Monmouth cap

Monmouth cap

Monmouth cap
Type	Hat
Material	Wool
Place of origin	Monmouth, Wales

The Monmouth cap was an item of woollen headgear fashionable between the 15th and 18th centuries, and associated with the town of Monmouth in south east Wales. The knitted round caps were used by both soldiers and sailors, and they were widely exported.

In the early 14th century, the area immediately north of Monmouth, known as Archenfield, became known for the high quality of its wool, produced from Ryeland sheep. The wool was ideal for the production of high quality felt, and the location of Monmouth, on the River Wye some 18 miles (29 km) inland from the Severn estuary, allowed the produce of the area ready access to wider markets. The industry of cap manufacture by hand knitters in and around Monmouth was well established by the 15th century, when court records show Capper as a common surname in the town. The cappers or knitters, generally men, were attached to the Weaver's Guild and may have been governed by a Council of Master Craftsmen. The trade is thought to have flourished particularly in the Overmonnow area, known at one time as "Cappers' town". However, antiquarian sources state that much of the trade moved from Monmouth to Bewdley in Worcestershire at some point, following an outbreak of plague at Monmouth.

The headgear reached the height of its popularity in the 15th and 16th centuries. Monmouth caps were essential equipment for soldiers, sailors and labourers of the period, so familiar and widely used that they were taken for granted. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, they were at one time "worn by a large portion of the population of England and Wales." The Cappers Act of 1488 forbade, on penalty of a fine, the wearing of foreign-made caps in England. A further Act of Parliament in 1571, during the reign of Elizabeth I, stated that every person above the age of six years (excepting "Maids, ladies, gentlewomen, noble personages, and every Lord, knight and gentleman of twenty marks land") residing in any of the cities, towns, villages or hamlets of England, must wear, on Sundays and holidays (except when travelling), "a cap of wool, thicked and dressed in England, made within this realm, and only dressed and finished by some of the trade of cappers, upon pain to forfeit for every day of not wearing 3s. 4d." This legislation was intended to protect domestic production, as caps were becoming unfashionable and were being challenged by new forms of imported headgear. It was repealed in 1597 as unworkable.

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