[Alan Schiff]

Hey everyone! So the local Ren Fair is next month and I need some help with my costume. I've been dressing as a man at arms from ~1340 England/Scotland for the past several years. At this point my costume consists of hose, shirt, boots, gambeson, hauberk, and surcoat. Unfortunately I've gone kinda shiny up top (aka balding) and I need something on my head to keep my scalp from getting sunburned.

So I'm asking for info about hats from that area and period. I know of several styles already, but I'm not really knowledgeable about what classes may have worn which hats, which would be more common to wear along with armor, etc. I've looked at manuscripts and other art, but it usually shows men in armor bare-headed if not wearing a helmet, so that didn't help me much.

So please pass along any knowledge you have on this subject.

Thanks in advance,
Alan

[Mark Millman]

Dear Alan,

If you've already seen it then I apologize for the redundant information, but Ambrogio Lorenzetti's The Allegory of Good and Bad Government shows armed men--not, regrettably, in armor as far as I can tell, although a couple carry shields--wearing hats. A good detail from Effects of Bad Government in the City appears on Wikipedia. The frescos date to 1338-1339, so they're just about spot-on for your impression, but they're Italian, which is a bit remote from your Anglo-Scottish context. My understanding is that fashion at that time was fairly uniform across Western Europe, but you may not find this satisfactory. At least one thing I've noticed is that hats seem often to be worn over coifs. Ambrogio's older brother Pietro Lorenzetti painted a Crucifixion that shows soldiers wearing hats. Again, as in Ambrogio's fresco, they seem to carry shields but not to wear armor. Also, it's from around 1320, so it's further from the date of your impression. I imagine you've already looked at Manuscript Miniatures; the Taymouth Hours (BL Yates Thompson 13) has men who seem to be of appropriate station wearing hats, but they're not armored and it's hard to tell what's going on with the hats. They may perhaps be simple soft conical caps of the same kind that the figure with the shield in the detail from Lorenzetti above seems to wear.

My initial impulse was to recommend that you wear a chaperone in the mid-fourteenth-century style (for your impression, a moderately elaborate hood with dagging and a liripipe, with the face opening rolled up to serve as the hatband), but I realized that the image in my head is of partially armored fifteenth-century heralds officiating at tournaments of various kinds. Not that I think you necessarily shouldn't wear a chaperone--I don't know one way or the other, because my immediate thought isn't relevant to the issue.

At any rate, I hope this proves at least somewhat helpful.

Best,

Mark Millman

[Craig Peters]

This website does a good job of overviewing some of the hats of the 14th century: https://thedecavershamhousehold.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/historical-mens-headwear/