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16th Century German Woman's Hats

By: Catherine Griffith (SCA: Baroness Catherine Grace Fitzlewis QC)

In modern costuming it is quite frequent that one agonizes over fabric choices, the cut and construction of one’s clothing, and the accuracy of one’s depiction. It is unfortunately all to frequent that hats and headwear are not only an afterthought, but often not a thought at all. In the context of 16th century costuming, if clothes make the man, it is then hats that make the German.

In order to illustrate the importance of hats for German women in the 16th century, one has only to look at the nude portraits made famous by Cranach, or Dürer, to see that even without another stitch of clothing on, almost all women are indeed wearing hats or headwear.

 

The few portraiture incedences where hats are not being worn, are usually to specificly make an alegorical or age related point. When deciding if your German personna needs a hat, one must ask one’s self, am I am small child, a virgin, or a protitute? If the answer is no to all three of those questions, then you need a hat. There are many different manefestations of hats that are worn by German woman of the early to mid 16th century, they can however be divided into a few different catagories.

To start with, we will discuss the most common variety recorded in German inventories of the period called a Steuchlein. The Steuchlein is the large padded (mushroom like) roll that one tends to most associate with German women of this era.

 

The Steuchlein is made up of several layers, the unterhaube or under coif/cap, the wulsthaube or padded cap, and the haube covering (Schleiertuch) which makes up the whole hat known as a steuchlein. There is really no definitive evidence of exactly what each piece looks like individually, we only know they exist because they are individually mentioned in the Textiler Hausrat. Before deciding on the construction of the unterhaube, one must establish its purpose, which I believe was two fold:

- One - to keep the wulsthaube clean and free of hair and body oils. (which is important anytime you involve difficult to wash padding)

- And two - to take the pressure off of the ears. Through pinning the wulsthuabe to the unterhaube the stress is taken off of the Schleiertuch, so that it may be worn less tightly. (This point will be illustrated more clearly further on.)

Since exactly what an unterhaube would have looked like is currently impossible to prove, I have constructed mine based on what we do know. We do know they were most likely made of linen, and that they would need to be close fitting to the head in order to not show bunching or wrinkles through the final steuchlein cover, it would need to be pretty firmly attached to the head in order to keep the wulsthaube in place, and it would need to be easily launder-able. I am a big believer in simple is better, especially when I cannot use fact based construction, and as such I feel I should tell you my unterhaube is my own creation, and that although it does the job, it is not museum documentable.

There are records in Textiler Hausrat calling the wulst (padding) an individual item, but more commonly it is referred to in its entirety, as a wulsthaube. When listing what we know about this piece, we can only state that we know it’s padded, and we know it can’t be too heavy or it would be impossible to wear. I have made my wulsthaube out of wool felt, as it doesn’t fray, it can be stuffed and trained into a nice round shape, and it has the benefit of being clingy to the unterhaube. I based my shape off of extant portraits, if one looks one will see a wider top, narrowing at the sides. (It is not a fully round circle.) I stuffed the wulst with batting because that is what I had on hand, but for a more authentic construction, one could certainly use cabbage or wool roving. (Keeping in mind the wool will felt and compact into itself eventually.) Once complete the wulsthaube is then placed on the head, and pinned to the unterhaube. One wants the wulsthaube to sit high, but also completely vertical off of the back of the head.

The next piece that can be added to a Steuchlein is a veil or Schleier, this piece is usually made of sheer fabric, either plain or adorned, and has a long trailing “liripipe” that can be either wrapped under the chin, or around the arm. I have included my pattern for a Schleier,, and a existing pattern for a hooded mantel could be used for size, if one simply omitted the mantle portion.

 

The next area of interest is that of the Saxon Woman, there are several styles that she would have worn, uniquely as her own in Germany.

The Italian–influenced gold cap/coif (Goldhaube) is a style that is most commonly worn with Saxon style gowns, it is a caul or “snood” that is sometimes net, sometimes solid, and contains all the hair, goldenhaubes are frequently worn with another hat over the top. The shape of a goldhaube is rather unusual, as it is a slightly dropped round, with no wrinkles, no pleats or gathers to get it into the band, and it is bulbous with no indication of how it is constructed.

Portrait of a Woman
Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1525

There are several styles of hats that were worn over goldhaubes, anywhere from berets to unique folded and tucked creations. These hats are most commonly red, with some black in the mix. Most Hats are adorned with white ostrich plumes.

 

Saxon Princesses Sibylla, Emilia, and Sidonia
Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1535

There are also false hair pieces shown in both portraiture, and extant pieces.

Extant German Hairpiece

Platter hats are the medium or large, flat round hat worn by both men and women of this period, they are usually red when worn by a Saxon woman, (although there are some images of black versions) and have white feathers. There are as of yet to be any definitive period directions on the creation of this style of hat, and as such I will simply describe how I create mine. I had a wide brimmed palm hat that I wore a couple of years ago to Pennsic, (ne of the flat topped kind with a tiny crown,)anyway I hat pinned it so much the crown sort of tore along the dotted line, I didn't throw it away as I decided that I wasn't paying $20 for a hat to have it break in the first month, fast forward a year, and I had some red wool left over from another project, and was trying to decide what to do with such a small amount, BINGO!!! A hat…. I used spray adhesive to attach a wool layer to one side of the hat (complete purists could use a period adhesive) and a silk layer to the other I rolled the wool side up through the hole in the middle and folded the seam allowance of the silk under and hand stitched the two lairs together in the opening for a finished look, I did the same on the outer brim.

Now I know this sounds wrong, but put the wool on the side that used to face up and the silk on the side that faced down, the brim could flop in your face all the time the other way with the added weight of the wool. I then made 2 circles the same size as the hat brim plus seam allowance, one of wool the other of silk. I sewed, turned and pressed the two circles together and then hand stitched the circle to the hat on the outer edge catching only the red wool. I added feathers and a pin. The whole thing is fully lined in the silk with no raw edges showing and sits with minimal pinning in my head. I have baby versions of this hat in individual stages to show the process. (images of the process will be added to my website soon.

 

Because of the great variety of German woman’s hats from the early to mid 16th century, I am only able to touch on generalities, and not every unusual style, I hope that you are able to go forward and research your own favorite and unique hats, so that we may see headwear more fully represented in the future.

Bibliography for some of the images

Web gallery of art

German Ren Costume Group on Yahoogroups

The Frazzled Frau