Female headgear in the 1400's

A number of different styles were worn throughout the century. Any of these styles could be topped by a padded roll, sometimes arranged in a heart-shape, or a veil, or both. Veils were supported by wire frames that exaggerated the shape and were variously draped from the back of the headdress or covered the forehead.

I gather pictures of head gear. I find them in illuminated manuscripts, sketches and in paintings. Some of the pictures are quite small and a bit blurred, but I thought it was important to have pictures from different sources rather than just the famous high quality ones. I gather pictures of head gear. I find them in illuminated manuscripts, sketches and in paintings. Some of the pictures are quite small and a bit blurred, but I thought it was important to have pictures from different sources rather than just the famous high quality ones.

Simple styles

Women also wore the longed tailed hood the liripipe, or the drapped version the chaperon and a variety of related draped and wrapped turbans.

Another common style seem to have been a hood tied on top of the head.1

Women of the merchant classes in Northern Europe wore modified versions of courtly hairstyles, with coifs or caps, veils, and wimples of crisp linen (often with visible creases from ironing and folding). A brief fashion added rows of gathered frills to the coif or veil; this style is sometimes known by the German name kruseler.

Unlike in the 1300’s where many woman was shown with no head covering, even woman in bath houses were shown wearing some kind of headgear.

Woman in wimple and veil, 1413

A young woman with her hair bare. There were a few of them in the Bedford Hours, c. 1410-1430

Italian ladies. One wearing a headwrap and the other seem to have pinned braided hair, 1423

The Magdalen Reading with a vail over loose hair. before 1438

Margarete van Eyck wears a horned headdress with a ruffled veil called a kruseler. Her red gown is lined in grey fur, 1439.

Woman wearing her hair braided flowers. First half of 1400’s

Wimple and veil 1467

Woman wears a simple headdress of draped linen and a red gown trimmed with white fur. Note that the sleeve is only attached to the dress at the top, 1467–71.

Two women wearing hoods, c. 1470

Woman wearing a veil, c. 1470

Man wearing a high black hat with a brim and woman in a head wrap, c. 1475

Mwn wearing high brown hats with a brim and woman in a head wrap, c. 1475

Woman wearing a veil, 1479

Woman in a messy head dress

Noble with a red open hood with a tail. Late 1400’s

Woman in a hood tied on her head. They seem to be pretty common in the 1400’s. The woman is writing. c. 1496-1498

Woman in a hood tied on her head. The woman is writing a letter in bed. 1497

Women wearing veils and wimples of different sorts. They are not uniform. 1490

Woman in a tight head cover, 1490

Woman spinning wearing a head scarf/veil c. 1496-1498

Woman with a child. Wearing a turban like head dress with a chin scrap.

Black veil worn over a cap or a cap with veil(?), c. 1496-1498

Lady wearing a veil over a crespine, 1497

Young woman with loose hair with a strip of fabric around her hair(?), 1497

Young woman with braided hair with a strip of fabric around her hair(?), 1497

Elaborate hood with all kinds of details, 1497

Jewled veils

Towards 1500 I start finding ornamented jewled veils on some of the noble ladies. They seem to be worn over some kind of cap or chin bane. They seem to be the precursers to gable hoods or french hoods.

Highly detailed veil over a coif or something like that, 1497

Very detailed black veil over a coif, 1497

Joanna around the time of her marriage, c. 1496.

Joanna was done in Flanders, ca 1500

Crespine, caul & bourrelet

The crespine of Northern Europe, originally a thick hairnet or snood, had evolved into a mesh of jeweler’s work that confined the hair on the sides of the head by the end of the 1300’s. Gradually the fullness at the sides of head was pulled up to the temples and became pointed, like horns (à corné).

By mid-1400’s, the hair was pulled back from the forehead, and the crespine, now usually called a caul, sat on the back of the head. Very fashionable women shaved their foreheads and eyebrows.

Bourrelet: A padded roll worn by woman as a headdrees, in various shapes. In the first half of the 1400’s.

Elaborate headdresses are characteristic of the earlier 1400’s.

Image of Christine de Pisan in a cotehardie. She wears a wired “horned” headdress with a veil. France, 1410–11

Two “horned” head piece with vail, 1413

The lady on the left wears a wired “horned” headdress with a veil. While the other woman is wearing a veil and wimple. Notice how the veil is wrapped around her head. c. 1413

Christine de Pisan presents her book to Queen Isabeau of France. She and her ladies wear jewelled heart-shaped stuffed or hollow “bourrelets” on top of hair dressed in horns. Christine wears a divided hennin covered in white cloth. c 1410 – 1414

Possibly a nonne in a wimple and vail. Notice the sleeves of her black dress as well as her head gear. She could also be a widdow. c 1410 – 1414

Bourrelet and hairnet, c. 1413

Ladoes wearing: bourrelet and hairnet and wired “horned” headdress with a veils c. 1410-1430

Lady wearing a wired “horned” headdress with a veil and a man in a chaperon in a fancy style. c. 1410-1430

Bourrelet and hairnet, c. 1410-1430

A bourrelet, or “padded roll” hat, was fashionable in the 1300’s and 1400’s. These hats were made principally of rolled fabric.

One women is wearing a simple veil while the other is wearing a bourrelet with her hair up under it.

She is wearing her hair in cauls and a kruseler veil over. Notice her shaved forhead, 1434

Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy in a divided hennin. Copy of original of 1445–50.

Man with red hat and woman with veil and wimple. c. 1488

Two noble woman and a nune(?). The noble women are wearing hats with next to no visible hair. The one in front is wearing a vail. c. 1490.

Mary of Burgundy wears a headdress comprising a truncated-cone hennin, a jewelled padded roll (bourrelet), and a sheer veil.

Hennin

The most extravagant headdress of Burgundian fashion is the hennin, a cone or truncated-cone shaped cap with a wire frame covered in fabric and topped by a floating veil. Later hennins feature a turned-back brim, or are worn over a hood with a turned-back brim. Towards the end of the 1400’s women’s head-dresses became smaller, more convenient, and less picturesque. The gable hood, a stiff and elaborate head-dress, emerged around 1480 and was popular among elder ladies up until the mid 1500’s. They were most common in Burgundy and France, but also elsewhere, especially at the English courts, and in Northern Europe, Hungary and Poland, while uncommon in Italy.

Hennin and veil. 1405.

Hennin, 1405

Lady in henin and vail, c. 1420

Modestly dressed woman wears a linen headdress and a grey gown lined in black fur confined with a belt at the high waist. Her veil is pinned to her cap, and has sharp creases from ironing, Netherlands, 1430.

Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy in a divided hennin. Copy of original of 1445–50.

Hair is pulled back in an embroidered “beehive” hennin and covered by a short veil. The veil reaches the eyebrows. Burgundy, ca. 1455.

A truncated hennin, fashionable in the Low countries the 1460s. 1470

1470 bath scene – this lady is wearing a tall hat over loose hair to the public bath.

Her gown has a black collar trimmed in white fur and she wears an elaborate carcanet or necklace, Netherlands, 1478–78.

Barbara van Vlaendenbergh wearing a truncated hennin, c. 1480

Lady in a cone hennin and very long veil, c. 1485-1490

businessman & wife, c. 1490

Turbans and other funky hairstyles

At the later part of the 1400’s I find pictures of women in funky onion shaped turbans. I do not know if they were a fashion in Europe or if they are meant to be exotic hairstyles. These might be elaborate hairstyles with based on a bourrelet

Interesting onion shapped elaborate turbans. 1479

Woman giving birth wearing an elaberate turban, 1479

Lady in a turban and crown, 1479

This hair style is one that I have seen a few times in 1500’s. 1496-1497

The wife of a cook with an unusual large head style, c. 1496

Turban with fancy jewlery, 1497

Woman with turban, 1497

Woman wearing a large rounded bonnet c. 1497

Commoner’s hairstyle

The peasant and servent woman seem to have been wearing mostly fairly simple veils, sometimes wrapped around their heads. Towards the later period some of them are show wearing lirpipes and the hood tied on top of their heads.