A chaperon ( or ; Middle French: chaperon) was a form of hood or, later, a highly versatile hat worn by men in all parts of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Initially a utilitarian garment, it first grew a long partly decorative tail behind (a liripipe), and then developed into a complex, versatile and expensive item of headgear after what was originally the vertical opening for the face began to be used as a horizontal opening for the head. The chaperon was especially fashionable in mid-15th century Burgundy, before gradually falling out of fashion in the late-15th century and returning to its utilitarian status. It is the most commonly worn male headgear in Early Netherlandish painting, but its complicated construction is often misunderstood.
Humble origins
The chaperon began before 1200 as a hood with a short cape, put on by pulling over the head, or fastening at the front. The hood could be pulled off the head to hang behind, leaving the short cape round the neck and shoulders. The edge of the cape was often trimmed, cut or scalloped for decorative effect. There were woolen ones, used in cold weather, and lighter ones for summer. 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. The hood was loose at the back, and sometimes ended in a tail that came to a point.
Terms and derivation
Chaperon is a diminutive of chape, which derives, like the English cap, cape and cope, from the Late Latin cappa, which already could mean cap, cape or hood (OED).
The tail of the hood, often quite long, was called the tippitSD Reed, From Chaperones to Chaplets:Aspects of Men's Headdress 1400–1519, M.S. Thesis, 1992, University of Maryland, available online -NB Headgear Reed categorises as Hoods, Chaperones, & (some) Sack Hats are all covered by this article or liripipe in English, and liripipe or cornette in French. The cape element was a patte in French and in English cape, or sometimes cockscomb when fancily cut. Later a round bourrelet (or rondel) could form part of the assemblage.Constructing the Headdresses of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Paper by Marie Vibbert (Lyonnete Vibert), Known World Costume Symposium Proceedings (2005) Patte, cornette and bourrelet were the usual terms in the French of the 15th century Burgundian court, and are used here. In Italian the equivalent terms were foggia, becchetto, and mazzocchio.Frick, Carole Collier. Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing. Johns Hopkins University Press (2002). pp. 304–305.Adams, Laurie. Key Monuments of the Italian Renaissance. Westview Press: 2000. p. 67.Earls, Irene. Renaissance Art: A Topical Dictionary. Greenwood Press: 1987. p. 189.
Chaperon was sometimes used in English, and also German, for both the hood and hat forms (OED). But the word never appears in the Paston Letters, where there are many references to hats, hoods and bonnets for men. As with all aspects of medieval costume, there are many contemporary images of clothing, and many mentions of names for clothing in contemporary documents, but definitively matching the names to the styles in the images is rarely possible. In Italian the word was cappuccio [kap'put:ʃo], or its diminutive cappuccino, from which come the Capuchin friars, whose distinctive white hood and brown robe led to the monkey and the type of coffee being named after them (it also means the cap of a pen in Italian).
Little Red Riding Hood is Le Petit Chaperon rouge in the earliest published version, by Charles Perrault, and French depictions of the story naturally favour the chaperon over the long riding-hood of ones in English.
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. It is either this or the headgear meaning that later extended figuratively to become chaperon (in UK English, almost always chaperone) meaning a protective escort, especially for a woman.
Wearing variations
About 1300 the chaperon began to be worn by putting the hole intended for the face over the top of the head instead; perhaps in hot weather. This left the cornette tail and the cape or patte, hanging loose from the top of the head. This became fashionable, and chaperons began to be made to be worn in this style. Some authorities only use the term chaperon for this type, calling the earlier forms hoods – which was certainly their usual name in English. This is a categorisation for modern discussions only; there is no dispute over whether chaperon was the contemporary term. See the wearing Colley-Weston-ward of the mandilion for an analogous development in a type of coat.
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. Reed (see refs) calls these sack hats.
By 1400–16, the period of the famous illuminated manuscripts of the Livre de Chasse of Gaston Phoebus (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris Ms Français 616), and the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry chaperons are to be seen worn by many figures. In the famous Calendar scenes of the Trés Riches Heures, they are worn in the original form by the peasants working in the fields, both men and women (February, March and September), and huntsmen (December), and in the new form by some of the courtiers (January and May), who wear coloured and scalloped ones, probably of silk. However, the Duke himself, and the most prominent courtiers, do not wear them. 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. Figures often have a hood chaperon and a hat as well. Only the original form (trimmed with fur in one case - fol.51V) is worn by the very highest-ranking figures.
By the 1430s most chaperons had become simpler in the treatment of the cloth, and the cornette is long and plain, although the patte may still be elaborately treated with dagging. 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. A figure behind him is wearing his in church, which is unusual (both figures can be paralleled in the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece; see Gallery below).
Evolved chaperon
By the middle of the 15th century, the evolved chaperon (worn on top of the head, with bourrelet) had become common wear for males in the upper and middle classes, and were worn in painted portraits, including those of the Dukes of Burgundy. 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. A Florentine chaperon of 1515 is recorded as using sixteen braccia of cloth, over ten yards (9 metres).Carole Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing, p 231, 2002, Johns Hopkins University Press, Chaperons are nearly always shown in art as plain-coloured at this period, but painting a patterned one would have been a daunting task.
The cornette now stretched nearly to the ground, and the patte had also grown slightly; both were now plain and undecorated by cutting or dagging at the edges. Bourrelets could be very large, or quite modest; some were clearly made round a hollow framework (a drawing survives of an Italian block for making them). The largest bourrelets are worn by very high ranking men around 1445–50. Sometimes they seem to be just a ring (the doughnut analogy is hard to resist) with an open centre, and sometimes the opening seems to be at least partly covered with fixed cloth. Because the bourrelets were usually the same shape all the way round, several different parts of it could be worn facing forward. Probably for this reason, chaperons are rarely seen adorned by badges or jewellery. There were now many ways of wearing, and indeed carrying, this most complex and adaptable of hats:
A) the cornette and patte could be tied together on top of the head, to create a flamboyant turban-like effect, sometimes with a short tail of cornette or patte hanging to the rear. B) the patte could be looped under the chin and tied or pinned to the bourrelet on the other side of the face, whilst the cornette hung behind or in front, or was tied on top. C) the patte could be worn to the loose to the rear, with the cornette tied on top, or hanging loose to front or rear. D) conversely the patte could be tied above, whilst the cornette hung loose to front or rear. E) the patte could be worn to the rear, loose or tucked into the other clothes at the back of the neck, whilst the cornette was wrapped round over the top of the head and under the chin a couple of times and secured. This was suitable for cold or windy weather, especially when riding. F) when the chaperon needed to be removed, in warm weather, or in the presence of a person much higher in rank (and, usually, in church) it could be put over the shoulder with the patte and cornette hanging on opposite sides, or round the shoulders. Which came forward and which went back varies considerably, but more often the bourrelet went behind. Possibly the chaperon was secured to the shoulder, as the assemblage often looks rather precarious. Donor figures in religious paintings always wear their chaperons in this way, as they are figuratively in the presence of the saints or the Madonna.
Examples of these styles are shown in the illustrations to the article and in the Gallery section below.
The height of fashion
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. But as far as can be seen, all have hats. The man in grey seems to be carrying another sort of hat, but all the other ones visible are chaperons worn in style F, mostly with the cornettes to the front. The young Charles the Bold has his patte wrapped round the back of his neck, and the man on the extreme right has his bourrelet further than usual down his back, with the patte hanging down from it. Most of the chaperons are black, although the man in blue has one in salmon-pink; black was having one of its earliest periods of being the most fashionable colour at the time.T Kren & S McKendrick (eds), Illuminating the Renaissance - The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, Getty Museum/Royal Academy of Arts, 2003,