French hood explained

The French hood is a type of woman's headgear that was popular in Western Europe in the 16th century.

The French hood is characterized by a rounded shape, contrasted with the angular "English" or gable hood. It is worn over a coif, and has a black veil attached to the back, which fully covers the hair.^[1] Unlike the more conservative gable hood, it displays the front part of the hair.

History

The origins of the French hood can be seen in portraits of Anne of Brittany in the early 1500s. Although popularly associated with Anne Boleyn, it was probably introduced to the English court by Mary Tudor, Queen of France, who is depicted wearing one in a wedding portrait from around 1516.^[2] Catherine of Aragon bought a French hood for her daughter Mary in March 1520.^[3]

However, English women at the time mostly wore the gable hood, and the French hood did not achieve much popularity in England until the 1530s and 1540s. In September 1537, Lady Lisle requested from the merchant William le Gras: "many hats, such as the ladies wear in France, for now the ladies here follow the French fashion."^[4] Despite its growth in popularity, the then-Queen Jane Seymour apparently forbade her ladies from wearing the French hood.^[5] John Husee informed Lady Lisle that her daughter, an attendant to the Queen, was required to instead wear a "bonnet and frontlet of velvet", lamenting that it "became her nothing so well as the French hood."^[4]

According the Chronicle of the Grey Friars, the French hood and the jewelled gold billament became popular when Anne of Cleves came to England in 1540.^[6] Other sources detail that Anne of Cleves wore rich attires in the German fashion when she arrived in England, and adopted the French hood in the days after her wedding.^[7] Edward Hall wrote that the English fashion for the French hood suited her:

[Anne of Cleves] was appareiled after the Englishe fassion, with a Frenche whode, which so set furth her beautie and good visage, that every creature rejoysed to behold her.^[8]

Most examples from this period are seen in portraits of women who were in service to one of Henry VIII's wives, implying that it was primarily a court fashion.^[9] As the century progressed, the French hood became smaller and more curved, and was worn further back on the head.

Habilments or billaments

The front of the hood could be decorated with a jewelled band, in England called a "habilment or "billement", (see below).^[10] In the early 1540s, Henry VIII passed a sumptuary law restricting the usage of "any Frenche hood or bonnet of velvett with any habiliment, paste, or egg [edge] of gold, pearl, or stone" to the wives of men with at least one horse.^[9]

The English courtier Elizabeth Holland owned four pairs of upper and nether "billyments of goldsmith's work" in 1547.^[11] Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk owned several pairs of gold billaments, set with table and pointed diamonds, rubies, or pearls, and enamelled.^[12] Mary I of England gave gold billaments to some of her gentlewomen to wear at her coronation in 1553.^[13]

Among the clothes of Jane Tyldysley of Worsley, Lancashire, in 1556 were "2 French hoodes with a billiment of silver gilded".^[14] In 1582, Anne Petre, widow of Sir William Petre, bequeathed to her daughter-in-law, Mary Petre, a billiment of goldsmith work with black enamel, thirteen pieces set with nine pearls, and fourteen pieces without pearls.^[15] According to an early biography of Thomas More, he refused to give his ward and daughter-in-law Anne Cresacre a billiment set with pearls, and instead he gave one set with white peas as a lesson.^[16]

The inventories of the jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots, include several pairs of jewelled "billiments" worn at the front of a hood.^[17] They were described using a French word, bordure.^[18] Sources written in Scots call these accessories "garnishings".^[19]

Construction

The various elements of the French hood are as follows:

• Coif – Made of linen, tied under the chin or possibly secured to the hair with pins, the coif was almost always white from the first quarter of the 16th century onward, with a fashion for early French hoods having red coifs existing prior to 1520.
• Crepine – A pleated or gathered head covering made from fine linen or silk, the crepine was sometimes worn without a coif, and may have been the origin of the pleated frill seen at the edge of the coif. The crepine could also possibly have been the bag-like attachment seen at the back of early French hoods, worn without a veil.
• Paste – Worn over the coif/crepine. More than one in a contrasting color could be worn at a time, possibly derives its name from the paste used to stiffen it, or from the term 'passé' meaning "border", derived from the effect of a border of contrasting color on the French hood.^[20]
• Veil – The "hood" portion, almost always black. Could be made from wool, or silk velvet or satin. It hung in a "straight fall" fashion and covered the back hair completely.
• Billaments, Biliments, or Habilments^[21] – Sometimes referred to as "upper" and "lower" billaments, these formed the decorative border along the upper edge of the hood and the front edge of the coif or paste.^[22] Several billements are detailed in a list of jewels belonging to Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset in 1549.^[23] Wardrobe accounts of velvet and satin for the making of billaments may refer to the base upon which the goldwork, jewels, and pearling was attached.^[24]
• Cornet/Bongrace/Shadow – A visor-like accessory that shaded the wearer's eyes. Later in the century, when the veil of the hood was flipped up on top of the wearer's head and pinned in place to shade the eyes, this was also apparently termed a "bongrace" or "shadow", as it protected the face from the sun.^{[25] [26]}

As there are no known extant French hoods in existence, the precise details of its construction remain a mystery. It is often interpreted as featuring a stiff, protruding crescent,but statues from the period indicate it laid flat on the wearer's head.^[2]

See also

• 1500–1550 in fashion
• 1550–1600 in fashion
• Kokoshnik

Further reading

• Arnold, Janet: "Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd", W. S. Maney and Son Ltd., 2001., .
• Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500–1914, Abrams, 1996. .
• Ashelford, Jane. The Visual History of Costume: The Sixteenth Century. 1983 edition, 1994 reprint .

External links

• French Hood Images
• French hood research
• Tudor and Elizabethan Coifs

Notes and References

1. Alison Weir, Henry VIII: The King and His Court. Ballantine Books, 2002. .
2. Web site: Lubomirska. Irina. The French Hood – What it is and what it is not. French Renaissance Costume. 25 May 2017.
3. [Maria Hayward]
4. Web site: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 12 Part 2, June-December 1537. British History Online. 27 May 2017. 245–262.
5. Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, 'From Hennin to Hood', Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 17 (2023), p. 170.
6. John Gough Nichols, Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (London: Camden Society, 1852), p. 43
7. Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), pp. 136–137.
8. Valerie Schutte, 'Anne of Cleves: Survivor Queen', Aidan Norrie, Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), p. 109.
9. Book: Hayward. Maria. Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII's England. 2009. Ashgate Pub. Co.. Farnham, England. 0754640965.
10. [Diana Scarisbrick]
11. [George Frederick Nott]
12. W. Gilchrist Clark, 'Unpublished Documents relating to the Arrest of William Sharington', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 27 (1894), pp. 168–169
13. Henry King, 'Ancient Wills, 3', Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 3 (Colchester, 1865), p. 187: British Library Harley 7376 ff. 29v, 32r.
14. Lancashire and Cheshire Wills (Chetham Society, 1884), p. 15.
15. [F. G. Emmison]
16. [Christopher Wordsworth (divine)|Christopher Wordsworth]
17. Joseph Robertson, Inventaires (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 77.
18. Marjorie Meiss-Even, 'Autour du petit chaperon noir: Les mots de la coiffe féminine française au milieu du XVIe siècle', Colloque Vêtements & Textiles, Elaborer un vocabulaire historique du vêtement et des textiles dans le cadre d'un réseau interdisciplinaire, Dijon, 20-21 octobre 2011
19. https://archive.org/details/letterstokingjam00mait/page/76 Letters to King James the Sixth from the Queen, Prince Henry, Prince Charles etc (Edinburgh, 1835), p. lxxv-lxxvi
20. M. Channing Linthicum, Costume in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Oxford, 1936), p. 237.
21. [Maria Hayward]
22. [Janet Arnold]
23. W. Gilchrist Clark, 'Unpublished Documents relating to the Arrest of William Sharington', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 27 (1894), pp. 168–169
24. E. Estcourt, 'Warrant of Queen Mary', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 3 (London, 1864), pp. 103, 105.
25. M. Channing Linthicum, Costume in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (Oxford, 1936), p. 235.
26. Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, 'Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood', Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 14 (2018), pp. 141–178.