Headgear

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Various headgear - from helmets to fez to fools' hats

A head covering is a clothing - or jewelry piece to cover the head . This also includes larger items of clothing that cover the neck, shoulders or the whole body in addition to the head, all kinds of wreaths, ribbons and hair ornaments that hold the hair together, and some types of masks .

The headgear can be used for protection. However, their socio-psychological and semiotic significance is often more important than a sign of belonging to a certain group or hierarchy.

Protective functions

Protection against the weather

Man with a hat-like fur hood (self-portrait of the young Hans Baldung )

When used against sun, cold, wind and rain, the headgear complements or replaces the natural protective function of the human scalp . In the case of wigs , it even mimics the look of the hair on the head. So that the wearer's breathing and orientation are not hindered, the eyes, nose and mouth are usually uncovered, less often the ears. Against extreme weather conditions, the face is sometimes covered like a mask.

Protection against injuries

Portuguese fire helmet

In this function, the headgear complements the skull bones , especially the skullcap .

Coverage of the hair and protection from prying eyes

  • Headscarves and veils are usually exclusively female headgear. Bandanas are also occasionally worn by men (especially members of American street gangs ).
  • Hoods made of light fabric and other sensitive material (wire, whalebone, cardboard) have been used to cover the hair of (married) women since the Middle Ages. However, the practical function of taming the hair is largely overlaid by the symbol and decorative function.
  • Costume masks make the wearer completely unrecognizable. Hoods and balaclavas can also be used primarily to make things unrecognizable. In the case of helmets with face protection (visor, etc.), this effect is usually not intended, but occurs anyway.

Hair control

The coat of arms of Corsica

Long hair can obstruct your view or become entangled in obstacles or work equipment. Therefore it is sometimes held together by special headgear, such as the headband .

Drawing functions

In temperate climates, wearing a hat is by no means essential. In the course of history there have been periods in which it was the exception, but bare-headedness the rule. Like any clothing, headgear, in addition to its practical functions and its decorative function, also has an important socio-psychological significance, all the more because of its literally "prominent position" and good visibility. Therefore, at other times, an uncovered head was almost equivalent to nakedness .

Group membership

Hutterite woman with a headscarf, girl with a hood
Social status : At the Sunday promenade concert in Hanover , only the nanny did not wear a hat;
Postcard No. 8753 from Louis Glaser

With uniform or similar headgear, the wearer can express his affiliation to a wide variety of groups.

  • Gender, class, age: in the folk costumes of the 19th century, headgear was strictly differentiated between men and women. Especially the hoods of women were often additionally differentiated for single, married or widowed women (there were only rarely special caps for unmarried men), or according to the occasion: in everyday life, when going to church, at the wedding, during the mourning period etc. Today these differentiations have largely disappeared. Most hats can be worn by either sex. A woman who wears a man's hat no longer attracts attention. On the other hand, z. B. Even today it is difficult to imagine a man with a headscarf.
  • Religion: In Judaism and Islam it is common for all men to wear the kippah and the takke in worship, and in everyday life for orthodox men. Accordingly, women wear headgear that covers their hair (headscarf, cap, hat, cap, wig). For Sikhs, wearing the dastar is a religious duty. Christian religious orders differ among others. a. through their different headgear (hoods, birettes, veils, hoods, etc.), similarly different schools of Tibetan Buddhism (“red hats”, “yellow hats”, “black hats”). Some Christian groups who wear headgear are the Hutterites , Amish People, and Bruderhof members.
  • Politics: the red berets ( Txapelgorri ) as a symbol of Carlism , the club caps of the Spartakusbund , the brown shaft caps of the SA etc.
  • Military, see: Military headgear
  • Work clothing: outfit (guild clothing) , chef's hat, conductors' hat, nurse's hat, etc. Student hats also indicate that they belong to certain associations.
  • Descent: the black or green turbans of the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.

Exclusion

The Jewish poet Süßkind von Trimberg on the right in the picture with a Jew hat, 14th century.

On the other hand, headgear can, on the contrary, serve to ostracize its wearer and to exclude a certain group from the majority society.

Authority, rule and privilege

Special headgear, which should impress with its height, width, color or decorations, was originally assigned to the deities themselves, later to the priest-kings and their priests, e.g. B. the double crown of the pharaohs, the tiara of the ancient Persian kings. In the Bible the turban (head band) is mentioned as the headgear of the high priests in Israel. The miter and the stephanos of Christian bishops are in this ancient tradition . Until the 11th century, however, the ordinary Christian clergy went bareheaded, only later did they take over the birett / beret.

Alexander the Great inherited the diadem from the Persians (originally a headband that was wrapped around the tiara); the Greco-Roman laurel wreath was later made of metal. The kings of the Vandals were the first Teutons to use the diadem as a symbol of rule. From this the crown of the western emperors and kings developed.

But the ordinary hat could also be a symbol of rule: the mayor is already emphasized in the Sachsenspiegel by his headgear in front of the other farmers. Likewise, the feudal lord is often depicted with a head covering, while the feudal lord is bareheaded. In times of the general spread of headgear, the lower rank had to take off the hat in greeting. The senior could keep it on. A well-known example is the Gessler hat , which one had to pay homage to even in the absence of the wearer . The hat, which was set up on a pole to open a market, had a similar substitute function. It symbolized the protection of market rights by the market rulers.

In general, the hat (like the trousers) was also a symbol of the husband's rule over his wife. The custom of taking off their hats to women of all classes only emerged in the gallant aristocratic courts of the 18th century.

The hood, in return, stood for the subordination of the woman to the will of the man, the veil (especially the veil of the nuns ) was considered a sign of humility before God. For this reason, these typically female headgear did not need to be removed in front of higher-ranking people or in worship. But on the contrary.

In the late Middle Ages, the beret was the headgear of the princes and counts who also held jurisdiction . In the early modern period it was adopted by lawyers , especially judges , as well as scholars in general (see: doctoral hat ). The elector's electoral hat is a hybrid of a crown and beret .

Political freedom

In ancient Rome, the pileus was the symbol of the released slaves and thus became the symbol of freedom in general.

The Frisians at the time of the Frisian Freedom wore a hat as a standard in times of war . The Tellenhut can be found in the coats of arms of many Swiss cantons as a symbol of freedom. The United Netherlands issued coins with a hat stamped on them to express their republican independence of the Spanish Habsburg monarchy.

After the Glorious Revolution in Great Britain, the wide-brimmed hats with a frustoconical crown became a hallmark of the Puritans and Quakers . During the American War of Independence , the Puritan hat returned from North America to continental Europe and in the time of the Sturm und Drang it became an integral part of the value costume that became fashionable among the rebellious, idealistic and exuberant German youth.

Portrait by André Antoine, 1795

At the French National Assembly of 1789 , the liberal -minded deputies wore similar hats made of wool or beaver felt , but with a narrower brim and more cylindrical shape . As a sign of emancipation , the citizens now also reserved the right to keep their hats on in the presence of nobles. On the other hand, it was expected that the courtesy gesture of lifting the hat would now also be reciprocated by the nobles.

The more radical followers of the Jacobins , on the other hand, wore the antique Jacobin hat . Although it disappeared from the streets again after the end of the reign of terror , it became the real symbol of the French Revolution and found its way into many national flags and coats of arms of Central and South American states that gained independence in the first decades of the 19th century.

In continental Europe, as far away as Russia, the carriers of were top hats of the authorities still viewed with suspicion because they were suspected generally republican, anti-monarchist genetic machinations. Only after the end of the Napoleonic wars did the cylinder become generally accepted. Women who put on men's hats (including top hats) expressed their emancipatory sentiments.

The male wig possessed a contrary symbolic power. While it was abolished in revolutionary France, it was e.g. B. Prussian officials are strictly forbidden to put them in public.

The beret, which was propagated as part of the so-called old German costume during the wars of liberation as an expression of national liberal, anti-French sentiments, could only assert itself in student and artist circles ( bohemians ).

At the time of the March Revolution of 1848 , the cylinder (covered with silk ) had lost its revolutionary image and , on the contrary, had become the headgear of the conservative upper class , especially in the form of the chapeau claque made of satin . So the soft, broad-brimmed Calabrian , the hat of the Italian freedom fighters , temporarily took on the role of the "democrat hat ". Towards the end of the 19th century, however, this hat suffered the same fate as the top hat: it was adopted by the upper class and the East Elbe Junkers and B., old Bismarck's favorite hat .

The Guy Fawkes mask is a more recent example of head or face covering with revolutionary claims .

State of mind

Paper hats on New Year's Eve 1953

In addition, headgear can also be an expression of emotions , e.g. B.

  • Joy and exuberance: various hats and masks in carnival costumes , self-woven flower wreaths, headgear that are decorated with colorful ribbons or flowers, or are put on in an unusual way (diagonally, upside down), or are thrown into the air, etc.
  • Mourning: black cylinder, black veil, etc.

Historical development in Europe

Antiquity

Occasional finds of felt and fur caps and woolen hairnets as grave goods, or clothing from bog corpses , especially from northern Germany and Scandinavia, date back to the Bronze Age . Pointed fur hoods were found as work clothing for miners in mines during the Hallstatt period. In general, headgear does not seem to have been very common.

Headgear was more common in Asia Minor and Egypt. On Egyptian representations z. B. the warriors of the sea ​​peoples with feather crowns and horned helmets. Headgear made of felt was probably already widespread among the Hittites . In addition to hemispherical felt caps, the common people also wore pointed, cone-shaped hats. The soft Phrygian cap was characteristic of the Lydians , Phrygians , Parthians and Medes , the bag-like tip of which was often stuffed and overhanged to the front. Similar soft headgear, but with long neck and ear flaps, similar to the modern bashlik , were worn by Eurasian equestrian peoples, such as the Scythians , and particularly tall and pointed shapes by the Saks .

The ceremonial headgear of high dignitaries, on the other hand, was very elaborate early on. In addition to the often very high crowns, which were also wrapped with holy ties ( infuln ), wigs were also used as a symbol of rulership by Egyptians, Assyrians and Persians .

Hermes with Petasus and staff

With the Greeks, headgear only seems to have become more common after contact with cultures from Asia Minor. In Homer's epics , in addition to the helmets of the warriors and the headbands and veils of the women, a goat skin cap is mentioned only once, which the father of Odysseus wears. They adopted the felt cap from Asia Minor under the name Pilos and the hairband under the name Mitra . In Thessaly and Macedonia in particular, the flat, beret-like Kausia and the broad-brimmed Petasus (who became an attribute of the traveling messenger of the gods Hermes ) established themselves as sun protection. Finally, the Greeks also found hooded weather coats (perhaps through the mediation of the Celtic Galatians , see: Telesphoros ).

Elegant women covered their heads with the palla . This headgear was adopted by the Romans, who otherwise went bareheaded. Only the Flamines wore Galerus and Apex as a sign of their priestly dignity. It was not until the post-Augustan period that the subjugated peoples began to use more and more clothing, such as headscarves for women ( palliola ) or the weather coat under the name Paenula . The pileus was initially the headgear of fishermen and craftsmen, but then the symbol of rank of the released slaves .

In the case of the Teutons, headgear also seems to have been worn only rarely at first. Tacitus mentions the headscarves of Germanic women, which can also be seen on the Trajan column and the Marcus Aurelius column . Otherwise the Teutons were depicted bareheaded throughout. Written sources only occasionally mention helmets, and even these were often only used by chiefs and noble warriors. So was the Alemanni king Chnodomar , according to Ammianus Marcellinus , in the battle of Strasbourg just a torulus , a red head bandage. Jordanes tells of the hats ( pillei ) of the Ostrogothic priests.

middle Ages

Numerous representations and mentions of helmets are known from the time of the Franconian Merovingians and Carolingians . In addition, headgear seems to have been the exception. Charlemagne only wore the tiara on ceremonial occasions, but it is said of his wife and daughters that they themselves took part in a hunting procession wearing expensive, crown-like headdresses. Even among women of lower class it seems to have been customary since the 9th century to cover their heads with scarves, hoods or bonnets, at least when going to church. Monks preferred to wear the Kukulle , a hooded throw that was later adopted by the rural population and is still partially preserved in the habit of some monastic orders. According to a much discussed note from Widukind von Corvey , practically all warriors wore straw hats during a campaign by Otto the Great against western France . Possibly it was the “national costume” of the Saxons at the time , or the symbol of the status of free farmers, or a targeted mockery of heavily armed opponents, or simply an inexpensive replacement for helmets made of iron and leather.

The old clasp and nasal helmets of the knights were replaced by pot helmets (under which a padded cap, a brain hood , a hood made of metal rings or plates, later a collar hood made of fabric and a metal basin hood were worn), finally by the doggugel with an opening visor.

Helmbrecht with a hood

In the High Middle Ages, precious hoods or hats became a symbol of the nobility . The rise and fall of the farmer's son Helmbrecht begins in the verse novella of the same name with the possession of an embroidered hood, which leads him to assume the lifestyle of a robber baron. Bonnets and hats with peacock feathers , which were worn by both men and women, were particularly famous . As a result, French (Burgundian) fashion dominated European dress customs. From the combination of several veils and headscarves, the hood-like giving and the rise of women developed. The wreath-shaped or hoop-shaped Schapel was sometimes worn by men, but in later national costumes especially as a sign of virginity , while the giver marked the married woman.

In the late Middle Ages, hoods and hooded cloaks were worn by all layers. Hooded coats lined with fur or trimmed with trim became known as almutium (from Arabic: al-musta-kah ). On the one hand, this term narrowed more and more to the hood alone and finally changed to the "cap". On the other hand, the matter has survived in the clergy's Almutia . In the 14th century, the Gugel , originally a coarse hood with shoulder collar for farmers and monks, also came into fashion among the nobility. Elaborately tailored cowls with sometimes extremely long tips, as well as buttons and / or zaddles , were worn in various ways, e.g. B. intertwined into turban-like structures, and according to French fashion as a chaperon (Middle High German: schaperūn ).

Having gone out of fashion in the early 15th century chaperone and Hood were (the latter was maintained only by the rural population and travelers), were spread increasingly hats with a brim and beret-like caps, under which often still a coif was worn, the ears, the covered. Under Egyptian-Arab influence (and through Franco-Burgundian mediation) the women's hoods developed into complex structures such as hennin , turtur and double turtle (horned hood).

Modern times

The money changer and his wife, by Marinus van Reymerswaele , 1541

The emerging bourgeoisie in the cities initially largely imitated the clothing of the nobility, although numerous dress codes tried to counteract the exaggerated luxury of the non-aristocratic classes. The beret prevailed as headgear for the wealthy upper class and other dignitaries (lawyers, theologians, professors), but on the other hand it was forbidden especially for farmers. Instead, they wore wide-brimmed felt hats or beret-like caps made of less precious material. Many late medieval headgear that had gone out of fashion in the upper class now lived on in the evolving national costumes , especially in the diverse women's hoods of the southern German free imperial cities . The Gugel was divided into two separate pieces of clothing: the head part became a pointed hat , the collar a goller .

In the middle of the 16th century, small, round French hats and the tall, stiff Spanish hat competed with the beret, and from around 1590 the latter prevailed in the upper class, including women. Maria Stuart in particular made the (French) Schneppen or Stuart hood acceptable again in the 16th century . Even during the Thirty Years' War , the upper class held on to this Spanish court costume, while the wide-brimmed floppy hat of the (Swedish) soldiers prevailed among the population , the brim of which later, for practical reasons, first on one side, then on three, folded up and on the crown of the hat was attached. Ordinary women increasingly went bareheaded.

Around 1700 Fontange dominated women's fashion: a delicate high headdress made of ribbons, wire and lace , which also included the hair on the head. The bald-headed Louis XIV established the allonge wig as headgear for the court throughout Europe , while the tricorn was only worn decoratively under the arm. After his death, the wigs (with pouches or braids) became increasingly smaller and powdered white. At the same time, the three-cornered hat, now practically useless as headgear, was reduced to a collapsible two-pointed hat. Women's fashion around 1760 was characterized by an unmistakable abundance of hoods, both among the nobility and the common people.

Modern

Even before the French Revolution , a change in taste was noticeable in headgear: with the (progressive-minded) nobility and the bourgeoisie, the top hat prevailed as headgear, the wigs disappeared. During the Empire , the bicorn predominated for a short time, the particularly large specimens of which were mocked as Incroyables ("Incredibles").

Old couple, around 1860

In the 19th century, headgear was almost omnipresent. Pointed hats and house caps were even worn in the domestic environment . In the Biedermeier period, bourgeois women wore hood-like hats, like the Schute . At the same time, the variety of forms of women's hoods reached its peak in the country. Almost every village had its own women's costume, often different costumes depending on the occasion and the status. It was not until the end of the century that the national costumes began to disappear. On the other hand, a certain leveling across class boundaries became noticeable among men a little earlier: while soft hats were increasingly being adopted by the bourgeoisie, even farmers wore top hats (from industrial mass production) on holidays. Even today, chimney sweeps, after passing the journeyman's examination, are given the right to wear a cylinder when working. In addition, the melon spread from England. Only the workers preferred hats on Sundays too. Such clothing conventions were largely in force until the First World War . When it came to women's hats, however, following the abandonment of the barge, there were no more dominant forms.

In the 20th century, a general trend began, away from formal hats and towards more practical, sporty hats. Since the middle of the century, the wearing of hats fell sharply and bare-headedness became the norm again. Today, headgear is mainly used for practical protective functions and mere jewelry functions. The function to designate differences in class or rank has almost completely disappeared, except for uniforms .

literature

  • Gitta Böth, Manfred Hartmann, Viktor Pröstler: headgear. A typology for museums and collections. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-422-07170-4 .
  • Gexi Tostmann (Ed.): Old hats. Headgear from yesteryear. Headscarves, bonnets & hats . Brandstätter, Vienna and Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-85033-334-4 . ( Online )
  • Hans-Friedrich Foltin: The headgear and their names in German . Inaugural dissertation, Phillips University Marburg / Lahn, Wilhelm Schmitz Verlag, Gießen, 1963.

Web links

Commons : headgear  - collection of images, videos, and audio files
Wiktionary: headgear  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Ammon, Rhea Kyvelos, Regula Nyffenegger (Ed.): German dictionary of variants: The standard language in Austria, Switzerland and Germany as well as in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, East Belgium and South Tyrol , Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 3-11-016574- 0 , p. 334, "Hood" ( limited preview in Google Book search)
  2. ↑ Dress. In: Hutterites. February 29, 2012, Retrieved April 26, 2019 (American English).
  3. ^ Rod Dreher: Life Among The Bruderhof. Retrieved April 26, 2019 (American English).