You’re probably thinking of those weird pointy things that you associate with fairy princess costumes.  Well, so am I – see the bit about hennins below.  Here’s a run-down of some of the styles that were popular in medieval Europe (from around the 12th century through the 16th).  Click on the pictures in the gallery to see the whole thing!

  • Chaperon – no, this does not mean a hat that accompanied children on class trips!   The chaperon started out as a hood with an attached cape that pulled over the head (hoods were really poular themselves).  Then people started making the tip of the hood longer (called a liripipe or tippet), and around 1300, they started putting them on so that what used to be the neck hole was now around the crown of the head, so that the tail and the cape were hanging down.  Then they started adding padded round pieces around the head, doing away with the tail, and wrapping the various parts around, almost like a turban.  There were lots of variations.
  • Rondelle or burlet – a padded roll of cloth worn like a wreath over the hair, sometimes holding a veil in place, or with another hat – the style is sort of descended from the chaperon.  A flatter wreath-like headband (made of flowers or metal as well as cloth) was called a chaplet or a fillet.
  • Hennin – these are the cone-shaped hats that I was talking about in the intro to this post.  These showed up around 1450 in France, and weren’t actually popular for very long.  They varied in height from 12 to 36 inches tall, and mostly had a veil attached to the top.  Women usually tucked their hair inside the cone, and even plucked their hairlines so that nothing showed in front or at the neck!  Some exciting variations had multiple cones with scarves strung between them, and some had the tip of the cone “cut off” so that it was flat on top, or made a beehive shape.
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