, with bands at intervals, which formed its constructive elements.

Notwithstanding the strictures passed upon these head-dresses by contemporary moralists or purists and by subsequent writers, who simply echo their sentiments without bringing any independent judgment to bear upon the matter, and who often possess no artistic knowledge or even perception, these head-dresses are often extremely piquant and quaint; extravagance there was, doubtless, and even ugliness; but even the high steeple was not out of proportion, as it must be remembered that the gowns and trains were correspondingly long, thus balancing the high tapering steeple. As a matter of fact, the whole dress was in keeping, the high tapering head-dress, the long tapering toes, the close-fitting sleeves (which, however, were occasionally provided with an outer hanging sleeve, also long), forming an ensemble which would compare favourably with the dress of any period.

The Tudor period brought about a complete change in the head-dresses of both men and women; as a matter of fact, dress generally of this period assumed a graver character. Horns, hearts, steeples, and butterflies suddenly disappeared, and the head-dress of the ladies of the Court assumed that diamond-shaped form with which we are familiar in the portraits by Holbein, who doubtless materially influenced the costume of this period. It consisted of a cap and coverchief, and sometimes a hood, the coverchief being generally allowed to fall down on the right side. The cap was invariably richly jewelled and embroidered. Good examples may be seen in the drawing of the Lady Vaux at Windsor and the portrait of Jane Seymour at Vienna. It was a dignified, restrained, and exceedingly beautiful head-dress; if any confirmation of this statement were needed, it is to be found in the remarks of the various lay writers on costume, who invariably describe it as harsh and ugly.

An excellent example of the beautiful flat cap or bonnet worn generally during the Tudor period is to be seen in the portrait of William, Duke of Juliers and Cleves, by Aldegrever (p. 6). The cap, in this instance, is tilted to one side of the head, instead of being worn flat on the top; it is jewelled at intervals along the brim, and plumed. The material is most certainly velvet, which is that most generally used by the nobility, but, in 1571, with the view of encouraging English manufactures, it was by Parliament enacted that all persons above the age of six years, except only the nobility and persons of degree, should on Sabbaths and holydays wear caps of wool, of English manufacture. Twenty-six years afterwards this law was repealed.

This flat cap appears in a number of portraits by Holbein, worn both tilted on one side and flat on the top of the head. A cap of this kind might very well be worn by men at the present day, minus, of course, the plume and jewels, without appearing startlingly obtrusive. It could be made in any cloth, and would be a great improvement on the caps which are at present in use. The extreme refinement, however, of the Tudor cap is due to the material, to the quality of the workmanship, and, in the instance of the portrait above-mentioned, to the rich jewels which adorn it.

Similar shaped headgear has, as a matter of fact, been recently adopted by girls, but they are for the most part vulgar productions, indifferently made, and sold cheaply, and afford abundant evidence of the fact that the milliner possessed no artistic knowledge, or even taste, and had not taken the trouble, possibly had not considered it advisable, to refer to fine examples.

The simple flat cap above mentioned was developed in various ways during the Tudor period, both for men and for women; the brim was either divided in two or more parts, or it was doubled, slashed, and puffed in various ways, the puffing being of a different material and colour to the rest of the hat. For women and for the military, large plumes of ostrich feathers were added. Many examples of the latter may be seen in Hans Burgkmair's "Triumphs of Maximilian." In the equestrian portrait of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham (p. 23), we get the pot-hat proper (Elizabethan version), differing very little as to shape from that at present in use, but plumed, with three ostrich feathers and three other pointed ones. The horse is similarly plumed. The hat can scarcely be said to be a thing of beauty, even with the addition of its ostrich plume, and adds nothing to the decorative beauty of the plate, but rather detracts from it.

The centenary of the modern pot-hat was celebrated in Paris only last year, and, amid much jubilation, a number of caustic remarks were made by Madame Sarah Bernhardt and others on the subject of "man's cylindrical attire."

On looking at the various developments during the century, as illustrated in a well-known weekly magazine, the contour of the pot-hat has changed perhaps less than one might suppose. It has not been a continuous development, but, rather, an oscillation backwards and forwards. In point of fact, a continuous development was impossible without taking leave of the pot-hat altogether; one must either retrace one's steps or start upon a new track, as will be seen by a reference to the accompanying diagrams, which must be considered, be it understood, merely as diagrams, and not in any sense as representing the limits of the artist's power of realism.

The scale of decorative development is, like the scale of tones in music, absolute. It is the principle upon which Nature herself works, and this principle may be as well illustrated by means of the pot-hat as by anything else, as the principle holds good, and may be applied to any "demned thing," as Mr. Mantalini would say.

We have, then, the two primal, elemental forms to work with, the straight line and the curved. Fig. 1 represents the pot-hat in what may be called its primordial state, in which state it stands in the same relation to headgear generally as did Millbank Prison to architecture; it would not be possible to produce less variety except by reducing its height and making its shape an exact parallelogram. In the next figure, by substituting the curved line for the straight lines of the sides and brim, we get a hint of those delicate and subtle curves for which the pot-hat is famous. In Fig. 4—not to weary the gentle reader with a long dissertation, he will at once perceive the principle—the degree of curvature is carried as far as is consonant with dignity or propriety; to carry it further would be to border upon buffoonery; such vagaries could not by any possibility be entertained in a work of such gravity and seriousness as the present. The same may be said of development in the direction of height. It only remains to develop the hat by means of reducing the width of its crown at the top, since the dimension AA is absolute, as the article must conform itself to the human cranium, which for present purposes is a fixed quantity. It is at this point that we take an affectionate and regretful leave of the pot-hat proper. Fig. 5 represents the high-crowned hat of the reign of James I., and which, in fact, was worn during the greater part of the Stuart period. "I send you," writes the King (James I.) to his son, in 1623, "for youre wearing, the three bretheren that ye knowe full well, but newlie sette, and the mirroure of Fraunce, the fellow of the Portugall dyamont, quiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte, with a little blakke feather"; and to Buckingham he says, "As to thee, my sweete gossippe, I send thee a faire table dyamont, quiche I wolde once have givin thee before if thou wolde have taken it, and I have hung a faire pearle to it for wearing on thy hatte or quhaire thou plaisis, and if my Babie will spaire thee the two long dyamonts in forme of an anker, with the pendant dyamont, it were fit for an admiral to weare.... If my Babie will not spaire the anker from his mistresse, he may well lend thee his rounde broocke to weare, and yett he shall have jewells to weare in his hatte for three great dayes."

It was customary to wear jewels either in front of the hat or upon the brim when turned up. Often a single pearl was depended over the edge of the brim. Such a pearl may be seen in William Rogers's portrait of Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex (Elizabeth's Essex), the hat, in this instance, having a broad brim.

To return to our diagrams. No. 6, a further narrowing of the top of the crown, represents the quaint extinguisher hats which have been worn at various periods, and which are still worn by the Welsh peasantry.

Roxburghe Ballads, 1685.

By lowering the crown and widening the brim we arrive at the sombrero, No. 7.

The slouch hat turned up on one side, of the Stuart period, was the precursor, historically and decoratively, of the three-cornered hat of the period of the House of Orange. It was afterwards turned up on two sides, and in this stage decorated with feathers, and finally turned up at the back, thus forming the three-cornered hat, which lasted for a century, the feathers disappearing, and the edges trimmed with lace. Such turning up of the brim was called "cocking" the hat.

The different modes of cocking the hat were almost innumerable—in fact, according to the fancy of the wearer; there was the "Monmouth cock," after the unfortunate Duke of that name; the "Ramillie cock," which came in at the Battle of Ramillies in 1706; the military cock and the mercantile cock; and upon the accession of George III. (1760) "a hat worn upon an average six inches and three-fifths broad in the brim, and cocked between Quaker and Kevenhuller."

Art of Dressing the Hair, 1770.

From a chapter on hats in the London Chronicle for 1762 we learn that—"Some wear their hats with the corner that should come over their foreheads high in the air; these are the Gawkies. Others do not above half cover their heads, which is, indeed, owing to the shallowness of their crowns; but, between beaver and eyebrows, expose a blank forehead, which looks like a sandy road in a surveyor's plan.... A gold button and loop to a plain hat distinguishes a person to be a little lunatic; a gold band round it shows the owner to be very dangerously infected; and if a tassel is added, the patient is incurable. A man with a hat larger than common represents the fable of the mountain in labour, and the hats edged round with a gold binding belong to brothers of the turf."

With the advent of the French Revolution in 1789 the three-cornered cocked hat disappears, and in 1803 we find a noticeable change in costume. "The French anticipated this invasion by sending over the most unsightly fashions that have ever appeared. The most distinguishing features were the coverings of the head, which consisted, in the one sex of an enormous military cap, and in the other of a bonnet, probably of straw, of a very ungraceful form. They are represented in the accompanying cut, taken from a caricature entitled 'Two of the Wigginses—Tops and Bottoms of 1803,' published on the 2nd of July in that year" (Thomas Wright, "Works of Gillray").

In 1765 a large hood appeared called calash, made of a framework of whalebone hoops, resembling the hood of a carriage (calÈche), and pulled over the head by means of a string. It is said to have been introduced into England by the Duchess of Bedford.

What shall we say to the page of Parisian head-dresses from Bell's Fashionable Magazine for April, 1812, three years before the Battle of Waterloo?

Goldsmith, in a short essay "on the ladies' passion for levelling all distinction of dress," says: "Foreigners observe that there are no ladies in the world more beautiful or more ill-dressed than those of England. Our countrywomen have been compared to those pictures where the face is the work of a Raphael, but the draperies thrown out by some empty pretender, destitute of taste, and entirely unacquainted with design."

He adds, by way of compensation to the ladies, "If I were a poet I might observe, on this occasion, that so much beauty, set off with all the advantages of dress, would be too powerful an antagonist for the opposite sex; and therefore it was wisely ordered that our ladies should want taste, lest their admirers should entirely want reason."

It has always been, however, and is still, a stock saying with foreigners that English women are ill-dressed, but the saying has little point in it, since the majority of English fashions still come from abroad. On the comparatively rare occasions when English women rely upon their own invention, taste, and judgment, they appear better dressed than the women of any European country. English women under these circumstances, therefore, if the above statement as to their personality be true, must necessarily be the most charming creatures in the world.

Amongst modern head-dresses the Spanish mantilla undoubtedly stands out in pleasant relief from the general rule of the commonplace which obtains at present. It is an entirely becoming head-dress, and reasonable, as is also the habit of Spanish women of carrying fans, which are usually attached to the waist, and serve also the purpose of sunshades, being held up to the head on the sunny side of the street. The action is a most graceful one, and the convenience is obvious.

The panama hat is certainly the most satisfactory male headgear, both as regards appearance, health, durability, and comfort.

The "bowler" can scarcely be said to be a thing of beauty. It has, however, been rendered historic by the Right Honourable John Burns, who has established a precedent by appearing at Buckingham Palace in this form of head-covering for the purpose of receiving his seals of office.

To return once again, and finally, to the chimney-pot. Milan has just recently inaugurated her third International Exposition of Industries, Commerce, and Art:—

"An amusing sidelight of the Exhibition is the unprecedented stimulus to the sale of stovepipe hats occasioned by a rigid regulation excluding every other kind from the inaugural function. Such a rigid enforcement is quite unknown in Rome itself, where there are said to be Cabinet Ministers, Senators, and Deputies who are innocent of ever having donned one. The story is told that several provincial Deputies who were invited to Milan were so fearful of mishap that they bought tall hats for their wives as well as themselves" (Vide daily paper).