I shall not go into the matter of the hood with two peaks, which was
not, I take it, a true child of fashion in the direct line, but a mere
cousin--a junior branch at that.
As to the dates on this family tree, the vague, mysterious beginnings
B.C.--goodness knows when--in a general way the Fall, the Flood, and
the First Crusade, until the time of the First Edward; the end of the
thirteenth century, when the liripipe budded, the time of the Second
Edward; the first third of the fourteenth century, when the liripipe
was in full flower, the time of the Third Edward; the middle of the
fourteenth century, when the liripipe as a liripipe was dying, the
time of the Second Richard; the end of the century, when the chaperon
became the twisted cockscomb turban. Then, after that, until the
twenty-second year of the fifteenth century, when the roundlet was
born--those are the dates.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VI.}]
We have arrived by now, quite naturally, at the roundlet. I left you
interested at the last phase of the hood, the chaperon so called,
twisted up in a fantastical shape on man's head. You must see that the
mere process of tying and retying, twisting, coiling and arranging,
was tedious in the extreme, especially in stirring times with the
trumpets sounding in England and France. Now what more likely for the
artist of the tied hood than to puzzle his brains in order to reach a
means by which he could get at the effect without so much labour!
Enter invention--enter invention and exit art. With invention, the
made-up chaperon sewn so as to look as if it had been tied. There was
the twist round the head, the cockscomb, the hanging piece of
liripipe. Again this was to be simplified: the twist made into a
smooth roll, the skull to be covered by an ordinary cap attached to
the roll, the cockscomb converted into a plain piece of cloth or silk,
the liripipe to become broader. And the end of this, a little round
hat with a heavily-rolled and stuffed brim, pleated drapery hanging
over one side and streamer of broad stuff over the other; just such a
hat did these people wear, on their heads or slung over their
shoulder, being held in the left hand by means of the streamer. There
the honourable family of hood came to a green old age, and was, at the
end of the fifteenth century, allowed to retire from the world of
fashion, and was given a pension and a home, in which home you may
still see it--on the shoulders of the Garter robe. Also it has two
more places of honourable distinction--the roundlet is on the Garter
robe; the chaperon, with the cut edge, rests as a cockade in the hats
of liveried servants, and the minutest member of the family remains in
the foreign buttons of honourable Orders.
[Illustration: {Six types of head-gear}]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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