Academic dress in the United Kingdom
The academic square cap was invented in the UK as well as the hood which developed from the lay dress of the medieval period.
Irish academic dress is virtually the same as that in the United Kingdom given the common history and proximity of each other.
Many other Commonwealth countries also follow British cuts and design of academic dress, most notably Australia and New Zealand though some are beginning to evolve away from British cuts such as Canada, where the University of Toronto has slowly introduced American gowns that close at the front.
[1] This lists the various styles or patterns of academic dress and assigns them a code or a Groves Classification Number.
[3][4] The modern gown is derived from the roba worn under the cappa clausa, a garment resembling a long black cape.
In early medieval times, all students at the universities were in at least minor orders, and were required to wear the cappa or other clerical dress, and restricted to clothes of black or other dark colour.
Since medieval times, doctors, like bishops and cardinals, have been authorised to wear garments of brighter colours such as scarlet, purple or red.
However, the undress gown still plays a part in the older universities where academic dress is usually worn.
[5] St Andrews prescribes a cassock-like gown with a row of buttons running down the front, coloured according to the degree, and is meant to be worn closed.
In general, undergraduate gowns are seldom worn (even in institutions that prescribe them) except in the older universities.
Some University College Chapels use them as choir robes as an inexpensive attire which can be seamlessly worn alongside clerical and postgraduate colleagues.
Only Oxford and Cambridge (though in theory Durham too) use habits and mainly reserve their use for very formal ceremonial occasions and to a specific group of academics or officials.
[13] Even more rare and ancient is the cappa clausa or cope, a large scarlet cloak with an ermine shoulder piece worn by the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, or a deputy, when admitting to degrees, and by anyone presenting new higher doctors or BDs for admission to their degrees.
The Durham habit survives as part of the dress for the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor which are worn under their laced gowns.
In theory, doctors could wear the sleeveless type over their black undress gowns like in Oxford but this is very rare as many do not know that they are entitled to it.
[19] The colour and lining of hoods in academic dress represents the rank and/or faculty of the wearer.
Doctors' hoods are normally made of scarlet cloth and lined with coloured silk.
It is a flat square hat with a tassel suspended from a button in the top centre of the board.
There could also be 9 ribbon 'butterflies' at the back part of the skull to indicate mourning for the Sovereign, another member of the Royal Family, or the University Chancellor.
In many universities, holders of doctorates wear a soft rounded headpiece known as a Tudor bonnet or tam, rather than a trencher.
Those clerics who possess a doctorate wear the black biretta with four ridges — instead of the usual three — and with piping and pom of the colour of the discipline, thus, e.g., emerald for canon law, scarlet for sacred theology, etc.
[27] The University of East Anglia is infamous for two new hats designed by Cecil Beaton that were prescribed.
The Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor may wear a black damask lay type gown (sometimes with a long train) trimmed with gold or silver lace and frogs.
This is not the case at several of the older universities in the UK, most notably, Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews which have their own distinct traditions.
