PROPER HEADGEAR?

[Guest]

Kinda half way through the "How to Cock a Hat " thread I posted kinda the step by step 'bout how I stretched and formed the hat Mission is wearing (the second picture...)

[LadyBrower]

I did a similar hat like that for my hubby (Thanks to the How to... thread). He loves it, but everyone keeps saying he needs to "cock" it. As the lady of the house I say no to cocking...

hehe.

But I think it's a cool style in any case.

[gunner Gordon]

I don't have any pics but some time back in my early days on the Pilgrim of Newport, the winter sails were often misersable weather, I made some stocking caps by cutting the sleeves off of fancy patterned knitt sweaters. I hemmed the larger end and put in a hat band of sorts, then gathered the smaller end ,whipp-stitched it closed ,cut off some of the excess thenfringed the overhang. these made long ,comfortable, and nicely woven hats.Just an idea to play with.

[LadyBrower]

That's nifty. I crocheted a stocking cap for my brother this past Christmas. They are appropriate for our period? And would they been worn as regular head wear or for sleeping?

[gunner Gordon]

I believe the knitted cap goes back to at least the 1700s, but then I'm here to learn more, I would welcome some opinions from those more learned, what about the GAoP period?

[LadyBrower]

Well, from what I have learned (mostly on the pub!) the monmouth and the thrum were very popular, but I don't know about other styles. The long stocking cap I am completely unsure of. A quick internet search didn't turn up much for me, but again, that was super quick.

[Capt. Sterling]

here are but a few....styles for examples

I gotta say that Capt. Sterling has one of the greatest hats! I always think "Solomon Kane" when I see his photos (I know that Howard character was almost 200 years earlier but still!).

Well thank ye Jib... that style remains in fashion for quite a long period of time...

Edited May 20, 2009 by Capt. Sterling

[Commodore Swab]

I found this on another thread on another forum relating to sword hangers. I do not know which book it came from but it is dated 1690's dutch

What I found intestering was that in the same drawing you can see 4 men wearing 4 different styles of head gear and 3 different styles of coats, all long. No Cartridge boxes and they are all equipped with powder horns.

Here is the link where I got it from

http://www.piratebrethren.com/forum/viewto...=a&start=90

[michaelsbagley]

I found this on another thread on another forum relating to sword hangers. I do not know which book it came from but it is dated 1690's dutch

What I found intestering was that in the same drawing you can see 4 men wearing 4 different styles of head gear and 3 different styles of coats, all long. No Cartridge boxes and they are all equipped with powder horns.

Here is the link where I got it from

I'd agree with you on the four styles of hats thing, but looking at those coats, I would say all four are the same style, with perhaps one of the four having a different style of pocket on his very similar coat. The main thing about this image is those are soldiers. Infantry soldiers at that. Not sailors, not pirates. If anything that image is a good example of the "almost but not quite" uniformity of the soldiers of the 1690s.

As for the comment about shot boxes, I recently picked up a new book, while it is as home and I can't quote it right now, it lists no less than 10 types of shot carriages used between the 1680 and 1710s, most of which were boxes and not shot bags/pouches. The research for the variety of shot carriages was all taken from colonial inventories (if memory serves me well).

To take this a step further, and back onto the focus of this thread (hats), there is a book you can find linked on that same forum (I have linked to it from here as well somewhere), anyways, the link is to a drill manual dated to a 1702 (+/- a year or two) that clearly reads that soldiers were to have their hats firmly and properly cocked (or something similar to that). So it seems a large step was taken in more standardization of the armies in the 1690s or perhaps the first years of the 1700s, at least regarding hats... I imagine the colonies were a few years behind in that regards though, specially when you read the accounts of how badly the colonial soldiers were equipped and how slow replacement gear was to come (if it ever came).

[Tartan Jack]

they came into play around the mid 1600's and are actually still worn today with some modifications (minor)

If you look at stuff from the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion, info on their headware and pictures are fairly common. The Scots "blue bonnet" was extremely common. That is the same period as the GAoP. So, it is certainly PC.

The primary difference is that the original had a drawstring to pull it in or keep it from expanding too much when wet (basically, for precise sizing) and the originals didn't have the structure around the cockade that most better made modern ones do. The ribbon "tails" on modern balmorals and glengarries are tokens to the original drawstring.

Oh, and the older ones were much larger around (a bigger circle on top) and the ball on top was actually the end of the knitting threads bundled, so that they didn't unravel. Thus, it matched the color of the body and was rather small.

Also, blue seems to have been the normal color, so much so that it was known primarily as the "blue bonnet."

Among Scottish Jacobite reenactors, there is some debate as to whether a Scottish bonnet had to be knit, or if cut-and-sewn material was actually done in-period. I have made numerous balmoral caps out of cut-and-sewn wool (as I don't know how to knit). They look pretty good, if made right, soaked, softened to shape, and so forth.

I'm of the opinion that both were used in-period, and that cut-and-sewn Scots bonnets were made in period, as some pictures show no ball and a few look to have a seam on the edge of the main top part. The problem is that few survive from the period and the pictures are artistic interpretations. So, we don't know if the lines on the bonnets or lack thereof are the result of construction seams or artists either adding lines for definition or ignoring minor seams to make a better picture.

Jacobite reenactors get as much in a tizzy over blue bonnets as we do over slops. So, there are many strong, well-informed opinions that differ.

Also, while on it, how different is a monmouth cap from a modern toque or knit domed cap with roll (whatever your name for it)?

Of course, it should be wool yarn, rather than machine-made acrylic and embroidered. That goes without saying.

-I'm curious about the connection and development of it from then to now.