hood had gone out of use by the end of the 16th century.[1]
Bachelors’ hoods were to be lined throughout with fur (Mun.
Acad. p. 361), which we learn from the statute de admission ad
pelluram (1432) to have been budge. Masters and noblemen
might use miniver, or silk in summer (Mun. Acad. pp. 283, 301).
There were evidently hoods of at least two kinds for masters,
sometimes called respectively caputium and epomis, whether
corresponding to the distinction between regents and non regents
we do not know. (See Mun. Acad. p. 638, will of
Thomas Bray, M.A., and Robinson, loc. cit. In the Oxford
Corpus Statutorum of 1768 the epomis is worn with the ordinary
gown, the caputium with the scarlet habit.) At a later date,
at Cambridge, a distinction was made between the hoods of
non-regents, which were lined with silk, and those of regents,
which were lined with miniver.[2] Later again the regents wore
their hoods in such a way as to show the white lining, while
the non-regents wore theirs “squared,” so that the white did not
show. Hence the name “White Hoods” and “Black Hoods”
given to the upper and lower houses of the old Senate respectively.
It is not settled when the modern colourings of hoods
arose; they probably followed those of the gowns of the
faculties, but about these we are equally uncertain. The
Oxford Proctor still wears a miniver hood. The modern
Cambridge hood has preserved the original shape more closely
than the Oxford one, being a hood and tippet combined, the
hood having square corners. The tippet, which appears as
part of the early costume of certain doctors, was probably,
like the judges’ tippet, originally the shoulder-cape forming
part of the same garment as the hood. Clark and others
would derive it from the almuce (q.v.), but do not seem to
show any definite grounds for so doing. Its place seems to
have been taken by the scarf Worn by D.D.’s, &c., probably
developed from the hood with long liripipe as worn turban wise
on the head or as a scarf round the shoulders. It seems
rather far-fetched to derive the scarf from the two pendants
of the almuce.[3] (See article Vestments and cp. the mayor’s
scarf mentioned above.)
There seem to have been at least three varieties of academic head-dress:[4] firstly, the doctor’s skull-cap with “apex” as illustrated in the Chandler MS. drawings; secondly, the square cap of cloth as prescribed by Laud’s statutes of 1636 for graduates and foundation scholars (similarly for Cambridge by Burleigh’s letter to the vice-chancellor in 1588), with its counterpart olg velvet worn by doctors; thirdly, a round cloth cap prescribed by the Laudian statutes and Burleigh’s letter for under raduates who were not foundation scholars, with the round ca of velvet for doctors which survives as part of their full dress to the present day. The square cap was adopted at the universities, according to Robinson, after 1520, in imitation of the university of Paris. For the development of the modern “college cap,” see Biretta. In this connexion should be mentioned the term “tuft-hunting,” i.e. attempting to thrust oneself into the society of one’s social superiors, derived from the gold tufts or tassel worn by noblemen and fellow-commoners on their college caps.
As to the dresses of the different degrees, the drawings from the Chandler MS. give a good idea of the early costume. It is also well illustrated by brasses.[5] Doctors of theology seem to have worn a tippet but no hood. Masters of Arts seem to have worn a gown, over which was a garment with bell-shaped sleeves reaching to the elbow, a tip t and a hood (see Druitt, plate facing p. 136, and p. 135). The same dress was sometimes worn by B.A.’s (see brass of John Palmer, B.A., d. 1479, New College, Oxford, in Druitt, p. 141), and bachelors of law and divinity, the latter being generally already M.A.’s (Druitt, p. 139). Haines’s theory is that after the middle of the 15th century the dress of the M.A.’s was changed, and they wore a sleeveless tabard reaching to 'midway between ankle and knee. This costume certainly occurs on brasses, chiefly of the 16th or late 15th centuries, but the change is hard to explain.[6]
Academic dress underwent much inquiry and some revision at the time of the Reformation, chiefly in the direction of sobriety and uniformity, “excess of apparel” being repressed as severely as ever, but not with much more effect.[7] Burleigh’s letter to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University (1585), and the statutes of Queen Elizabeth, strictly enforce the wearing of cap and gown by all, and hoods and habits by those entitled to wear them, and similar regulations were made for Oxford by Laud’s statutes of 1633, further details being dealt with by a decree of 1770. Academic dress during the 17th century may be further studied in Bedel Buck’s book (1665, see Appendix B. to Peacock, Observations on the Statutes of the University of Cambridge), and Loggan’s plates of academic costume in Oxonia Illustrata (1675) and Cantabrigia Illustrata (1690, ed. J. W. Clark, 1905).
There have been few far-reaching changes since Loggan’s day. Cambridge has of late years inquired into and revised her regulations as to dress, and in the Ordinances (latest ed. 1908, Statute A, cap. VII. p. 303) clear rules are laid down; the 'Oxford regulations (see Statuta et Decreta Univ. Oxon.
- ↑ An interesting survival, which only disappeared about the middle of the 19th century, was the little black hood placed round the neck of candidates going in for viva voce in all examinations subsequent to responsions at Oxford. This was a survival of the custom of conferring on sophistae generales, i.e. those who had assed the first stage of the exercises for the B.A. degree, a hood of' plain black cloth. See A. Clark’s Introduction to the Registers of Oxford University, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 22 (Oxford Hist. Soc., 1887).
- ↑ See Caius’ Statutes (1557), also an account of the entertainments at Cambridge on the visit of Queen Elizabeth, 1564, given in Nichols, Progresses, vol. iii., “Theologiae Baccalaureos ac non-Regentes primum, sericis caputiis induti, tum Regentes Magistri suis pelliceis albescentibus decorati; tandem Juris Artiumque Baccalaureos suis agninis bracceis conspicui."
- ↑ See Rev. E. Wickham Legg in Trans. of St Paul’s Eccles. Soc. vol. iii. Also Lacey and Robinson (loc. cit.).
- ↑ The subject is discussed in detail by Clark, “College Caps and Doctors’ Hats,” in Archaeol. Journal, vol. lxi., and N. F. Robinson, “Pileus Quadratus,” in Transact. of St Paul’s Ecclesiological Socy., vol. v. pt. i. (1901). There is also much miscellaneous information in C. Wordsworth, University Life in the 18th Century, p. 499 seq.
- ↑ See for doctors’ costume, J. G. and L. A. B. Waller’s Series of Monumental Brasses (London, 1864), plate of “Four Ecclesiastics,” from New College, Oxford, who are also illustrated in Druitt, pp. 131, 129, 119; and for M.A.’s and B.A.’s, Druitt, p. 135 seq. and plate facing p. 136. On the brass of John Lowthe, D.C.L., should be noticed the two curious long streamers or liripipes hanging from the back of his tabard or hood. It is hard to say what they can be; but the closest parallel is in the two streamers on the back of the old Oxford commoners’ gown, which were probably survivals of sleeves. They are said to have given rise to the term “plucking,” i.e. failing in examination, the story being that a man’s creditors might assemble at the conferring of degrees, and by “plucking” at his gown prevent him from going up for his degree.
- ↑ It is just possible that this sleeved garment may be the capa manicata mentioned in Mun. Acad. p. 421, “nullus regens in artibus . . . in capa manicata lectiones legat ordinarias, sed in pallio vel capa clausa." Clark (pp. 188, 189, &c.) identifies the cappa manicata with the tabard, but if, as suggested above, the pallium is the tabard, the cappa manicata cannot be the same. Braun, Liturgische Gewandung, p. 308, shows that a sleeved cope, called cappa manicata, did develop from the cappa clericalis or everyday cope of the clergy, at the end of the 12th century, its use being forbidden by various synods. It is possible, then, that the capa manicata may have been worn by non-regents, the tabard (which Haines alleges to have been adopted generally by M.A.’s in the late 15th century), or pallium, by regents.
- ↑ The essential parts of Laud’s statutes, Burleigh’s letter, &c., with much other matter bearing on academic costume from the 16th century onwards, will be found in C. Wordsworth’s University Life in the 18th Century (London and Cambridge, 1874, p. 485 seq.). To the passages quoted by him may be added the following from Johannis Berebloci Commentarii, an eye-witness’s account of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Oxford in 1566 (published in Elizabethan Oxford, ed. C. Plummer, Oxford Hist. Soc., 1887); at one of the disputations Mr. Campion, M.A., was dressed as follows: “To a illi tum Dalmatica talaris fuit, manicis remissis ac largitate sua digluentibus. Huic pallium inductum est undique consutum, praeter quam qua dextro patebant aditus. Postremo erant humeri superius pellibus albis, candoreque lucentibus, redimiti. Atque hic tum habitus fuit omnium magistrorum, praeterquam quod nonnulli, loco'palludamenti illius pellicei, serico utebantur, omni colore variegate." This points to the wide-sleeved gown, tabard and hood as the dress of masters, but the colour of the hood was evidentl not fixed. For Doctor White, D.C.L., “ ei vestis Dalmatica filerat talaris, ex electiori et clarissima purpura; lato clavo coccineo superius induebatur, additum postremo humeris paludamentum est ejusdem coloris, cum serico subtegmine, similique tum vestiti habitu omnes Doctores sedebant." Here vestis Dalmatica would be the ordinary gown, clavus latus the scarlet gown, and paludamentum the hood, as before. For costume up to the middle o the 19th century see Wall-Gunning, Ceremonies observed in the Senate House at Cambridge (1828).
