Halloween Costume Countdown - Day 9
Oct. 9th, 2011 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vivienI thought I'd do a post on the history of the archetypal witch costume - pointy hat, dress, etc. I figured there would be some great documentation. I was wrong! There really isn't a lot out there. Well, nothing that is well-researched with footnotes or sited sources. *wry*
So I did some research myself! The archetypal witch goes back farther than I realized.
The earliest image I found of a pointed hat was this illustration from William Harrison Ainsworth's 1849 novel, The Lancashire Witches.
Before this, "witches" in woodcarvings and print tend to be dressed in the costume of their day, usually with bonnets. The Lancashire witches referred to a case in 1612 in England; the witches (including the Device and the Nutter family. Hee.) were believed to have murdered seventeen people in and around the Pendle forest through witchcraft.
This, of course, predates the Salem witch trials by about 80 years, and witch hunts had been going on for hundreds of years by the seventeenth century. So where did the hats come from? I went looking at seventeenth century fashion history for some clues.
1650, London Merchant's Wife by Wenceslas Hollar:
1640, Lady in Wide Brimmed Hat
The hat from this era is called a capotain, btw.
We'll trace more witchy fashion history tomorrow!
So I did some research myself! The archetypal witch goes back farther than I realized.
The earliest image I found of a pointed hat was this illustration from William Harrison Ainsworth's 1849 novel, The Lancashire Witches.
Before this, "witches" in woodcarvings and print tend to be dressed in the costume of their day, usually with bonnets. The Lancashire witches referred to a case in 1612 in England; the witches (including the Device and the Nutter family. Hee.) were believed to have murdered seventeen people in and around the Pendle forest through witchcraft.
This, of course, predates the Salem witch trials by about 80 years, and witch hunts had been going on for hundreds of years by the seventeenth century. So where did the hats come from? I went looking at seventeenth century fashion history for some clues.
1650, London Merchant's Wife by Wenceslas Hollar:
1640, Lady in Wide Brimmed Hat
The hat from this era is called a capotain, btw.
We'll trace more witchy fashion history tomorrow!