The Bycocket, or “Robin Hood Hat”

The hat which is often known today as a “Robin Hood hat” – as it often appears in storybook illustrations and films on Robin Hood – may have been known in medieval England as a bycocket, or in medieval France as a chapel à bec.

Note also that a style of helmet was known as a “bycocket”; in the 1464 Expenses and Accounts of Sir John Howard, there is a reference to an amount “Payd to the goldsmythe that made the bokelys, pendawntes and barrys to my masters salat and his byecoket.” (And another reference in the Cely papers also references a bycoket as a piece of armor.)

In fact, the only firm Middle English description where I can find a hat of this pointed-front style represented in an illustration is that of the Merchant in the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, where the illustration apparently corresponds with a description of a Flemish beaver hat (“Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bever hat,” Prologue l. 274). So there you go: the Middle English term I can most confidently provide for this style of hat is, in fact, hat.

In any case, this style of hat seems to appear most often in outdoor scenes, such as hunts.

The links on this page show the range of styles of such hats in medieval illustrations, and various contexts in which they appear to have been worn.

• Fols. 9r, 40v, 57v, 78v, 123r, the Smithfield Decretals (British Library Royal 10 E IV), c. 1300-1340
• Claudas and his sons riding out, Lancelot Cycle (Ashmole 828, fol. 10r), beginning of the 14th century
• Markgraf Heinrich von Meißen (fol. 14v), Herr Heinrich Hetzbold von Weißensee (fol. 228r), and Kunz von Rosenheim (fol. 394r), Manesse Codex (UBH Cod. Pal. germ. 848), 1300-1330
• An ivory writing-tablet with a hunting scene, made in France in the early 14th century
• Ivory mirror-backs with hunting scenes, carved in Paris in the 14th century:
  Louvre MRR 196 (c. 1300-1330)
  Walters 71.275 (c. 1325-1350)
  V&A 219-1867 (c. 1330-1340)
  British Museum M&ME 1856,6-23,103 (c. 1325-1375)
  V&A 222-1867 (c. 1330-1350)
• Hunting birds, the Queen Mary Psalter (British Library Royal 2 B VII, fol. 190), c. 1310-1320
• Illustrations on fols. 32r, 67v, 70v, 162r, and 170r, the Luttrell Psalter (Brit. Lib. Add. 42130), c. 1325-1340
• Gérard, Miracles de Nostre Dame (BNF Nouvelle acquisition française 24541, fol. 57v), c. 1330-1340
• Detail from The Effects of Good Government in the Countryside from the Frescoes of the Good and Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338-1340
• The Three Dead and the Three Living and The Triumph of Death by Buonamico Buffalmacco, c. 1338-1339 (see details)
• A man on a horse that pulls a covered wagon, a psalter (Douce 131, fol. 43r), c. 1340
• Bas-de-page in Passionnaire l'usage de l'abbaye de Saint-Trond, 14th century
• Midianites rob Israel’s fields, Concordantiae caritatis (SBL 151, fol. 26v), c. 1349-1351
• The north wind (fol. 5r) and rain (fol. 89v), Tacuinum Sanitatis (ÖNB Codex Vindobonensis, series nova 2644), c. 1370-1400
• Pears (fol. 4v), bay laurel (fol. 20), lettuce (fol. 28), partridge (fol. 67v), drunks fighting (fol. 88v), Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673), c. 1390-1400
• The provost of Aquileia, Vie des Pères (BNF Fr. 25440, fol. 54v), 14th-15th century
• Thraso's feathered hat on fols. 34r, 35r, 43r, 49r, and 49v of Terence's Comedies (BNF Latin 7907 A), c. 1400-1407
• A plow pulled by a nude man, Livro de la Menscalcia de li cavalli (PML M.735, fol. 97v), early 15th century
• Quail (fol. 66) and gazelle (fol. 69v), Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Latin 9333), 15th century
• The Merchant in the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, c. 1410; the text describes it as a “Flaundryssh bever hat”
• The arrival of Charles IV at Cambrai, Grandes Chroniques de France (BNF Fr. 6465, fol. 441), c. 1420
• A woman protecting a unicorn from a hunter, Flore de virtu e de costumi (Brit. Lib. Harley 3448, fol. 36v), 2nd quarter of the 15th century
• The wedding of Porus and Phesona (fol. 91) and Alexander and the monstrous child (fol. 203), Histoire d’Alexandre (BNF Fr. 9342), mid-15th century
• Miniature of a hybrid monster, book of hours (Rawl. liturg. e. 17, fol. 51r), 3rd quarter of the 15th century
• Detail from an exorcism by St. Leonard from the altarpiece at the church of St. Leonard at Bad Aussee, c. 1455-1465
• Xenocrates and the messenger of Alexander (fol. 32) and Alexander and the envoys of Darius III (fol. 34v), Historiae Alexandri Magni (BNF Fr. 47), second half of the 15th century
• Esau gives up his birthright, Speculum historiale (BNF Fr. 50, fol. 45v), 1463
• Repudiation of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Grandes Chroniques de France (BNF Fr. 2609, fol. 171v), 1471
• November, the Petites Heures of Anne of Brittany (BNF NAL 3027, fol. 6r), c. 1499-1514
• Works of Mercy: Feeding the Hungry from an altarpiece by Master S.H., c. 1490-1500
• Roundel with Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias with the head of John the Baptist, c. 1500-1520
  The description indicates that Herod “wears a jewelled crown over a pointed hat, a Byzantine fashion adopted in fifteenth century Italy.” See, for example, this portrait medal of Byzantine emperor John Palaeologus VIII by Pisanello, c. 1438-1443; this exotic style of headdress (with the ridged dome and oddly-shaped point) also appears in an early 15th century Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Latin 9333) and on a herald in the Tournament-Book of King René (such as BNF Fr. 2695, fol. 19).
• Kaiser Maximilian I in travel dress on horseback by Hans Holbein the Elder, 1510-1513
• Drawing of a man, possibly in masquerade costume, c. 1528-1543
• Albarello with a man in profile, c. 1545
• The Cardsharps by Caravaggio, c. 1596