Cap

A woollen cap with a single half-brim and deep crimson dyed lining, dating to the first half of the 16th century. Knitted and felted caps were worn by London's business and working communities, such as merchants, shopkeepers and apprentices. They were designed to be warm and waterproof. A range of styles and qualities were available to suit the taste and pocket of the customer.

There were as many as 15-20 successive stages involved in making one cap and they are products of highly-skilled, professional workers.. Bright colours such as blue or red were common, as were black and dark brown. It is rare to have textiles surviving from this period and even rarer to have remains of colour still visible. This cap's lining is one of the most vivid red colours in the collection.

The piece was bought from the artist (John) Seymour Lucas in 1913 and may have formed part of his set of studio costumes and props used in historical genre paintings. No further find details are known. Workmen in the early 20th century digging deep foundations for new buildings around the City of London found many pieces of clothing and textiles buried in the earth. Many are in a good state of preservation and may have been lost from wearers’ heads or discarded when they became unfashionable (from around 1570), thrown into the City ditch and cesspits. Unfortunately, because these were not formal archaeological excavations, any strata details or contextual material such as pottery that would help date the caps more closely were lost.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

The cap, including crown and brims, is knitted in the round in one continuous working, using random decreases on the crown to achieve the round shape without spiral patterns of counted decreases. The fulling has made it very stiff, with no elasticity or ‘give’ at all. The feel is more like crisp felt than soft knitting. The woollen yarn has a hard twist to it, much more tightly spun than modern yarns. This gives the density of fibres that creates the very fine, dense, velvety nap remaining on some caps. Where it exists, the pile entirely obscures the knit loops underneath. The fulling can also make it difficult to determine the yarn spin direction.

CAP - Yarn - Z spun, 2 ply. 8.5 stitches per inch.16 rows per inch. Munsell Colour Value 10YR 3/6 (dark yellowish brown). Weight: 174 grams.
Fine velvety pile present. The ground yarn is paler than the pile, suggesting the cap was dyed after construction. Width 9.75 inches; length 21.25 inches

LINING - Separate circular lining of an intense crimson red knitted in the round with cut edges, lying inside the crown. Yarn - Z? spun, 2 ply. 8.5 stitches per inch. 13 rows per inch. Could not be removed for weighing. Fine velvety pile present. The ground yarn is paler than the pile, suggesting the cap was dyed after construction. Width 10 inches.