The Hats that Made Britain E-Book

David Long

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 232

Beschreibung

Many of the world's most famous hats have their origins in Britain; in the Middle Ages there were civil and religious laws requiring hats to be worn and in Victorian Britain a person would no more leave home without a hat than a pair of trousers. It is no surprise that London's oldest surviving shop, Lock and Co., is a hatter. From practical everyday caps and bonnets to military headwear, top hats, and even the coronation crown, hats of all sorts have passed through its doors and continue to do so after more than 300 years. In this fascinating new book David Long reveals how much of Britain's social history can be understood through its headwear, and in exploring the ways in which a hat speaks volumes about its wearer's rank and status he tells the stories of the people beneath some of the most famous hats of history.

Leseprobe

To J. Roger Baker (1934–93).He taught me more than he realised, andwould have enjoyed this a lot.

First published 2020

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© David Long, 2020

The right of David Long to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9588 7

Typesetting and origination by The History PressPrinted in Turkey by Imak

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Introduction

Muscovy Hat

Haxey Hood

Cap of Maintenance

The Lum

Canterbury Cap

Kippah

Flat Cap

Plague Doctor’s Hat

Tricorne

Bicorne

Tam O’Shanter

Glengarry

Top Hat

Forage Cap

Opera Hat

John Knox Bonnet

Bearskin

Harrington Hat

Atherstone Billycock

Shako

Pith Helmet

Wide-Awake

International Cap

Mortarboard

Bowler Hat

Balaclava

Home Office Pattern Helmet

Müller Cut-Down

Hallelujah Bonnet

Fedora

Mitre

Straw Boater

Dunce Cap

Deerstalker

Trilby

Chef’s Toque

Slouch Hat

Panama

Mariner’s Cap

Brodie Helmet

Hard Hat

Cloche Hat

Homburg

Imperial State Crown

Beret

Pork Pie

Racing Helmet

Casquette

Pillbox Hat

Black Cap

INTRODUCTION

It was a graded society – and hats told you something. The elegant grey topper and the formal black silk set you apart from the bourgeois felt and the plebeian tweed, the official kepi and the schoolboy’s coloured cap

– Philip Mason, The English Gentleman (1982)

From trilbies and top hats to boaters and bowlers, a hat reveals a lot about a person’s character as well as their country, and much of Britain’s social history can be traced through the hats and headdresses of politicians and performers, as well as ordinary citizens.

The oldest known hats are the those found on small terracotta figures belonging to the ancient Indus River Civilisation. Examples discovered at archaeological sites such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa date back between 3,500 and 5,700 years. At that time hats typically provided protection from the weather and occasionally weapons, although they soon came to play an important role in ceremonials before evolving yet again into decorative garments for the fashionable, the rich and the powerful.

By the Middle Ages there were civil and religious laws requiring hats to be worn, and in Victorian Britain they were such an important part of every self-respecting lady or gentleman’s wardrobe that a person would no more leave home without a hat than a pair of trousers or a skirt. Poor people wore them too, of course, and for centuries hats were a visible symbol of a person’s wealth, class and occupation, as much for the bowler-hatted city gent as for the lowly farmworker in his cloth cap.

Today they are worn far less often, although it is significant that London’s oldest shop is a hatter. Many of the best-loved fictional characters are still strongly associated with the hats they wore, from the Artful Dodger and his battered top hat to Chaplin’s famous bowler and even Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses with his trademark flat cap.

Hats are so much more important than mere theatrical props or fashion items, however. Many continue to play a role in some of the most deeply embedded national customs, both here and abroad. Graduates still tip mortarboards to their tutors, top hats are still required in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, a coronation would be meaningless without a crown, and where would Haxey be without its famous medieval leather hood?

The old saying may no longer be true that ‘if you want to get ahead, get a hat,’ and it’s hard to imagine a return to a world where literally everyone wore one. But hats still have a lot going in their favour. They don’t just keep us warm, dry or shaded, and looking smart. There’s something terribly nice about tipping your hat to a friend or an acquaintance – and there’s still no finer way to hail a cab.

For a place most people in Britain rarely, if ever, visit, the historic City of London has bequeathed to these islands more than its fair share of common phrases and sayings. Several of these – including ‘at sixes and sevens’, ‘on tenterhooks’, ‘baker’s dozen’ and ‘if the cap fits, wear it’ – have their origins within the Square Mile, these particular ones referring to the customs and traditions of the Livery, the City’s ancient craft guilds.

Another saying most of us are familiar with and understand is ‘I’ll keep it under my hat’, meaning to keep something secret or hidden. However, few know its precise derivation, or that it refers to a particular and rather singular item of headgear.

The hat in question is that worn by the City’s official Sword-bearer, a ceremonial post closely associated with the Lord Mayor of London who is elected each year by the members of the aforementioned Livery companies. It’s an ancient appointment, indeed so old that no one knows quite when the first man was appointed, nor indeed who he was.

The City is known to have possessed a ceremonial sword as long ago as 1373. In 1408 a man called John Credy was given a house rent-free in Cripplegate, in recognition of fourteen years’ good service as an Esquire to the Lord Mayor when his duties would have included carrying the sword before the mayor at official functions.

In the centuries when exactly this sort of privilege was granted by popes to sovereign heads of state, the right to have a sword carried before the Lord Mayor was a significant concession to the City and a clear demonstration of its wealth and status. The City’s wealth derived from its unique position as the chief trading port of the country (which in a sense it still is). Much of its status, however, depended on its relationship with the Crown. For hundreds of years the sovereign had most of the power but rarely enough money. Successive monarchs soon came to realise that in exchange for special rights and privileges the City could be relied upon to provide piles of it, more than enough to fund their palaces, their pageantry and their wars.

The sword was conceived as a tangible symbol of the privileges that flowed from this relationship, and it is significant that one of the five1 in the collection at Mansion House was a personal gift to the City from Elizabeth I. Her Majesty’s gift marked the opening of the first Royal Exchange, a vital centre for trade and commerce.

The prize of carrying it was duly given to ‘a man well bred … who knows how in all places, in that which unto such service pertains, to support the honour of his lord and the City.’ As such, it has always included various responsibilities connected to the running of Mansion House, but it is otherwise expressly ceremonial. Although the sword blade looks real enough, responsibility for protecting the Lord Mayor’s person remained with the Sergeant-at-Arms. (It still does today: his immense gold mace was originally a club-like implement, a weapon designed to keep the mob at bay while the Lord Mayor processed through the streets.)

While the heavy mace is a formidable piece of equipment, it is the Sword-bearer who cuts the more imposing figure. Although both officials wear similar black robes and lace collars, the Sword-bearer has the added advantage of a tall and magnificent hat which looks like beaver but is actually made of sable.

This is London’s famous Muscovy hat, a name which references the City’s historic Baltic trade. Commerce between Britain and the Russian empire was once a source of considerable prestige for London merchants and also of great profit. Much of the profit came from the fur trade, at the apex of which sat the ferocious and ferociously expensive sable, a northern species of marten.

King Henry I possessed a sable wreath valued at £100, an eye-watering sum of money in the twelfth century, and in 1520 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V presented Henry VIII with £400 worth of sable at their much anticipated meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The king was reportedly so taken with this princely and unstinting gift that on returning to England he declared that henceforth only peers above the rank of viscount would be permitted to wear anything similar.

Evidently the Tudor statute must have expired somewhere between then and now, and merely the fact that the Sword-bearer’s uniform includes a sable hat gives a good indication of his status.2 This particular hat isn’t merely decorative, however, and it is one of its more unusual features that takes us back to the saying quoted above.

One of the many set pieces of pageantry or ritual performed during the Lord Mayor’s year is the Silent Ceremony at which the new incumbent is presented with the symbols of his new authority. Lord Mayors these days serve only one term and the ceremony takes place at Guild Hall3 on the Friday before the second Sunday in November. It is witnessed by quite a crowd, including City aldermen and officers, masters of the various Livery companies and hundreds of their fellow liverymen. A few tickets are made available to the public.

The whole thing lasts no more than twenty minutes but it’s a moving piece of theatre. The incoming Lord Mayor speaks when he swears an oath of loyalty, and there’s a fair bit of foot-shuffling and the muffled clearing of throats, but it is otherwise conducted in almost total silence. The actual transfer of power from one Lord Mayor to the next occurs at the precise moment that one dons a black tricorne hat (p.43) and the other removes his or hers.

It is then that the assembled officers take turns to present their respective symbols – including the Crystal Sceptre, the Sword and the Mace. Each officer takes three steps forward and bows three times before presenting the symbol. The new Lord Mayor touches each in turn, after which the officer walks backwards, bowing again as the process is reversed.

When it’s the Sword-bearer’s turn, he removes his famous hat and carefully takes a key from a concealed pocket in the underside. This is the key to a safe containing the seals of the City and Christ’s Hospital. The Sword-bearer hands the key to the retiring Lord Mayor, who in turn hands it to the incoming Lord Mayor, who immediately returns it to the Sword-bearer with a request that it be kept safe. The key is then returned to the pocket for another year, and the Sword-bearer puts his hat back on his head.

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1 Actually six if one includes the Travelling State Sword, a finely etched replica created in the early 1960s when it was recognised that the Sword of State had become too valuable to be allowed to leave the Square Mile.

2 Despite an extensive breeding and reintroduction programme in parts of Siberia, these animals are still rare and their pelts extremely costly. Because of this even the so-called sable-hair brushes favoured by watercolour artists are not actually made of sable, but of weasel hair.

3 Observant visitors to this, the oldest secular building inside the Square Mile, will notice that above the south door the arms of the City are shown surmounted by a Muscovy hat rather than the usual helm and crest.

North Lincolnshire’s annual Haxey Hood Game has been played for several hundred years and could well date back to the Middle Ages, although this has so far proved impossible to verify. The game is thought to relate to a story involving the wife of the 3rd Baron de Mowbray, the overlord of the nearby Isle of Axholme, who is said to have lost her red silk hood to the wind while out riding on Christmas Day in the 1350s.

Thirteen local smallholders or ‘boggins’ reportedly gave chase and eventually retrieved the hat, which was returned to the lady. Grateful for this act of gallantry, she promptly rewarded each of them with a selion (a narrow strip of land used for growing crops) but insisted that they pay a symbolic or ‘quit’ rent for these by re-enacting the chase each year.

However, some ascribe the festivities to a pagan rite, suggesting the original hood was the bloody head of a sacrificial bull; others claim to have identified Christian symbols in the proceedings, suggesting the willow wand carried by the Lord of the Hood (see below) represents the twelve Apostles. Whatever the truth, the game takes place each year, on the twelfth day of Christmas.

It begins with a procession towards the part-Norman church of St Nicholas accompanied by ringing of the bells and the singing of traditional songs such as ‘Drink Old England Dry’ and ‘John Barleycorn’. At the head of the procession walks the Fool, soot-faced and dressed in a red shirt, patched trousers and colourful decorated hat. He carries the sway hood, a 2-foot-long leather cylinder, and once the procession has reached its destination he stands on a stone mounting block by the churchyard wall to welcome the crowd and explain the game, chanting:

Oose agin’ oose, toon agin’ toon

If tha’ meets a man, knock ’im doon

But don’t ’urt ’im1

Apparently this last line was only added a century or so ago after some near-fatalities among the thirteen boggins. These days two of these, the Lord and the Chief Boggin, wear hunting pink and top hats decorated with flowers. The Lord also carries a wand or staff as his badge of office, made of thirteen willows bound with thirteen withy-bands.

The game begins on a piece of rising ground between Haxey and Westwoodside, close to the place where Lady de Mowbray was supposedly riding when she lost her hat. The hood is thrown high into the air and as it comes down a sway (or scrum), which these days can number more than 100 players, does whatever it can to push, pull and shove the hood down off the hill. The object of the game is to get it to one of four local pubs that have taken part over the last 100 years or more.

Once underway the game is raucous, it’s very noisy and it looks rough – but there are rules. These forbid players from running with the hood and it mustn’t be thrown or kicked. The boggins are responsible for rounding up any stragglers and do their best to prevent damage to village property (not always successfully). The Lord of the Hood acts as referee, policing the rules. Depending on the energy and commitment of the players, many of whom look like very useful members of local football and rugby teams, it can take several hours to manhandle the hood towards one village or the other.

Because of this, the latter stages of the game have frequently been conducted in near-total darkness, which can make it even more hazardous than usual for those still watching. Historically the game was declared to be won only when the licensee of one of the pubs could reach out and touch the hood from his or her front step. Unfortunately three of the four have since closed.

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1 ‘House against house, town against town, if a man meets a man, knock him down but don’t hurt him.’ The towns are the two local villages, and the houses their respective pubs.

Most clearly seen on the arms of the city of York is an item described in Heraldic French as a ‘chapeau gules turned up ermine’. This is a ceremonial cap, made of crimson velvet lined with ermine, which accompanied the grant of a ceremonial sword to the city, probably by Richard II in the late fourteenth century. This was an unusual honour but not unique, although the cap now on display in the Mansion House is a much later version and was presented by George V in 1915.

George V’s gift to York was specifically intended to be worn by the city’s official sword-bearer and is a copy. The genuine cap of maintenance forms part of the royal regalia. It is kept in London and as a symbol of the sovereign is carried before the monarch at the State Opening of Parliament each year, usually by the Leader of the House of Lords. Significantly, it is only worn by a new male sovereign as he makes his way to and through Westminster Abbey to be crowned.

When it was last used for this purpose, at the Coronation of George VI in 1937, the cap was removed immediately before the anointing ceremony and then replaced by the seventeenth-century St Edward’s Crown.1 In its place, and much as her great-great-grandmother Victoria had done more than 120 years earlier, Queen Elizabeth II wore the George IV State Diadem for her journey through Westminster. Rather lovelier than the cap it replaces, this incorporates various national symbols – including roses, shamrocks and thistles – as well as 1,333 diamonds totalling 320 carats and 169 pearls, several of which were rented from the makers by George IV. It is usually on display at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace.

The origins of this tradition, and indeed of the cap of maintenance itself, are not well understood. One theory is that caps of this sort were granted by the Pope to both Henry VII and his son Henry VIII as a mark of special privilege. Another suggests a more practical purpose: that a soft cap of this sort may have been worn simply to ensure that the heavy jewelled metal crown was more comfortable and stayed in place.

York is unusual in displaying the cap on its arms, but it is by no means the only city to have been honoured in this way. Bristol, Coventry, Lincoln, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Worcester, Hereford, Exeter and Hull have also received swords. Their official bearers wear an assortment of different headgear when on duty, the most interesting of which is almost certainly that awarded to Waterford in southern Ireland by Henry VIII.

Now a prized exhibit in the city’s Medieval Museum, this early-sixteenth-century hat is made of Italian velvet from Lucca and stiffened using whalebone. It is decorated with gold bullion and has an embroidered Tudor rose on top and daisies around the brim. These are known to have been a favourite of the king’s, a reminder of his grandmother, Lady Marguerite Beaufort. Her name comes from the French for daisy, and it was Marguerite’s descent from Edward III that provided the Tudors with their slender claim to legitimacy.

The hat is genuine and was awarded to the city in thanks for its loyalty during the Dublin rebellion of 1534. It may well have been created for this specific purpose, but if not, if it was a truly personal gift from the head of the king, it is almost certainly the sole survivor of Henry VIII’s extensive wardrobe.

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1 This is a replacement for the original, which was melted down for scrap by Cromwell after the murder of Charles I. It is nevertheless regarded as a holy relic because of its association with Edward the Confessor and is worn only for the actual coronation. Immediately afterwards, the new sovereign puts on the lighter Imperial State Crown (p.207) to leave the Abbey.

Inverkeithing near Dunfermline, one of Scotland’s ancient royal burghs, hosts the Hat and Ribbon Race each August as part of its Lammas celebrations1 to mark the beginning of the annual harvest.

The event is thought to have been held in the town since early medieval times, originally for shepherds or ‘herd laddies’ and farmhands who used to flock to Inverkeithing to hire themselves out for the coming year. The race is run over a road course of just under half a mile up and down Hope Street and the prize is a lum for the winner, the Scottish name for an early kind of felt hat, and colourful ribbons for his girlfriend.

Ahead of the race each year a top hat is paraded around the town accompanied by a marching band and carried to the finishing line on the end of a halberd. It is presented to the winner by the Provost of Fife, and these days anyone local can enter, providing they are 15 or over.

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1 From the Anglo-Saxon half-mas or ‘loaf mass’.

No longer seen quite as often as used to be the case, the Canterbury cap or ‘catercap’ is an ecclesiastical garment and takes the form of a soft square with sharp corners. Designed to be practical and foldable, it forms a traditional part of an Anglican priest’s garb and is usually worn with a cassock or soutane during processions and for outdoor services such as funerals or Palm Sunday.

Early examples of the type can be seen clearly in several Holbein works (including a celebrated painting of Sir Thomas More1) and in the National Gallery’s famous 1545 portrait of Thomas Cranmer, the earliest known work by Gerlach Flicke. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer was one of the leaders of the English Reformation under Henry VIII, Edward VI and, briefly, Bloody Mary. However, it wasn’t until the seventeenth century that headgear similar to his own began to be more widely adopted by ordinary parish priests. Its name almost certainly reflects the earlier popularity among heads of the Anglican Communion.

The caps are traditionally made either of velvet, for bishops and doctors of divinity, or of wool for the lowly parish clergy. Unlike vestments, which change colour with the seasons, Canterbury caps are also usually black although there is a single royal blue one among the more than 500 items of clerical headgear on display in Germany’s astonishing Philippi Collection.2 This particular one is an English design, made in central London, and was intended to be worn by choristers.

To most modern eyes the cap is easily confused with the Roman Catholic biretta, but viewed from above it has four radiating ridges on the top instead of only three. Although both hats were and often are still made by exactly the same clerical suppliers, and notwithstanding that both descend from exactly the same medieval prototype, the differences between them – stylistic and symbolic – are clearly significant to their respective wearers.

The bestselling author of The Parson’s Handbook, for example, was very keen to remind his readers of the foreignness of the ‘positively ugly biretta’ which he said, ‘offends an immense number of excellent lay folk’. It’s possible or even likely that Percy Dearmer was right about this when he first wrote it in the nineteenth century, but it is hard to imagine that much, if any, offence would be taken these days. That said, his influential Handbook has so far run to at least a dozen editions and has rarely been out of print. It may be significant that the same ringing assertion is still being made more than 120 years later, both digitally and in book form.

Whether he’s right or wrong about this, the caps do appear to be slightly controversial even now. Only eight years ago an Anglican parish priest wrote to the Church Times defending his decision to wear one, saying he did so even though his own wife had told him he looked ridiculous in it, and that his local MP had accused him of having ‘a strange Tudor sartorial fetish’. Similarly a website which claims to keep ‘loyal Anglicans safe from superstition’ states quite clearly that the Canterbury cap is nothing less than an affront and that anyone wearing one is doing it only to ‘show his disregard for Reformation ideals, Anglican order, and English values’.

Happily, the cap’s close relation seems to be more generally accepted. This is the College Cap (or Oxford Soft), and it is a reminder of the once close relationship between the Church, State and academia.

Today the cap is often worn as an alternative to the rigid mortarboard (p.109), especially by female students who for a long time were prevented at some universities from wearing mortarboards. Its yielding, floppy shape has been likened in the past to an apple turnover, although an upside to this is that it can usefully double as a pencil case at institutions where students are required to wear subfusc for examinations (usually meaning a commoner’s gown over a sober suit). Oxford University regulations insist that caps be worn during indoor ceremonies – when mortarboards can be carried – but the rules at Cambridge are less stringent.

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1 His actual hat has survived and, together with one of his teeth, it was displayed at the St John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC in 2016.

2 The world’s largest collection of clerical, ecclesiastical and religious head coverings is located at Kirkel in Saarland. It is privately owned and can be viewed only by appointment.

The male skullcap or yarmulke1 is one of the defining symbols of modern Jewish identity, although it is mentioned nowhere in the Old Testament and religious authorities have been arguing since at least the Middle Ages about precisely when and where it should be worn.

Many of the most observant Jews wear theirs all the time; others put them on only in order to fulfil the requirement for men to cover their heads while at prayer. No one doubts the importance of this last thing, although it can seem strange to Christians that they remove their hats to pray whereas Jews put theirs on.

The idea is certainly ancient. It is recorded in the second Book of Samuel that King David covered his head when he went barefoot and weeping to the Mount of Olives, and since the mid-sixteenth century rabbis have advised men in their congregations to walk no more than four cubits, just over 1.8 metres, with their heads uncovered.

Because of this, most synagogues keep a supply of kippot for visiting gentiles and they are sometimes given as souvenirs to non-Jewish guests at family celebrations such as weddings and bar mitzvahs (Jews are assumed to have their own). In form it is somewhat like the zuchetto (‘little pumpkin’), a simple brimless, domed cap worn by Roman Catholic clergy.

This too dates back to the Middle Ages, although at that time the decision about what to wear was taken out of Jewish hands more or less completely. Instead, for several centuries, they and Muslims living in Europe were required by harsh, restrictive Papal laws to distinguish themselves from Christian subjects through their clothing. Thousands of Jews in many different countries were compelled to wear distinctive peaked hats and sometimes yellow stars of the sort later revived in Nazi Germany.

Laws of this sort were barely needed in England, because here the entire Jewish community, one which could trace its roots back to Roman times, was expelled by an edict of Edward I (in 1290). They were not readmitted until 16572