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Examples of Women's Hair
Coverings
Accessories Myths
Myth: Just wearing a crocheted snood is perfectly fine and period for English ladies.
This depends on your marital status. Young married women and virgins (presumably unmarried women) could go outside without any form of 'head covering' (Cunnington, 179). But their hair was usually up in some manner, not loose. The Queen on her Ascension to the Throne is shown with her hair down, as is a woman getting married. Even young girls often are shown with their hair up, bound or covered, not flowing freely. (see the next image).
Early in the period, English women wore a plain linen hood, a French hood, an English version of the French hood, or an English gable. Hats, lettice (fur) caps, and bonnets were less common. Other headdress include the caul, and the coif. Later Elizabethans wore French hoods, the attifet (laterly called a Mary Stuart hood), the Shadow, a 'Taffeta Pipkin', and a court bonnet. Cauls and coifs continued to be worn. Country women wore large plain straw hats over their coifs. Very few images show women wearing "flat caps".
I only found images of a caul worn alone on Italian ladies. Reticulated cauls resembled hairnets slightly. Cunnington says that cauls might be worn alone or under a bonnet. Often made of goldsmith's work lined with silk, or of silk thread or of hair. They were frequently trimmed with lace, gold lace, ribbon, pearls and jewels (Cunnington, 176). They were not crocheted, as crochet is a later invention (19th century?). They were tied or netted during this time.
Portrait of Anna Boleyn, by unknown English master,
1530-36
Jane Seymour by Hans Holbein, 1536
A Lady from the Wentworth Family by Hans Eworth, c.1565-68
Lady Helena Snakeborg, Marchioness of Northampton by an artist of
the British School, 1569
Elizabeth Knollys, Lady Layton after George Gower, 1577
Portrait of a Woman by Lorenzo Lotto, 1506
Cunnington, C. Willett and Cunnington, Phillis. Handbook of English Costume in the 16th Century ©1970, Plays, Inc., Great Britain. ISBN 0823800814