ing it on upside down, as many often do. The B.A. hood was already
in the fifteenth century lined with lamb's wool or rabbit's fur, and the
use of miniver by other than M.A.s and persons of birth or wealth[27]
was strictly forbidden by a statute of 1432.

[Sidenote: (4) The Cap.]

The last and not the least important part of mediaeval academic dress
still remains to be spoken of, the cap. The conferring of this with the
ring and the kiss of peace has been already mentioned (p. 27), these
being the marks of the admission of new Masters and Doctors. As under
the Roman Law the slave was manumitted by being allowed to put on a cap,
so the '_pileus_' of the M.A. was the sign of his independence; hence he
was bound to wear it at all University ceremonies. The cap was sometimes
square (_biretta_), sometimes round (_pileus_); Gascoigne (writing in
1456) tells us that in his day the round cap was worn by Doctors of
Divinity and Canon Law, and that it had always been so since the days of
King Alfred; not content with this antiquity, he also affirms that the
round cap was given by God Himself to the doctors of the Mosaic Law. He
adds the more commonplace but more trustworthy information that the cap
was in those days fastened by a string behind, to prevent its falling
off.

The modern stiff corners of the cap are an addition, which is not an
improvement; the old cap drooped gracefully from its tuft in the centre,
as can still be seen in the portraits of seventeenth-century divines,
e.g. in Vandyck's 'Archbishop Laud', so familiar from its many replicas
and copies. Later usage has specialized the round cap of velvet as
belonging to the Doctors of Law and Medicine, and a most beautiful
head-gear it is; it is preserved, in a less elaborate form, at the
degree ceremony in the round caps of the Bedels.

After the Reformation the cap began to be worn by B.A.s and
undergraduates, but originally without the tuft; the eighteenth century,
careless of the old traditions, replaced the tuft by the modern
commonplace tassel, and extended this to all caps except those of
servitors. With the disappearance of social distinctions in dress, the
tassel has been extended to all, except to choir-boys, and so the
coveted badge of the mediaeval Master is now the property of all
University ranks, and is undervalued and neglected in the same
proportion as it has been rendered meaningless.

Before leaving the subject of head-gear, it may be noted that