Academic Boots and Scarves
Oxford inceptors in theology and canon law wore botys, while other masters wore pynsons.(1) At other times, as in the fourteenth century, footwear specified included caligae, which were black, or nearly so.(2)
In the fifteenth century the liripipe was shortened or removed entirely from the hood, and had become a separate article of dress, the scarf. This is represented by the lapel or panel, though it still forms part of the costume of divinity graduates at Oxford, Cambridge and London, and in some cases by medical graduates. In a few Commonwealth universities the scarf is worn by all, graduates and undergraduates alike, and in France it is the scarf that denotes the degree.(3)
On the Continent both hood and shoulder-piece were generally abandoned during the sixteenth century except in rectorial dress, but an equivalent of the English hood had by this time appeared. This was the scarf worn on the shoulder, variously called chausse, chaperon, and Sendelbinde, and was in fact a liripipe. It originated in an everyday fashion in vogue between 1420 and 1470. It was retained by men of official standing and particularly by professional and learned men after the later fifteenth century.(4) A parallel survival are found in the little gathered piece of cloth on the lower left-hand corner of the bridge yoke of the barrister's gown, attached to which is a streamer coming over the left shoulder and hanging down in front,(5) and in the little tippet of Oxford and Cambridge proctors.(6)
(1) Gibson, Strickland (ed), Statuta Antiqua Universitis Oxoniensis (1931) 288-9.
(2) Gibson, Strickland (ed), Statuta Antiqua Universitis Oxoniensis (1931) 58.
(3) Haycraft, Frank, The Degrees and Hoods of the World's Universities and Colleges revised and enlarged by EW Scobie Stringer (4th ed, The Cheshunt Press, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, 1948, first published 1923) 2-3.
(4) Hargreaves-Mawdsley, WN, A History of Academical Dress in Europe until the end of the Eighteenth Century (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963) 7-8.
(5) Webb, WM, The Heritage of Dress (1912) 163, fig. 141, and 164.
(6) Hargreaves-Mawdsley, WN, A History of Academical Dress in Europe until the end of the Eighteenth Century (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963) 8.