French hood

A lady, probably of the Cromwell family, wearing a French hood. Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1540

French hood is the English name for a type of elite woman's headgear that was popular in Western Europe in roughly the first half of the 16th century.

The French hood is characterized by a rounded shape, contrasted with the angular "English" or gable hood. It is worn over a coif, and has a black veil attached to the back, which fully covers the hair.[1] Unlike the more conservative gable hood, it displays the front part of the hair.

Anne of Brittany with her patron saints, Anne, Ursula (with the arms of Brittany on a pennant) and Catherine of Alexandria, a princess who also wears one under her crown. Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany, folio 3.

In France it was known as a cape Bretonne ("Breton hood"), after Anne of Brittany, Queen of France from 1491, and also the last reigning Duchess of Brittany.[2] She wears it in portraits, including one in her Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany of 1503-08, and her ladies often also wear it.

It had a complicated and varied construction, with several layers of textile, as well as jewels, wire, and perhaps metal bands. No examples survive, so aspects of it remain uncertain.[3]

  1. ^ Alison Weir, Henry VIII: The King and His Court. Ballantine Books, 2002. ISBN 0-345-43708-X.
  2. ^ Anne de Bretagne: "Sur les différentes enluminures où elle apparaît, elle porte toujours sur la tête ce qu'on appelle la cape bretonne",[1]. Also used in French in a magazine article from 1912.[2] And in an English book entitled Womankind in Western Europe from the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century we find: "She wears on her head the small flat hood, à la mode de Bretagne, which was called the cape Bretonne."
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference frc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).