University Costume

Summary

Already in almost every section of this work, some allusion has been made to the dress worn by some special officer or at some special function or ceremony. We may here give a more detailed account of University Costume. But it may first be remarked that there is a very excellent chapter on the subject by Dr Tanner in The Historical Register, which he so ably edited. The late Professor E. C. Clark wrote elaborate and learned treatises on “English Academical Costume” and on “College Caps and Doctors' Hats” (see The Archaeological Journal, L, 74, 137, 183, etc.). An article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica contains an interesting illustrated section on Academic Costume. The picture (1590) on the staircase of the Registry already referred to, and the remarkable drawings in Loggan's Cantabrigia Illustrata a century later will, of course, also be consulted.

In the old statutes of our earliest College, Peterhouse, almost the opening words enjoin that a Fellow “will always appear in the University dressed in the proper robes (vestes) of a scholar,” while later on a special statute (no. 35) is entitled de Habitu Scolarium and contains a reference to an ordinance issued by John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury. Again, in the archives of Corpus Christi College there are references to the “liveries” (liberatura) worn by the Master, Fellows and Scholars; to benefactions made towards the same; and to their economical purchase at “Stirbitch Fair.”