Academic dress or academical dress is traditional clothing worn specifically in academic settings. It is more commonly seen nowadays only at graduation ceremonies, but in former times academic dress was, and to a lesser extent in many ancient universities still is, worn on a daily basis. This article deals chiefly with academic dress in the English tradition.
Academic dress in most universities in the Commonwealth is derived from the academic dress of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which themselves are a development of academic and clerical dress common throughout medieval Europe. In the United States however, academic dress has also been influenced by the academic dress of continental Europe.
In the United States there is an Inter-Collegiate code which sets out a uniform scheme of academic dress, but not all colleges follow it.
Academic dress today consists of the gown, the hood and the mortarboard.
| Table of contents |
|
2 Dress and Undress 3 The hood 4 The mortarboard 5 Related pages 6 External links |
The modern gown is derived from the roba worn under the cappa clausa, a garment resembling a long black cape. In early medieval times all students at the universities were in at least minor clerical orders, and were required to wear the cappa or other clerical dress, and restricted to clothes of black or other dark colour.
The gowns most commonly worn, that of the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.), are subtantially the same throughout the English-speaking world. Both are traditionally made of black stuff, or cloth, and have the material at the back of the gown gathered into a yoke. The B.A. gown has bell-shaped sleves, while the M.A. gown has long sleeves closed at the end, with the arm passing through a slit above the elbow. In the Commonwealth, gowns are worn open, while in the United States it has become common for gowns to close at the front, as did the original roba.
Undergraduates at many older universities also wear gowns; the most common is a smaller knee-length version of the B.A. gown. In some ancient Scottish universities the undergraduate's gown is red.
Since medieval times doctors, like bishops and cardinals, have been authorised to wear garments of brighter colours such as scarlet, purple or red. Today doctors have scarlet dress gowns or robes which are worn on special occasions instead of the black undress gown, e.g. at graduation ceremonies and on certain festivals of the Church. In Oxford as well as dress and undress gowns there is a third form of dress, the Convocation habit or chemir, which is a scarlet sleeveless garment worn over the black gown, with the sleeves of the gown pulled through the armholes of the chemir.
The hood was originally a functional civilian garment, worn to shield the head from the elements. It has in the English tradition developed to an often bright and decorative garment worn only on special occasions. It is also worn by clergymen of the Church of England in choir dress.
The traditional hood consists of a cape and a cowl, as in the full Cambridge shape. In Oxford, the bachelors' and masters' hoods have lost their cape. Various other British universities have different shapes and patterns of hoods, in some cases corresponding to the pattern current at the ancient universities at the time when they were founded.
The colour and lining of hoods in academic dress represents the status of the wearer. In many Commonwealth universities bachelors wear hoods lined with white rabbit fur, while masters wear hoods lined with coloured silk (originally ermine or other expensive fur). Doctors' hoods are normally made of scarlet cloth and lined with coloured silk. Undergraduates do not normally wear hoods, but some have adopted the black unlined literates' hood worn by Anglican clergymen without degrees.
The academic cap or square, commonly known as the "mortarboard" has come to be symbolic of academia, and can be worn by graduates and undergraduates alike. See the main article: Mortarboard
The following articles describe in more detail on the academic dress schemes and usages of various universities:
The gown
Dress and Undress
The hood
The mortarboard
Related pages
External links
