French hood is the English name for a type of elite woman's headgear that was popular in Western Europe in roughly the first half of 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.Alison Weir, Henry VIII: The King and His Court. Ballantine Books, 2002. Unlike the more conservative gable hood, it displays the front part of the hair.
In France it was known as a ("Breton hood"), after Anne of Brittany, Queen of France from 1491, and also the last reigning Duchess of Brittany.Anne de Bretagne: "Sur les différentes enluminures où elle apparaît, elle porte toujours sur la tête ce qu'on appelle la cape bretonne",. Also used in French in a magazine article from 1912. In Womankind in Western Europe from the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century: "She wears on her head the small flat hood, à la mode de Bretagne, which was called the cape Bretonne." She wears it in portraits, including one in her Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany of 1503–1508, and her ladies are often also depicted wearing it.
The French hood had a complicated and varied construction, with several layers of fabric, as well as jewels, wire, and perhaps metal bands. No examples survive, so aspects of its construction remain uncertain.
History in England Although popularly associated with Anne Boleyn, who had spent time in the French court, 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. Catherine of Aragon bought a French hood for her daughter Mary in March 1520.Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), p. 172.
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." Despite its growth in popularity, Queen Jane Seymour apparently forbade her ladies from wearing the French hood,Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, 'From Hennin to Hood', Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 17 (2023), p. 170. perhaps because it had been favoured by her executed predecessor Anne Boleyn. John Husee informed Lady Lisle that her daughter, Anne Bassett, 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."Mary Anne Everett Green, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain, 2 (London: Colburn, 1846), p. 314.Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), pp. 171, 302.
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.John Gough Nichols, Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London (London: Camden Society, 1852), p. 43 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.Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), pp. 136–137. 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.Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), p. 151: Valerie Schutte, 'Anne of Cleves: Survivor Queen', Aidan Norrie, Tudor and Stuart Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), p. 109.
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. Princess Mary gave Margaret Douglas the "frontlet" or coif of a hood as a result of a bet in 1540.Alison J. Carter, "Mary Tudor's Wardrobe", Costume, 18 (1984), p. 14: Frederick Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary (London: Pickering, 1831), p. 88. In 1551, Petruccio Ubaldini wrote that English noble ladies all wore a "small hat of French fashion", while other classes wore caps of fur or linen.Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer, History Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries, 2, p. 74. Mary I of England preferred French hoods.Emilie M. Brinkman, "Dressed to kill: The fashioning of Bloody Mary", Valerie Schutte & Jessica S. Hower, Writing Mary I: History, Historiography, and Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), p. 176. As the century progressed, the French hood became smaller and more curved, and was worn further back on the head. By 1589, a variety of hoods were worn at the court of Elizabeth I, and Philip Gawdy was unable to advise his sister what the fashion was.Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), p. 205.
Habilments or billaments
The front of the hood could be decorated with a jewelled band, in England called a "habilment or "billement", (see below).Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), p. 149 fn. 107: Diana Scarisbrick, Jewellery in Britain, 1066-1837 (Norwich: Michael Russell, 1994), 117–18. An English dictionary of 1574 described "billimentes" as "the attire or ornament of a women's head, or neck, as a bonnet, a French hood, a paste, or such like".Janet Arnold, Lost from her Majesties Back (Wisbech: Daedalus, 1980), p. 85 citing John Baret, "Billementes", An Alvearie, or, Triple dictionarie (London, 1580), no. 604
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. 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.Christopher Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Bibliography (London, 1818), p. 136.W. Vaughan Hitchcock and P. Hallet, The Life of Syr Thomas More (London: Early English Text Society, 1950), p. 129.
Catherine Howard gave "upper and nether habiliments of goldsmith's work for a French hood" to Alice Wilkes.Nicola Tallis, All The Queen's Jewels, 1445–1548: Power, Majesty and Display (Routledge, 2023), p. 221. The English courtier Elizabeth Holland owned four pairs of upper and nether "billyments of goldsmith's work" in 1547.George Frederick Nott, Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, vol. 1 (London, 1815), p. cxix. Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk owned several pairs of gold billaments, set with table and pointed diamonds, rubies, or pearls, and enamelled.W. Gilchrist Clark, 'Unpublished Documents relating to the Arrest of William Sharington', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 27 (1894), pp. 168–169 At her trial and execution in 1553, Lady Jane Grey wore a "French hood, all black, with a black byllyment".Maria Hayward, "'We should dress us fairly for our end': The Significance of the Clothing Worn at Elite Executions in England in the Long Sixteenth Century", History, 101: (345), (April 2016), p. 232.
Mary I of England gave gold billaments to some of her gentlewomen to wear at her coronation in 1553.Henry King, 'Ancient Wills, 3', Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, 3 (Colchester, 1865), p. 187: British Library Harley 7376 ff. 29v, 32r. Accounts of the wardrobe of Mary I and Elizabeth I show that the fabric band itself was also called a "billiment".E. Estcourt, "Warrant of Queen Mary", Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 3 (London, 1864), pp. 103, 105. Mary Radcliffe made billiments for Queen Elizabeth's hoods from white satin and Elizabeth, Lady Carew, made the hoods from black velvet and satin.Janet Arnold, Lost From Her Back (Costume Society, 1980), pp. 38–39 nos. 95–96, 45–46 nos. 143, 146.
In 1550, Bess of Hardwick's husband William St Loe paid £11 for "my wyffes billymentes". Her step-daughter Catherine's "belymente" cost 28 shillings. Bess was depicted in portraits wearing a French hood and billament.Alison Wiggins, "Marriage, Money, and Remembrance", Lisa Hopkins, Bess of Hardwick: New Perspectives, p. 46: Santina M. Levey, "References to Dress in the Earliest Account Book of Bess of Hardwick", Costume, 34:1 (January 2000), p. 16. A 1556 list of clothing that had belonged to Jane Tyldesley of Wardley, a Lancashire gentlewoman, includes "ij ffrench hoodes with a billiment of sylver gylde".J. Earwaker, Lancashire and Cheshire Wills (Manchester, 1884), p. 15. 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.F. G. Emmison, Elizabethan Life: Wills of Essex Gentry and Merchants (Chelmsford, 1978), p. 33.
As a New Year's Day gift for 1585, Christopher Hatton gave Queen Elizabeth upper and nether "abillements" of gold with pieces shaped as hearts and imperial crowns set with rubies, diamonds, and peaerls. In January 1586, the Countess of Bath gave Elizabeth gold upper and nether "abillyments" set with seed pearls.Elizabeth Goldring, Faith Eales, Elizabeth Clarke, Jayne Elisabeth Archer, John Nichol's The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth I, 3 (Oxford, 2014), pp. 208, 241.
Depiction on tomb effigies French hoods were depicted on tomb monuments and can provide useful evidence for modern reconstructions.Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, "Hennin to Hood", Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 17 (2018), pp. 144–182. A 1581 contract made by George Shirley with the sculptors Richard and Gabriel Roiley included an alabaster effigy at Somerton to represent the wife of Thomas Fermor, "a picture or portraiture of a faire gentlewoman with a Frenchehood, edge and abilliment, with all other apparel, furniture, jewels, ornaments, and things usual decent and seemly for a gentlewoman".John Physick, Designs for English sculpture, 1680–1860 (London, 1969), pp. 7–10.Evelyn Shirley, "Extracts from the Fermor Accounts", Archaeological Journal, 8 (London, 1851), pp. 185–186.
Scotland A clothing account from 1538 mentions a "hood of the French sort" made from black velvet and lined with red "crammesy" satin for Jane Stewart one of the daughters of James V. The coif or frontlet was embellished with a gold "chafferoun" of Paris or filigree work made by John Mosman. Black velvet was also bought for a long "kathit hood of the French fashion".James Balfour Paul, Accounts of the Treasurer, vol. 6 (Edinburgh, 1905), pp. 406, 416: Sally Rush, "Looking at Marie de Guise", Études Epistémè, 37 (2020) The inventories of the jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots, include several pairs of jewelled "billiments" worn at the front of a hood.Joseph Robertson, Inventaires (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 77. They were described using a French word, bordure.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 Sources written in Scots call these accessories "garnishings".Letters to King James the Sixth from the Queen, Prince Henry, Prince Charles etc (Edinburgh, 1835), p. lxxv-lxxvi: 'Garnising', DOST/DSL
Construction The various elements of the French hood are as follows: