Lining of hoods

[guthrie]

I can't find my copy of the medieval tailors assistant, I'm sure it is buried under various other books, so I have a question for you all:

15th century hoods, lined or not? And if so, lined with wool?

I made a hood years ago with a long liripipe, but it is linen lined which soaks up lots of water and feels bad, whereas wool wouldn't do that, and is probably more accurate for such purpose.

[Jenn]

Optional really depending on whether it would make you more comfortable and warmer - if that's what you're bothered about then I'd use wool to line it
If your hood is very smart then you could use fur?

[EnglishArcher]

Long liripipes are more a 14thC fashion. By mid-15th century hoods were largely out of fashion for men and relatively uncommon (except as hats!). Mainly just on the very poor (particularly shepherds, it seems!) Check out Karen Larsdatter's site to see how few images there are of men in hoods after 1450; compared to 1350.

The problem is, hoods are just so generic 'muddy-evil'. Everyone re-enactor - man, woman or child - feels they have to wear one; even in preference to doublets or gowns.

Personally, I would salute you more for NOT wearing a hood for the 15th Century.

[guthrie]

I think I'll re-line in wool then, thanks.


EA - I don't usually wear it except when it is raining or after hours when it is cold and it doesn't matter, which is why it has taken a while for me to realise regarding the lining; despite the moaning we usually manage to get decent enough weather for events.

[Fox]

By mid-15th century hoods were largely out of fashion for men ... Personally, I would salute you more for NOT wearing a hood for the 15th Century

Obviously the danger of that answer is in assuming that everyone re-enacting the 15thC is interested in the second, rather than first half.

I'm certainly with you regarding promoting the right layers in the right order; particularly as it relates to cloaks.
...too many people in a shirt and a cloak; it makes them look like they're extras in LotR.

[EnglishArcher]

Obviously the danger of that answer is in assuming that everyone re-enacting the 15thC is interested in the second, rather than first half.

Yeah, I know - I took a leap on that one, based on my experience of the predominance of WOTR groups over HYW groups

That's the problem with short answers: they tend to end up simplistic. I'll try and be less lazy in the future.

[guthrie]

On the making it clearer in the future bit, my reply above was meant more to suggest that I hadn't hideously polluted people's brains with the wrong idea very much at all. Actually the WotR events I've been to recently havn't had too many hoods on display, which is of course a good thing. I did also buy a new bag hat this season...

[Fox]

That's the problem with short answers: they tend to end up simplistic. I'll try and be less lazy in the future.

Actually, I think your answer is all there.
I was just a bit lazy the first time I read it; only when I was going to comment did I spot you'd said "by the mid-15thC".
I thought I'd highlight that for other people.

[EnglishArcher]

On the making it clearer in the future bit, my reply above was meant more to suggest that I hadn't hideously polluted people's brains with the wrong idea very much at all. Actually the WotR events I've been to recently havn't had too many hoods on display, which is of course a good thing. I did also buy a new bag hat this season...

Now, if we can just convince the ladies not to wear a man's hood at the first sign of chilly weather...

[Alice the Huswyf]

Whereas a woman's hood with along liripipe.................

[Sophia]

As far as I can work out the main difference between men's and women's hoods is that women's ones are either open at the front or close at the front with buttons. I have a wonderful adapted hood (bought from Cloaked and Dagger'd) on which I opened the front seam, lined it with fine woolen cloth and then edged it round the front of the hood with silver grey bunny. It closes with hooks and eyes. Only thing that lets it down is the fact that I gave into impulse and put a ball of bunny fur on the end of the liripipe.

If I get organised I will be making a fur lined overgown to go with it - have some beautiful dark green loden (sort of very superior fine broadcloth) and lots of spanish brown bunny skins.

[EnglishArcher]

As far as I can work out the main difference between men's and women's hoods is that women's ones are either open at the front or close at the front with buttons. I have a wonderful adapted hood (bought from Cloaked and Dagger'd) on which I opened the front seam, lined it with fine woolen cloth and then edged it round the front of the hood with silver grey bunny. It closes with hooks and eyes. Only thing that lets it down is the fact that I gave into impulse and put a ball of bunny fur on the end of the liripipe.

If I get organised I will be making a fur lined overgown to go with it - have some beautiful dark green loden (sort of very superior fine broadcloth) and lots of spanish brown bunny skins.

Actually, this is one of these items I want to do more research into, so perhaps someone can help me out here.

In my experience women's hoods tend to be open with very short (almost vestigial) gorgets/cape. Do anyone have any evidence of women wearing hoods with deep (over shoulder length) gorgets? The deep-cape hood is something I typically associate with men.

Or is it just a re-enactorism?

[Karen Larsdatter]

Actually, this is one of these items I want to do more research into, so perhaps someone can help me out here.

In my experience women's hoods tend to be open with very short (almost vestigial) gorgets/cape. Do anyone have any evidence of women wearing hoods with deep (over shoulder length) gorgets? The deep-cape hood is something I typically associate with men.

Or is it just a re-enactorism?

Definitely check out the links at http://larsdatter.com/hoods.htm -- there are several with women wearing quite-deep-caped hoods. The deep-caped-est I can think of are from a late 14th century Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673) -- see http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/ConsulterElem ... 56&Param=C or http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/ConsulterElem ... 59&Param=C

Women don't really start predominantly wearing the "open" hoods until the 15th century, though there are certainly examples dating from the 14th century that can be called open hoods (for example, the Luttrell peasant-women). 14th century women do seem to wear the same types of hoods as men in several examples -- the one coming most clearly to mind are the women in the Romance of Alexander.

We have some evidence that some open hoods could have been lined -- http://classes.bnf.fr/ema/grands/ca066.htm seems to show a contrasting lining, for example, and there's some references to fur-lined hoods as well. (Personally, for my hoods, I prefer to line them in linen that matches the color of the wool -- because otherwise, my hair goes all crazy frizzy inside the hood.)

[EnglishArcher]

Thanks for that Karen.

The evidence on your site suggests (to me) that although the hood was very common for women in the 15thC it is of the open type, with a vestigial gorget/cape and a long liripipe. The closed, deep-mantle hood, which is predominant in men's fashions of the mid-14thC is relatively rare for men in the 15thC; and doesn't seem to appear at all for women.

The Tacuinum Sanitatis images are particularly interesting and could be interpreted as mantles, rather than full, closed hoods. We know mantles existed into the 16thC (there was one found on the Mary Rose).

Just a thought.

[Lady Cecily]

The surviving hoods from Greenland are not lined. I made a copy of one from some Harris Tweed and it works pretty well without lining.

[gregory23b]

EA

"By mid-15th century hoods were largely out of fashion for men and relatively uncommon (except as hats!). Mainly just on the very poor (particularly shepherds, it seems!) Check out Karen Larsdatter's site to see how few images there are of men in hoods after 1450; compared to 1350."

How do you measure that up with the written record?

Not only that, but in relation to images, you refer to Tacuinum Sanitatis, Italian, presumably the field is open across Europe, how about the German hoods, see Wolfegg Hausbuch? Tufted, parti-coloured etc, not worn by lowly people.

Karen knows I am a devotee, but she would agree that the visual record is not enough to make judgements on prevalance.

[The Methley Archer]

Small cuba.

If Hoods are mostly out for WOTR, how do you keep your neck warm if wearing a gown/coat?

[gregory23b]

See Paston letters, 1440, Daubeney leaves a hooded gown to a beneficiary.

[Karen Larsdatter]

Karen knows I am a devotee, but she would agree that the visual record is not enough to make judgements on prevalance.

blasphemer!





No, you're right, and that's one of the things I point out on that page. I haven't found visual evidence of a woman in a dagged hood, and thought that might indicate that women didn't wear dagged hoods, and then I found that Margery Kempe "weryd gold pypys on hir hevyd and hir hodys wyth the typettys were daggyd. Hir clokys also wer daggyd and leyd wyth dyvers colowrs betwen the daggys that it schuld be the mor staryng to mennys sygth and hirself the mor ben worshepd."

And then a satyrical poem in the mid-15th century describes a lady wearing "a daggyd hood of grene," which isn't exactly direct evidence that such a thing was worn, of course, but certainly indicates that such a thing was not beyond a 15th century Englishman's imagination.

The Paston Letters have several references to hoods -- see http://larsdatter.com/paston.htm -- but it's unclear, of course, what it is that they're calling "hoods," much in the same way that we can't be 100% sure precisely what their "gowns" would have looked like, though it's an interesting mental exercise to at least imagine it. Four of the references are to women wearing hoods.

If Hoods are mostly out for WOTR, how do you keep your neck warm if wearing a gown/coat?

Your doublet helps to cover your neck, doesn't it? But hoods do still appear on men (even into the early 16th century):

c. 1475:
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server ... 008611.JPG
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server ... 008621.JPG

some more in the wintertime illustrations linked from http://larsdatter.com/booksofhours.htm too.

(There's a lot in the Landauer & Mendel Housebooks in the 15th and 16th centuries, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's meant to be a sort of habit or uniform for the brothers of the Zwölfbrüderhauser.)

[m. demetrius]

The rabbit skins mentioned somewhere previously are very warm, that is until they get damp. Then they're not so comfortable. They hold water in rather than shield the body. But if you can keep them dry, they are a very inexpensive and comfortable undercoat. Don't bother to use them as shoe liners, though. Tried it. Miserably cold when near freezing and you step in a puddle....

Of course, what isn't cold in that environment??

[The Methley Archer]

Thanks Karen.

I know normal people can get away with collars keeping the neck warm but it's not unknown for me to wear a scarf in summer beause I suffer from awfull sore throats if my neck gets cold so I wear a hood a lot; I'm not normal

[EwanDoc]

I've read books that tell of hood being padded out with insulating wool and then lined with linen on the inside. This was referencing both Viking and later Medieval periods, so I don't see why the practice would have died out, mine's is wool lined with fabric inside, and is one of the coziest garments I have, padded and insulated I could imagine it being brilliant!

Don't see why a good fur lining would be ruled out either.

[Sophia]

The rabbit skins mentioned somewhere previously are very warm, that is until they get damp. Then they're not so comfortable. They hold water in rather than shield the body. But if you can keep them dry, they are a very inexpensive and comfortable undercoat. Don't bother to use them as shoe liners, though. Tried it. Miserably cold when near freezing and you step in a puddle....

Of course, what isn't cold in that environment??

Trick with gowns and kirtles is not to make them so they drag on the ground when you walk - also wear pattens when it is wet - my working pattens with the leather hinge are about an inch thick and my posh ones add about three inches to my height which keeps a gown which skims the top of my foot well out of the wet unless I decide to go wading or walk in long grass.

[guthrie]

I've read books that tell of hood being padded out with insulating wool and then lined with linen on the inside. This was referencing both Viking and later Medieval periods, so I don't see why the practice would have died out, mine's is wool lined with fabric inside, and is one of the coziest garments I have, padded and insulated I could imagine it being brilliant!

Don't see why a good fur lining would be ruled out either.

Ah, but referencing what, exactly? I don't recall reading of any period finds like that, nor of any instructions for making or selling such a thing, and period illustrations don't appear to suggest such a thing either.

[Colin Middleton]

Thanks Karen.

I know normal people can get away with collars keeping the neck warm but it's not unknown for me to wear a scarf in summer beause I suffer from awfull sore throats if my neck gets cold so I wear a hood a lot; I'm not normal

How about a tippet? There are oodles of pictures (late 15th C) of men with a long strip of black cloth pinned to their hat. This normally drapes around the shoulders. I don't see why you wouldn't wrap it around your neck if you're cold enough to be unfashionable.

I've been known to tye my chaperon to my head with the liripipe in heavy wind!

[The Methley Archer]

What type of hat Colin?

[Colin Middleton]

Several different types. The one that I most remember is what looks like a round, furry one with a rolled up brim, but I'm certain that I've seen others. Look closely at a few pictures and you'll start to spot them, they really are common.

[Colin Middleton]

I've just made myself a tippet to go with the new acorn hat (Sarah Thursfield did us a hats and bags course at the end of last year). I'll probably have it with me at Towton if you're going.

Best wishes

[Captain Reech]

Long liripipes are more a 14thC fashion. By mid-15th century hoods were largely out of fashion for men and relatively uncommon (except as hats!). Mainly just on the very poor (particularly shepherds, it seems!)

I'd agree with that, with one tiny addition (which I think is what Fox is alluding to so forgive me for restating) Hoods and cloaks are 'heavy weather' gear, you wouldn't wear them normally unless you were going to be out and about a long way from shelter (Shepherds and other agricultural workers) or it was particularly cold or wet and then they would be worn over your normal outdoor clothes (as Fox says, not just over a shirt, at the very least you'd be wearing a doublet and some kind of overgarment). The exception being wearing one's hood rolled up to form a fashionable hat (I've always wondered if this started out as a kind of 'Pack a mac' solution, you want to look trendy but, if the weather gets nasty you have your hood to hand as it were.) Wealthier people are sometimes illustrated wearing a cloak over a gown when travelling, presumably to protect more expensive garments as well as keeping you warm and dry(ish)

Back to the original question, lining with wool is good and probably essential if you want to portray someone of a better class ( Most theories suggest only the seriously poor would have worn an unlined hood)

[lidimy]

I left mine unlined - but then, I was fortunate enough to find the most perfect wool >ever< for making it.

Interesting that hoods for men are a definite low status thing in the fifteenth centiry - I can think of at least one woman depicted teaming a liripiped red hood with a 'Burgundian' gown. There does seem to be a definite fashionable shape for them.