"It was like going out naked": Which common accessory did Tudors dare not leave the house without?

In early modern England, what a person wore was a key marker of social status. Recent research now suggests that the common hat – how it was worn, or not – could cause a serious breach of the peace

Illustration of two Elizabethan peers in ceremonial robes accompanied by a halberdier in ornate military dress and soft caps.

Published: May 17, 2026 at 10:45 AM

Save

Today, people are generally free to wear what they please. But in the early modern period, individual attire was closely monitored by the authorities – because a sartorial misstep could threaten the established social order.

Ad

The cost, cut and colour of your clothes signified your status in society. Dressing above your rank or income was strictly prohibited in England by a string of sumptuary laws dating back to 1463. Legislation enacted under Elizabeth I decreed that only members of royalty were permitted to wear purple silk or gold cloth. Some other colours and furs were restricted to the nobility.

These laws, which were hard to enforce and failed to keep up with changes in fashion, were repealed in 1604. But parish preachers and other influential community members continued to apply more informal constraints on the dress of ordinary people.

Though these restrictions were defied at various times in the 17th century, clothing remained an indicator of a person’s place in England’s social hierarchy.

According to new research, however, one clothing accessory frequently sparked conflict in England – especially as the country descended into civil war. It was so cherished by its wearers that many would sooner part with all their money than go without it. Surprisingly, it was also one of the most commonplace articles: the hat.

How were hats used as social and political weapons in early modern England?

In a study in The Historical Journal, historian Bernard Capp argues that hats were key components in established etiquette, the flouting of which could cause serious conflict. This was widespread but has sometimes eluded historians because it operated under unwritten rules.

Almost everybody in early modern England wore some form of headgear, from broad-brimmed hats and simple cloth caps to coifs and towering ‘steeple’ hats. The size, shape and material of a hat could draw admiration or criticism, and hats were subject to constraints along with other pieces of clothing.

An illustration reproducing four examples of 15th-century English hats and caps, including tall conical hats and rounded caps worn by men and women.

An illustration of 15th century English hats and caps. Distinctive headwear increasingly became an important marker of status, occupation and fashion in early modern England, with styles evolving from elaborate conical and brimmed hats to the broader range of caps and felt hats seen in the Tudor and Stuart periods. (Photo by Getty Images)

But Capp, emeritus professor of history at the University of Warwick, argues it was what people did with their headwear that made the hat a potentially incendiary fashion item – and almost impossible to control.

Men were expected to doff (‘do off’) their hats when in friendly company or in the presence of a social superior. “Everybody in that period knew the significance of doffing your hat, though there was no actual law that said you had to take off your hat in respect,” Capp tells HistoryExtra. “It was instilled from childhood, and there were sanctions and pressures if you didn’t do as you were expected to do.”

As a result, keeping your hat firmly on your head became an act of defiance. A person might, for example, refuse to doff their cap in front of a constable whose authority they rejected. But the stakes could be even higher.

The rejection of ‘hat-honour’, Capp has found, took on an incendiary political meaning as England descended into civil war in the 1640s. Two leaders of the proto-communist Digger movement wore their hats proudly in 1649 as they told General Fairfax that he was “but their fellow creature”.

“For radical groups like the Levellers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchists and Quakers, that was a very easy way to demonstrate their defiance against political authority or the church establishment,” Capp says.

There was a moral imperative to headwear, too. To go outside without a hat was “almost like going out naked”, Capp says, and suggested that a person might be mentally ill, abjectly poor or in search of trouble. That was why, in 1659, the father of a rebellious young man chose to stop him attending Quaker meetings by confiscating his hats. Without them, the youth dared not leave his house.

One of Capp’s discoveries is that victims of highway robbery in the early 18th century sometimes prioritised their hats over much more expensive valuables to avoid the humiliation of being seen hatless. “This shame in being bareheaded is interesting,” Dr Danae Tankard, a reader in social history at the University of Chichester, tells HistoryExtra. “I think it is not something people have specifically picked up on before.”

In 1718, a gang of three thieves stole £15 from William Seabrook – but he succeeded in begging them to spare his hat. A victim whose wig and hat were taken from him by a highwayman in 1733 received an apology from the criminal in prison after complaining it was “very unusual for men of his profession to take such things”.

Read more | The extraordinary legend of highwayman Dick Turpin

These anecdotes, and a dozen similar scenarios, are among the Old Bailey records, newly uncovered by Capp, previously overlooked by historians.

Illustration of Guy Fawkes and fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators in richly coloured early 17th-century clothing and tall broad-brimmed hats.

Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, in 1605, during the first years of Stuart rule. The varied hats worn by the plotters show the importance of headwear in early modern England, where broad-brimmed felt hats, feathers and decorative bands signalled status, wealth and political identity as much as fashion. (Photo by Getty Images)

Is it time to rethink the importance of the humble hat – and other ‘mundane’ items?

For Mark Stoyle, professor of history at the University of Southampton, the research suggests that the hat, and other everyday items, may need to be re-evaluated by historians. “What this article shows us is the strangeness of the past – that what might seem banal to us actually had a real significance at the time that we might completely miss,” he explains to HistoryExtra.

The study is part of a growing historical subfield studying the importance of ‘gesture’ – everyday behaviour often unnoticed by historians but which shaped early modern life – Stoyle adds.

Accessories might be affixed to a hat to declare a political view or sentiment. Though Cavaliers and Roundheads wore the same type of hat, Stoyle explains, they added partisan labels and badges – small gestures with major significance. “What might seem a trivial thing to us, actually had a huge resonance at the time,” he says.

Tankard cautions that hats still need to be understood as “merely one aspect of a much broader field of early modern fashion accessories”. Despite this, she says: “The hat is more demotic, so everybody wears one, from the very wealthy down to the very poor, which gives it a significance beyond some other accessories.”

Both historians agree that Capp’s research sheds new light on everyday life in early modern England, and on how the humble hat became a tool of political defiance and social communication.

Stoyle notes that, though historians have long known about the Quakers’ refusal to take their hats off in the presence of social superiors, the new study helps contextualise this form of protest.

Ad

“What Capp’s saying is that this is not just about the Quakers – this is going on in society as a whole. And he’s extending that discovery further back in time, and then forward in time”, concludes Stoyle. “It’s a laborious task, but I think it throws up some really interesting evidence.”

Authors

Piers MucklejohnFreelance journalist

Piers is a journalist with a BA in History from the University of Exeter and a master’s degree in Early Modern History from the University of Oxford.

Ad

Ad

Loading...

Ad

Loading...