COLUMN


by Clair Hughes


Religious Jewish men praying during Tisha B’Av services in a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, USA, 2014


Religious Headgear


Clair Hughes is an independent scholar. She previously held the position of Professor of English and American Literature at the International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan. She is the author of Hats (2017), Dressed in Fiction (2005) and Henry James and the Art of Dress (2001)


In May 2023 King Charles III was crowned in Westminster Abbey in London. The climax of the ceremony,


the placing of the crown on his head, was hidden from public view, accentuating the sacredness of the act. From earliest times dramatic, costly headgear – jewelled crowns, feathered headdresses, extra-big black hats – on the heads of the powerful has symbolised belief in the divine sources of power. Crowns are not the same thing as hats, of course, but in common with ecclesiastical headgear they are worn to distinguish the wearer and to command respect. Like crowns, clerical headgear can be quite uncomfortable, reminding wearers of their onerous sacred duties. Ecclesiastical headgear often looks


impressive because of its ancient origins. The triple papal tiara, for example, a uniquely heavy burden, dates back twelve centuries. The bishop’s mitre, used in both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, began in ancient Greece as a plain white cone without religious significance. The Roman Catholic cardinal’s hat and priest’s biretta were also everyday headgear in classical times: the biretta then became the priestly ‘square cap’ in both pre- and post-Reformation England. The discomfort of religious headgear is not just physical. In the 16th century, as England went back and forth between Catholicism and Protestantism, clerical dress became a source of anxiety, even conflict. Under Protestant Queen Elizabeth, a bishop, nervously seeking advice, was told that square caps were fine but surplices were papist. When the clergy were then required to wear square caps, it all became quite emotional. The cap had no ‘holy’ meaning, but Puritans


46 | the hat magazine #99


furiously objected to any association with Catholicism and insisted on black beaver felts for their clergy, which they took with them when they left England for America. Quakers and Puritans adopted big, plain black versions of existing styles. The Anglican Church advised the ‘shovel’ hat, a low-crowned black felt. Because clerical dress hardly changed, oddities were noted. The Anglican Bishop of Derry caused comment in Rome in 1800 where his red breeches and straw hat were mistaken for Irish canonical dress; increasingly eccentric and still in Italy, he was spotted in a purple velvet nightcap with a gold tassel. Beaver felts were expensive, however, and more typical was the plight of the 19th-century curate described in novelist George Eliot’s story ‘Amos Barton’. How could Amos, with a wife, six children and a pitiful income, convey sacred authority “in a slouched billycock” that only advertised poverty? When the market for fine felts crashed


around 1960, shovel hats went too. But for one faith, felt hats remained: Orthodox Jewish law, worldwide, requires that male heads be covered, especially in the synagogue. Ancient Jewish texts imply that head coverings were for religious leaders, but by the medieval period this applied generally. Orthodox males wore and still wear fine black felts, not unlike the fedora, over the skullcap, as two head coverings can be considered more meritorious than one. Until very recently, religious leadership, and its headgear, has been exclusively male, but I’d like to end with the black straw ‘hallelujah’ bonnet, the Salvation Army headgear for its women ‘soldiers’. By 1890, bonnets were ‘old hat’, but when styles lose favour they can have a second life as uniform and, adopted by nurses, the bonnet came to embody feminine modesty and good works. The ‘hallelujah’ bonnet gave its wearers an aura of sanctity and good character, protecting the girls in the worst corners of the cities into which they were sent, as surely as any helmet.


Photo by Alamy


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