Hats, a postscript

I can't resist a short postscript to the two previous posts on the subject: Hats and Mrs Thatcher, and Hats and procedure, posted about a year ago. Outside Parliament, William Brock was fined, presumably in the 1580s, for keeping his hat on;  in his old age Sidney Wortley Montagu was described as 'a large, rough-looking…

Hats and procedure

Hats have many uses. Apart from being a means of keeping one's head warm, and sometimes fashionable, they can be used to indicate status and deference; as a result they can be used to signal respect and roles. In the seventeenth century, the wearing of hats helped to signal the respect (or the limits to…