The “problem” relating to these
caps stems from the difficulties of interpreting the written evidence, and the
lack of the type of images in England that are so common in Dutch genre
paintings. First what is meant by a cap; as the Oxford English Dictionary puts
it “a covering for the head. (Precise sense not definable).” When talking of
menswear it comments that they are “usually of some soft material,” and that
they often come “With some qualifying word, indicative of shape, origin, or
character.”
The poem by John Cleveland
(1613-1658) has several types of caps acting as suitors to a Cambridge lass. “And
first, for the Plush-sake, the Monmouth-Cap comes,” “Then Leather-Cap strongly
pleads, And fain would derive his Pedigree of fashion.” Next is “the Puritan in
a wrought-Cap,” followed by “Sattin-Cap,” and “The Lawyer's a Sophister by his
Round-Cap.” But the lass replies to all, “if ever I have a Man, Square-Cap for
me.” (1)
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| Figure 1: These men are preachers. Broadsheet, 1647. |
Statute Caps
Reenactors have a habit of
talking of “statute” caps, and using this term to indicate the sort of
sixteenth century flat cap, that was so common in Holbein paintings. There is
in fact no such thing as a statute style cap. The 1571 Act for the making of caps
was instituted by Elizabeth I to protect the English capping industry because,
“of late dayes moste and in maner all men have forborne and left the using and
wearing of Cappes.” (2) They had gone out of
fashion, so the act states only that a cap was to be worn on a Sunday by all
above the age of six: however the exceptions are telling, it does not apply to
women, the nobility, the gentry, anyone with twenty marks a year of land (one
mark is 13s 4d), anyone who has held an Office of Worship and anyone who has
been a Warden of a Company. The only
reference to the type of style of cap is that it should be of wool, knit, thickened,
and dressed in England. Harte argued that the introduction of such an act had
the effect of making such an item even more unfashionable among those who had
enough money to choose fashion items to wear. (3 pp. 153-4) The Act was repealed
in 1597, so it does not apply in the seventeenth century,
Caps in written records
The problem here is that they
knew what they were describing, we do not. When listing items in probates they
would often separate out linens from woollen apparel. In 1619 William Morgan listed
his household linens (sheets, napkins, towels, etc.) and with them his wearing
linens; shirts, bands and three caps, his woollen apparel is separate, so it
may be assumed that these are linen caps. (4 p. 123) It is less obvious
what type of cap is being referred to in yeoman Francis Fuller’s 1634 will when
he leaves, “My brother Robert all my unbequeathed wearing apparel with the
stockings he wears, all my boots and shoes, my bible, a holland shirt, two of
my best caps and one of my best waistcoats.” (5 p. 267) Are these caps
linen, or wool? Caps can be made of other materials, and need not be knitted,
as when a mariner, George Weston, in 1637 has “one Red velvet Cappe Lacd with
gould lace” (6 p. 103) In 1622 the merchant
John Harper leaves several items including his
“twilted silk cap, [and] best wrought cap.” (7 p. 227) A wrought cap is one
that has been embroidered, twilted is quilted. When a reference is made to just
a cap should it be assumed from the context that it is a knitted cap? An
example is in 1611 when William Briggs leaves “to Ralph Walker my work day
britches a doublett and a cap.” (8 p. 50)
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| Figure 2: Linen cap or cap liner. London Museum |
Flat caps
Some written records do specify
types of cap. A flat cap would probably be the nearest style to what reenactors
call a statute cap. By the beginning of the seventeenth century they were
already regarded as just for the working man. As Heywood has a London
apprentice reply in his 1600 play, “Flatcappes thou calst us, wee scorne not
the name.” (9 p. 18) In the 1605 play The
Dutch Courtesan, Mary Faugh, an old woman, says to the courtesan “who helped
thee to thy custom,—not swaggering Ireland captains, nor of two-shilling
inns-o’-court men,—but with honest flat-caps, wealthy flat-caps, that pay for
their pleasure the best of any men in Europe.” (10 pp. I,ii)
Mid-seventeenth century caps
One of the best mid century
English images is “These tradesmen are preachers in the City of London”
published in 1647. [Figure 1] These twelve working men are depicted at their
occupations, most are indoors. The tailor, soap boiler and glover wear what
might be taken as a “nightcap” style. The box-maker is wearing something with a
band or brim, onto which the fabric of the crown is gathered. The meal man and
chicken man could be wearing felt hats, or they could be wearing a knitted
fulled cap, perhaps like this survival
in the Rijksmuseum. [Figure 3] It is from the grave of a Dutchman who died
and was buried near Spitzbergen. What the porter is wearing is more obviously a
felt hat.
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| Figure 3: Whaler's knitted cap from Spitsberge. Rijksmuseum |
Linen and fabric “nightcap” style caps
These were mainly for indoor
wear, and were sometimes depicted being worn under hats. There was a blogpost
on nightcaps in 2020 with links to embroidered and decorated survivals that
were for the nobility and gentry. Plain caps in this style were purchased for
servants, in 1647 James Master purchased “4 holland caps for my boy 1s 6d.” (11 p. 170) Note that in the
woodcut from the ballad A Health to All Good-Fellows, men at the table wear
hats, but the servant wears a cap.[Figure 4] The caps worn by the soap boiler
and glover are plain, though the tailor’s appears to have a lace trim, like the upmarket survival in the London
Museum [Figure 2], there is a similar plain, lace trimmed survival in the
Manchester collection. As well as being made of linen more upmarket versions could
also be made of silk, the rector Giles Moore in Sussex bought many satin caps,
paying usually three shillings for them. (12 pp. 13, 130)
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| Figure 4: Broadside- A Health to All Good Fellows |
Round caps
What about round caps? They are
sometimes seen as specifically applying to undergraduates, “Many a Damsel, who
has marry'd a Round-Cap, has dearly repented of her Bargain... An Undergraduate
should no more venture upon Wedlock, than an Apprentice.” (13) However plain round
knitted caps exist, two were found with the Gunnister burial on Shetland, and
are now in the National Museums of Scotland (14) One is without
a turn up brim, the other [Figure 5] has a
turn up. Many similar caps were found among the excavated graves of Dutch sailors.
It is noteworthy that in 1607 those who wore the livery of the Company of
Butchers of the City of London had to wear as livery “a round cap of wooll and
not a hatt.” (15 p. 115)
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| Figure 5: Gunnister round cap. National Museums of Scotland |
Square caps
Square caps can relate to those
worn by clergy, in a distinction that goes back to the separation of the Church
of England from the Catholic Church. John Hooper in 1551 was finally worn in as
Bishop of Gloucester wearing “a geometrical, that is, a four-cornered cap.” (16 pp. 93-110) This style can be
seen in the 1633 portrait of Archbishop
Laud by Van Dyck in the National Portrait Gallery.
Caps named for places
There are lots of arguments about
what constitutes a Monmouth cap, and there are lots of other places where there
are references to caps named for a town or city, where it is unknown what
exactly the style is, or if it just refers to were the cap was made. The 1571
Act lists twenty six towns making caps and then adds “and dyvers others.” (2) In 1633 the Howard
of Naworth Castle accounts have “for one Richmond capp for my Lord 3s 7d.” (17 p. 292) In 1642 the chapman
William Mackerell had in stock “a Wakefield capp 6d.” (18 pp. 186-90) In 1660 Samuel Pepys
“found Mr. Shepley, in his Venetian cap.” (19 p. 30th Dec)
Leather and fur
Leather and fur caps were around.
In 1656 James Master paid “for a black Spanish leather cap lined 2s.” and in
1658 “for a leather cap lined 2s.” (20 pp. 252, 323) The 1641 accounts
for the Marquis of Hertford also have payments for leather caps. (21 p. 24) In 1660/1 Samuel
Pepys “sent a porter to my house for my best fur cap.” (19 p. 28th Jan) What these caps
looked like is uncertain. Hollar’s engraving of the Royal Exchange
has a couple of foreign merchants in the bottom left had corner, wearing what
might be fur caps, they are the only caps in the image, as seen in the detail
from the engraving at Figure 6. There is a painting from 1654 Young
man in a Fur Cap by Carel Fabritius, which gives another indication of what
they might look like.
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| Figure 6: Detail from Wenceslaus Hollar. The Royal Exchange |
Knit caps and charity schools
By the end of the seventeenth
century knit caps appear to be mainly for working men, servants, and boys in
charity schools. When the Grey Coat School was founded at Westminster in 1699
the governors ordered knitted caps for the boys, and John Driden in his 1707
will setting up his charity school specified that the boys would each have a
knit cap. (22 pp. 95, 145)
How common were caps
As Spufford and Mee said, “The
fluidity of terminology that applies to clothing and changes in fashion
presented some problems.” (23 p. 29) Looking at wills and
probates from men who are not wealthy enough to have their estates probated at
York or Canterbury, and comparing references to hats to references to those
caps that are not linen or other fabric, and not for children or babies, then there
is roughly one (possibly knit) cap mention for every one hundred hats. This is
not a very reliable statistic. The people who had wills and probates are
disproportionately yeomen and artisans. Gregory King in 1688 considered that
there were twice as many hats being produced as “Caps or all sorts,” but it is
unknown what he was including in his caps of all sorts. (24)
References
1. Cleveland,
Jon. The works of Mr. John Cleveland. London : Printed by R.
Holt for Obadiah Blagrave, 1687.
2. Acts, statutes, etc. . 13 Elizabeth c.19. An
Acte for the makinge of cappes. 1571.
3. Harte, N. State control of dress and social change.
[book auth.] D. C. Coleman and A. H. Johns. Trade, Government and Economy in
Pre-Industrial England. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976.
4. Emmison, F. G. Jacobean household inventories. Publications
of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society. 1938, Vol. 20.
5. Evans, Nesta, ed. Wills of the Archdeaconry of
Sudbury 1630-1635. Suffolk Records Society. 1987, Vol. 29.
6. George, E. and S. eds. Bristol probate inventories,
Part 1: 1542-1650. Bristol Records Society publication. 2002, Vol. 54.
7. Allen, M. E. ed. Wills in the Archdeaconry of
Suffolk 1620-1624. Woodbridge : Suffolk Records Society, 1988.
8. Wood, H. W. ed. Wills and inventories from the
registry at Durham, part 4, [1603-1649]. Publications of the Surtees
Society. 1929, Vol. 142.
9. Heywood, Tomas. King Edward IV, Part 1. London :
Shakespeare Society, 1600 (1842).
10. Marston, John. The Works of John Marston,
vol.2. London : Nimmo, 1887.
11. Robertson, S. The expense Book of James Master
1646-1676 [Part 1, 1646-1655], transcribed by Mrs Dallison. Archaeologia
Cantiana. 1883, Vol. 15, 152-216, pp. 152-216.
12. Bird, Ruth, ed. The Journal of Giles Moore of
Horsted Keynes, 1655-1679. Lewes : Sussex Record Society, 1971.
13. The Free-thinker. 153, London : s.n.,
1719.
14. Henshall, A. and Maxwell, S. Clothing and other articles
from a late 17th century grave at Gunnister, Shetland. Proceedings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 1952, Vol. 86.
15. Cunnington, Phillis and Lucas, Catherine. Occupational
cosume in England. London : Black, 1968.
16. Doda, Hilary. Rounde Heades in Square Cappes: The Role of
the Vestments in the Vestiarian Controversy. Dress. 2013, Vol. 39, 2.
17. Ornsby, G. ed. Selections from the Household Books of the
Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle. Publications of the Surtees Society. 1878,
Vol. 68.
18. Spufford, Margaret. The great reclothing of rural
England: petty chapman and their wares in the seventeenth century. London :
Hambledon Press, 1984.
19. Pepys, Samuel. Diary. [Online]
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary.
20. Robertson, S. The expense Book of James Master 1646-1676
[Part 2, 1655-1657], transcribed by Mrs Dallison. Archaeologia Cantiana. 1886,
pp. 241-259.
21. Morgan, F. C. Private Purse Accounts of the Marquis of
Hertford, Michaelmas 1641-2. Antiquaries Journal. 1945, Vols. 25, 12-42,
pp. 12-42.
22. Cunnington, Phillis and Lucas, Catherine. Charity
Costumes of Children, Scholars, Almsfolk, Pensioners. London : Black,
1978.
23. Spufford, Margaret and Mee, Susan. The Clothing of the
Common Sort 1570-1700. Oxford : OUP, 2017.
24. Spufford, Margaret. The Cost of Apparel in
Seventeenth-Century England, and the Accuracy of Gregory King. Economic
History Review. 2000, Vol. 53, 4.
