Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


If we now turn to female attire, we shall find represented in it all the
component parts of male dress, and almost all of them under the same
names. It must be remarked, however, that the women's coats and surcoats
often trailed on the ground; that the hat--which was generally called a
_couvre-chef,_ and consisted of a frame of wirework covered over with
stuff which was embroidered or trimmed with lace--was not of a conical
shape; and, lastly, that the _chaperon_, which was always made with a
tippet, or _chausse_, never turned over so as to form a cap. We may add
that the use of the couvre-chef did not continue beyond the middle of the
fourteenth century, at which time women adopted the custom of wearing any
kind of head-dress they chose, the hair being kept back by a silken net,
or _crepine_, attached either to a frontlet, or to a metal fillet, or
confined by a veil of very light material, called a _mollequin_ (Fig.
420).

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