French Hoods

an ongoing obsession

Author: Sarah Lorraine

Original Publication Date: 6/2009 - Updated: 3/1/2011 © all rights reserved. please contact author before republishing.

I. Introduction

Effigy, c. 1580 Westminster Abbey. © 2010 Sarah Lorraine

The use of funerary effigies in the analysis of 16th century fashion provides researchers with an invaluable source for study.  Relying solely on portraiture to provide accurate details about clothing is difficult and open to much conjecture; can the artist be trusted to accurately represent three-dimensional subjects in two dimensions? Until very recently in the study of 16th century clothing, the majority of costume historians tended to rely primarily on portraiture and a limited collection of extant items for their research, owing perhaps to the prevalence of painted artworks from this era and the special attention paid to preserving textile antiquities.  The fact that so few actual clothing items from the 16th century have survived, and the often extremely distressed state of those that have, means that costume historians frequently focus their attention on works of art for their study and analysis. Attempting to create a three-dimensional garment from a two-dimensional source can sometimes lead to creative interpretations that are not necessarily supported by additional research of primary source material such as wardrobe accounts. 

Living in the digital age, we are fortunate that other primary sources for sixteenth century clothing are now becoming widely available for study.  Photography of English funerary effigies is becoming popular, and as high quality digital photographs make their way onto the Internet, researchers from all over the globe can benefit. It is worth the time to sort through images of these statues to glean invaluable information on the structure of the French Hood.  In my first attempt to accurately reconstruct a French Hood, I relied solely on portraiture to guide me, in addition to written documentation, both contemporary and historical.¹  With access to photographs, such as the ones catalogued by Dr. Jane Malcolm-Davies on TudorEffigies.co.uk, I have been able to refine my theories in addition to positing new ideas as to how French Hoods were likely constructed between the years of 1530 and 1560, as well as how they evolved after their heyday had passed.        

Effigy, c. 1580 Westminster Abbey. © 2010 Sarah Lorraine

The widespread use of French Hoods amongst the middle and upper classes of 16th century England is a surprisingly static phenomenon, and even as clothing styles changed with relative fluidity throughout the century, the constant favor that the French Hood has found allows us to examine its progression of style in a much more comprehensive manner.  It is worth noting that in my studies, I am becoming more and more convinced that there were regional differences between French Hood styles, as well as idiosyncratic construction and ornamentation, so pointing to one single unifying method of construction is somewhat unrealistic.  Further study is merited to better discern these apparent differences in construction. 

II. Structure of a French Hood
Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the reconstruction of the French Hood, terminology appears poorly defined and often contradictory through the course of the 16th century. I have attempted to use standardized terms for the basic components of the French Hood based on the research of Janet Arnold, M. Channing Linthicum and Melanie Schuessler. These terms appear in contemporary wardrobe accounts and correspondence, as in the Lisle Letters, in relationship to French Hoods, though very little description is given as to how these pieces were worn.  Through experimentation with construction methods, I have devised a plausible method of wearing the French Hood.

Diagram of French Hood Terms © 2010 Sarah Lorraine	Diagram of French Hood Terms © 2010 Sarah Lorraine

Beginning at the innermost layer, which would lie directly over the wearer’s hair, and working outward, I will attempt to define the structure and function of each layer using period terms.    Variations in the number of layers is evident in the small sampling of effigies I chose for this study, but it appears that no less than three layers are employed in all subjects.

Layer 1: The Coif and Crespine 
The coif was the most ubiquitous base layer, presumably of linen or silk and typically white, though shades of red were popular in the first decades of the sixteenth century, particularly in the Low Countries.²  The exact shape of the coif is not known for certain; evidence for one particular theory of construction, namely a circular piece of fabric gathered into a shaped band, is minimal, but not unrealistic.  Another theory is that it was shaped in a way similar to extant embroidered coifs.³   Laura Mellin, in an article on the Elizabethan coif, demonstrates a plausible way to wear a single piece coif that replicates the effect of a gathered bag into a band around the head.⁴ Although extant coifs, like the ones on which Mellin’s and Arnold’s work are based, date to the very end of the 16th century and early 17th century, it is reasonable to postulate that minor variations in their construction might have allowed for something similar earlier on, though further research is needed to more precisely document the shape and construction of early coifs.

It has long been assumed that a pleated edging of gold or white material was stitched to the front edge of the coif, but in some cases, an alternate style is apparent, one that consists of a gathered head covering distinctly different in appearance to the typical coif.  Other researchers⁵ have questioned if this distinct covering was joined to the coif, but written documentation dating to the 16th century suggests that it may have been a separate entity known as a “crespine”.  In Cotgrave’s A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, this term is directly applied to the French Hood, and contains the root word “crespi”, which he describes as a “curled or frizzed”.⁶ Esoteric though the translation is, it not unreasonable to infer that the pleated or gathered head covering might actually have been a separate part of the French Hood’s construction. 

Whether worn alone or in addition to a crespine, a chinstrap, presumably attached to the coif, is sometimes visible at the lower jaw line, though some evidence seems to indicate that chinstraps were not always present. For example, in contemporary portraiture, particularly in portraits of Englishwomen painted by Hans Holbein the Younger, one frequently observes chinstraps, yet they are not always present in other works by other artists.  Whether this is simply artistic license, the angle of the sitter (a full front pose versus a three-quarter turned or side profile), or an evolution in which the strap was eventually discarded in favor of a different method of securing the headdress is unclear. Personal experimentation in pinning both layers to the wearer’s hair yielded positive results and negated the need for a chinstrap to keep the structure stable,⁷ but because all the of effigies examined in this study exhibit them, and given the range of dates from earliest to latest effigies, we will consider the chinstrap an essential element to secure the hood on the head throughout the scope of this examination.

Layers 2-3: The Paste

Costume historians have offered many conflicting theories regarding the definition of the paste, as the term infrequently occurs in wardrobe accounts, yet when it does it is listed along with the other items that make up the entire structure termed a French Hood.⁸  In modern costuming parlance, the paste is often termed a “crescent” owing to its apparent shape when on the head. I believe the paste refers to the piece or pieces worn over the coif and under the topmost layer, usually represented in portraiture as white, black or red (though in some instances, the paste was matched to the gown’s fabric, particularly during the first half of the 16th century).  This theory is further supported by the effigies presented in this study, each with at least one paste evident over the coif or crespine. 
In post-1550 examples in effigies, it is apparent that the paste may have a bag attachment at the back of the head.  This might seem redundant, assuming the hair has been braided up and concealed by the innermost layer of the coif or crespine, yet a delineation of the bag covering the back of the head and the crescent shaped paste above it,  appears clearly beneath the fall of the hood in the back.  A similar construction is clearly evident from a medal struck with the profile of Mary I, c. 1555.⁹  Another possibility is that the paste is simply a crescent shaped piece of fabric without a bag attachment, and that the bag seen at the back of the head belongs to the coif.  Both are plausible, as the available evidence seems to support either possibility.

Layer 4: The Hood.
The Hood is the portion that falls from the crown and normally covers the back of the head (as in some pre-1550 C.E. examples),¹⁰ or falls in a pleated arrangement over the bag covering the hair at the back (as is evident from various examples from 1550-onwards).¹¹  It is typically represented in portraits as being black or otherwise dark colored. The hood portion initially began as a draped veil of black velvet or wool, often with a contrasting lining that was turned back at the crown of the head (perhaps the origin of the eventual paste pieces) and likely pinned to the coif beneath.¹² Eventually, this veil began to shorten, the end creeping closer to the back of the head, and was secured to the paste.  In the post-1550 C.E. examples described in the analysis of the effigies (Fig. 1-3), the hood appears to be a tube that is pleated to a width of approximately 4-5” across the crown of the head and falls straight down the back.  The length of the hood appears to come almost to waist level, but no shorter than the base of the shoulder blades in the effigies examined in this study. 

Billiments
Though the subjects considered in this analysis show plainer styles of French Hoods, one cannot fail to mention the most distinguishing feature of this style of headdress, the billiments.  Often found in matched sets of upper and lower billiments, these were metal and jewel-work embellishments, possibly attached to a removable band or stitched directly to the hood structure and the front edge of the coif.¹³  Strictly decorative, they do not seem to serve an integral function of the French Hood itself, as evidenced by the fact that they could be worn separately from the hood structure as a type of hair ornament.  Wearing the billiments independently in this manner was an especially popular form of hair decoration in France and Italy during this time period, but judging from evidence in portraiture, does not seem to be widely adopted in England during the 16th century.

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