Costume accuracy question for the Great LJ Oracle(tm)

[love3angle]

This came up on the Ren Faire History Snobs tribe (a wonderful place to be a history snob, BTW).

My friend John, who is quite the history buff, has made an observation that:

"based purely on looking at period portraits. My contention is that the ENGLISH GENTRY and NOBILITY wore exclusively black hats from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign until at

Comments

[love3angle]

I can't believe I missed the Unknown Girl; I've stared at that thing countless times. :-0

[sarahbellem]

Yep, Ms. Unknown leapt imediately to mind. And there's at least a few other instances where I'm fairly certain that I've seen men's caps that were a color other than black (not counting men of the cloth).

Is he counting French Hoods in that statement? Because I'd classify them differently than a "hat", but they still count as a headcovering. So is he talking headcoverings (broader range of possibility to be wrong) or hats (which to me is a thing with a brim that sits on the head)?

[love3angle]

I believe he is specifically talking about "ENGLISH Gentry and Nobility from the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign until at least the mid 1590s"

I've seen several French and Italian men in colored hats, and I've seen several french hoods with the little band of color, right below the upper bilaments.

[sarahbellem]

That's not quite what I asked... Is he lumping French Hoods into the same category as "hat"? The reason I ask is because the the English wore their French Hoods with either white, black or red crecents (pink was a possibility, as well, but I've seen most of them on French heads, not English). The veil is almost always black. Actually it is always black in every portrait I've looked at but I really shy away from making categorical statements like that out of fear of being proved wrong as soon as I say it.

But like I said, a French Hood isn't a standard hat in my world. It's more of an overglorified hood.

[love3angle]

Tricky. I knew what you were asking and that's what I was going for with the comment on the "band of color", but in my mind I don't think it would qualify as a "colored hat" unless the main area were colored and not just the crescent.

[sarahbellem]

Ah, ok. I was misunderstanding, then. ;)

Yeah, I don't really count FH's as hats, but that's not to say others don't...