Chaperon / Headroll

Ostentation in the 15th Century ​

Chaperon 1

Chaperon 2

Chaperon 3

Chaperon 4

Ostentation in the 15th Century was not restricted to the outrageously ornate Houppelande, it applied to the millinery too. ‘Where too much is barely enough’ as Lady Acacia says, fifteenth century western Europe was home to headwear which ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous – in my opinion, both the chaperon and the headroll straddles both these attributes.
 
The chaperon is basically a donut of fabric covered filling worn on the head. ‘A period source mentions the "hair of dead women," but since that's in fairly short supply these days…A friend recalls seeing a round cork shape in a museum which was made to be rolled up inside a hood to give the stuffed effect, but I do not have any source material on this option.’ (Cynthia Virtue aka Cynthia du Pré Argent, Women's Roll Hats)
 
The chaperon appears to have developed out of dagged hoods with long points at the back. This point, in reality a long tube of fabric, is then wound around the head with the dagging falling over one side. As with many fashions, over time it appears that the headroll or chaperon replaced the hood as headwear in its own right. 

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1412-1416 http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/rh/.

The chaperon and headroll was worn with a number of garments, most notably the Houppelande. Both men and women wore a variety of headrolls in different shapes, round, dipped at the front, square shaped. It appears more common for men to wear plain and heavily dagged chaperon, but women wore them too. This can be seen in the above detail representing April from the Calender section in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry a medieval book of hours painted approximately 1412-1416

'Falconry' (detail), woven wool tapestry,
Netherlands, possibly Arras, 1430s.
Museum no. T.202-1957
Example of plain chaperon and ornate headrolls

Title of Work: Detail from Collected Works of Christine de Pizan,  Author: Pizan, Christine de, Illustrator: Master of the Bedford trend, Production: France (Paris); 1410-1411, Language: French
Example of heart shaped plain headroll supported by two buns of hair

St Eligius and Two Lovers, 1449
Example of black chaperon with trailing tail

Les Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame du Duc de Berry (1380-1420).
Three examples of ornate chaperon

My Inspiration
I fell in love with the Houppelande when I was lucky enough to wear it at a fashion parade during the Abbey Medieval Fayre in 2011. Although I have been re-enacting in non-SCA groups for some years, I had never encountered this particular style of medieval garb and was instantly hooked. I decided, with huge amounts of help from Baroness Acacia, to make my own Houppelande. Of course, one is never enough.
 
In March 2015, made a pea-green wool Houppelande with scalloped dagging and decided to make a chaperon to complete the outfit. I had lusted after Baron Drake’s chaperon for some time and he kindly allowed me to examine how he had approached making it. Using this and a variety of secondary sources (paintings from the period) I came up with a pattern.

Materials

• Hand carded and washed raw lambswool
• A long rectangle of felled wool fabric or if striped, a number of small rectangles sewn together into a long rectangle
• Badge or other appropriate device
• 1 Large square of wool fabric for dagged design to be transferred onto (or two if double dagging is desired)
• Large piece of brown paper
• Small piece of thick cardboard to use as template

 
My Construction Methods
The construction for headrolls are surprisingly quick – between 4 to 20 hours depending on the complexity of the dagging.

1. Sew the long sides of the rectangle together and one short end.
2. Turn inside out.
3. This tube should be long enough to put around the head with about 15cm extra length
4. Stuff with carded lambswool (polyfil makes a cheap alternative)
5. Put the closed end inside the open end and pin
6. Make any necessary sizing adjustments
7. Trim and turn the open end in and sew to the roll
8. Place the roll on your head and measure from your shoulder, over the top of the roll and back to the other shoulder. Subtract 10cm. This will be the width of the circle.
9. Using chalk, draw the circle out on the large square of fabric
10. Choose the dagging type, oak leaf, scallop, zig-zag – anything you have seen in paintings or drawings
11. Draft the dagging  on the thick cardboard and cut out to make a template
12. Quarter the brown paper
13. Use the cardboard template to evenly space the dagging – use a pencil until it is worked out then outline in permanent marker. Fold over and trace to the other side so you have half of the pattern marked on the brown paper
14. Trace around the design on the brown paper with tailor’s chalk
15. Halve the fabric

 Turn over brown paper on the wool fabric (chalk side down) and pin. Trace over the design with a blunt object or scrivening tool to transfer chalk to fabric. Rechalk paper and then trace it onto the other side of the fabric.

1. Cut out using the chalk lines as a guide.
2. Attach the dagged circle to the headroll using pins. Adjust until comfortable.
3. Tack the circle and roll together using invisible stitches.
4. Sew on the badge.

 
By using fully felled wool for dagging, I did not need to finish any edges and it gave a clean, crisp result. 

Improvements
When I made my original headroll I stuffed it with cloth, but this was far too heavy to wear for more than an hour. This green chaperon is stuffed with polyfill. The purple and cream double dagged headroll used lambswool and I am delighted with the result. It is lighter and softer than polyfil and has given the best look so far.
Chaperons 3 and 4 were for other people and completed later in 2015. Both were filled with carded lambs' wool. They were packed more firmly than Chaperon 2. 

For more firmly shaped headrolls I am still trying to source artist’s Styrofoam of sufficient size for a future project. Stiff foam cut into shape may also be a reasonable substitute for the more historically accurate, but no longer available, cork.

Author: Nicola de Coventre (nee Nicola Boyd). Images and text copyright 2020.