History

The Emergence of Academic Dress

British Academic Dress has its origin in the everyday dress of people in the Middle Ages. Very broadly, this consisted of a tunic (or toga) over which was often worn a cloak.  Over the tunic and cloak, to protect the head and shoulders, would be a hood.

The ancient universities began as communities of scholars and teachers in religious schools around great cathedrals or monasteries.  Students at the early European universities in northern Europe, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, for example, were clerics (clerks).  They were not all priests but were typically in minor holy orders.  As such they were subject to Church law and discipline and were expected to dress soberly.  Their dress, while similar to that of everybody else, was particularly distinguished by being long and closed. Their outer cloak was closed at the front, with one or two openings for the hands.

This closed cloak or cappa clausa was ordered for all secular clergy in England by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the Council of Oxford in 1222 to bring the clergy into line with those in the rest of Catholic Europe.  The monastic clergy, of course, wore their various habits and were easier to regulate.  Whilst this order was frequently ignored by parish clergy – often reprimanded for their zeal for the latest fashions – the universities enforced the cappa clausa and it became a key item of academic dress at Oxford and Cambridge as well as at Bologna and Paris.

The closed cloak still exists in some forms today, such as the parliamentary robe worn by bishops at a State Opening of Parliament and in the cope worn by the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University (or his deputy) when conferring degrees.  It is a long scarlet robe with a deep hood lined with fur.  Another version of it survives as the red or black chimere, or habit, worn by Anglican bishops; and the similar garment worn occasionally by Doctors of Oxford University.

In the second half of the 15th century, the trend in fashion moved towards more open costume – perhaps reflecting the new openness in the world of ideas, learning and the arts.  The heavy outer cappa was increasingly left off and the undergarment, the long tunic or toga, evolved into the academic gown.  It opened up down the front, and the sleeves increased in size and varied in style, evolving into the academic gown patterns we see today.  By the end of the fifteenth century, it was fashionable for linings or facings of silk or fur to be seen at the front of garments or in their sleeves, and this trend included academic gowns.

The medieval hood consisted of three parts: a shoulder cape; a cowl that could cover the head or fall back on the shoulders, forming a useful bag, and a tail (or liripipe) that was sometimes long enough to be wound around the neck like a scarf.

By the fifteenth century this kind of hood was less often worn in ordinary dress. Instead, it evolved in various ways.  One popular fashion was to put the face-hole of the hood on the head and to roll up the cape like a turban, and sometimes it was simply draped over a shoulder.  The French equivalent of the academic hood still follows this pattern.

When fashions changed and hats replaced the hood in ordinary life, the universities retained the hood as part of their academic dress.  The hoods of the lower degrees were lined with lambswool or cheap fur, whilst those of masters and doctors were lined with expensive fur in winter and with silk during the summer months.

Over time, and especially after ruffs and wigs became the fashion, the academic hood lost much of its cape and was worn further down on the back, where it has remained ever since.

Philip Goff FBS

Putting on a graduation ceremony? You can add this page to your programme to give graduates an introduction to academic dress. All we ask is that The Burgon Society is credited with the copyright.