Chaperon (headgear)

[citation needed] The chaperon began before 1200 as a hood with a short cape, put on by pulling over the head, or fastening at the front.

In this form it continued through to the end of the Middle Ages, worn by the lower classes, often by women as well as men, and especially in Northern Europe.

In French chaperon was also the term in falconry for the hood placed over a hawk's head when held on the hand to stop it wanting to fly away.

A padded circular bourrelet (or rondel) evolved, which sat around the head, whilst the cornette became much longer, and gradually more scarf-like in shape, until by the 1430s it was usually straight at the sides and square-ended.

Especially in Italy, the cornette was sometimes dispensed with, leaving just an un-flared tubular patte fixed to the bourrelet all round and hanging down to one side of the head.

In the Livre de Chasse they are most often worn by the lower huntsmen on foot in the original form, though they and mounted hunters also wear them on top of the head.

A perhaps overdressed courtier in a Van der Weyden workshop Exhumation of St Hubert (National Gallery, London NG 783) from this decade still has a very elaborately cut and dagged patte.

The amount of cloth involved had become considerable, and although chaperons seem to have normally been of a single colour at this period, a silk or damask one would have been a conspicuous sign of affluence.

There were now many ways of wearing, and indeed carrying, this most complex and adaptable of hats: Examples of these styles are shown in the illustrations to the article and in the Gallery section below.

The only surviving manuscript miniature by Rogier van der Weyden shows Philip the Good wearing a chaperon in style B.

Next to him stands Chancellor Nicolas Rolin, using a less exuberant version of style B; only he has sufficient status to wear his chaperon indoors in the Duke's presence.

Apart from the Bishop of Tournai, next to Rolin, all the other men are bare-headed, even Philip's young heir, despite the fact that several of them are high-ranking intimates who, like the Duke, wear the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

[12] This was apparently a hat rather than a hood, as she was stated to have taken it off in front of the Dauphin – this was cited as further damning evidence of her assuming male behaviours.

[14] A cappucci was more practical; in urban areas, such as Florence, when seeing a person of higher rank on the street it was simply touched deferentially or pushed back on the head slightly.

[15] In addition to being featured in many Renaissance portraits by virtue of being the fashion of the day, the Italian cappuccio was of interest because the mazzocchio's shape made it a good subject for the developing art of perspective.

The painter Paolo Uccello studied the perspective of the mazzocchio and incorporated it in some of his paintings (e.g. in The Counterattack of Michelotto da Cotignola at the Battle of San Romano).

By 1500 the evolved chaperon was definitely outmoded in Northern Europe, but the original hood form still remained a useful headgear for shepherds and peasants.

In these uses it gradually shrank in size and often became permanently attached to the clothing underneath, effectively just as an ornament, in its present form, as a part of academic dress, called an epitoge.