THE HISTORY OF THE HAT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10719, 18 March 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE HISTORY OF THE HAT.

With the Greeks hat. was simply, an appurtenance of-the, 'travplleij., They free citizen preferred to; go bareheaded and put on his broad-brimmed . petasus only for protection, agaiiist ,4he sun, when on a long journey. Indeed, ; uncovered head was a, part oi Jns-dig-- ' nity, for the, slaves and .-workmcai wore always a kind of , pointed yap, the {*>£'?.- badge ;of. servitude.,, ...Much;- tlie ; scorn -of habitually coyermg the head , prevailed among the Romans. In England the hood; was not finally given up until the .early .part of the : fifteenth century, The, "great velvet hat furred" worn , by t; the or London, John Welles, in 1.432, is ias a singularity by Stow, who, states, -: tliat -previously ' 'the coverture of, men s . : heads was hoods, for .neither cap or : hat is spoken of." . In. point of fact ; tliere are a few earlier inrtances of hats i being- worn, by nobles and even . [middle classes, : ■ .: , ! ■ The most- fantastic shapes -the 4iat, I ever assumed .were those in vogue : about Lhalf a century before Stow, was born-., ' One was a kind of turban with a large cluster of bows, or puffs on. one side, to which the origin of the cockade still worn-by liveried servants may b,e Another, -made \\ _ it.h a broad brim and. ; adorned . with feathers,.. ■ was ■ carried : dangling down the hack of. - ,the o^vner, ■as a sort of compromise between,; tlio disinclination to wear, it, and the desire •to -be fashionable, for thro.lighout_ me-diceval--"times the: liat \Tas~;a-, mark, of. ' distinction; . The caprices of the hatter, t-trere- somewhat less grotesque in ;the "Elizabethan period, when hats of beavec dyed - black : were popuLir. - The . dyes were the reverse of "fast," and a favorite", method of blackening a rusty rhafc was :to hold it in the smoke of a link or pitch torch! . . Tradition ascribes the discovery of the process of hat felting to St. Clement,and he was therefore assumed as the patron saint of hatmakers.