Cap hook

A cap hook is a decorative hat ornament fashionable from the late Middle Ages through the Tudor period, used to pin up or decorate men's hat brims. Cap hooks were made of gold, silver, or silver-gilt base metal, and might be decorated with jewels or enamelling.[1][2]

For the uniform accessory, see cap badge.
Silver cap hook with incised ornament, diameter 12.9 mm (0.51 in), ca. 1500-1700
Portrait of Arthur, Prince of Wales ca. 1500 wearing a hat with an enseigne badge of Saint John the Baptist and two small rosette-shaped cap hooks.[1]

Cap hooks could be purely decorative or could carry religious or symbolic meaning. The latter form are called enseignes and may be an evolution of the medieval pilgrim badge.[1][2][3]

Usage

In the early 16th century, it became fashionable for men to wear multiple small cap hooks alongside a larger hat jewel on the turned-up brims of their hats.[2]

Study and identification

Cap hooks were little studied until the UK Treasure Act of 1996 required the examination and assessment of such small objects when made of precious metals. A seminal cross-disciplinary study of silver-gilt hooks in the Journal of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2002 differentiates cap hooks from other types of dress hooks. Cap hooks have a hook behind the ornament, where it is invisible in use. This makes distinguishing cap hooks from buttons or other types of ornaments in portraits difficult. Cap hooks are also elusive in written records, possibly because such ornaments were referred to as "buttons" regardless of their method of attachment.[1]

  • Surviving Cap Hooks
  • Silver-gilt rosette cap hook, ca. 1480–1580
  • Silver-gilt cap hook in the form of a bird, ca. 1485–1600
  • Silver-gilt cap hook, hook now missing, post-Medieval

References
  1. Gaimster, David; Hayward, Maria; Mitchell, David; Parker, Karen (2002). "Tudor Silver-Gilt Dress-hooks: A New Class of Treasure Find in England". The Antiquaries Journal. 82: 157–196. doi:10.1017/S0003581500073777. ISSN 0003-5815.
  2. British Museum. "Cap hook". Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  3. Leeds Museums and Galleries. "Cap hook". Retrieved 2 February 2017.

Media related to cap hooks at Wikimedia Commons

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