Gowns Worn by MAs in Early-Seventeenth-Century England and the Curious Case of Thomas Thornton’s Sleeves

A dress in medieval English universities was quite strictly regulated and evolution was gradual. In contrast, the period between the Reformation and the Restoration saw far-reaching changes, but the transition from the old to the new was no simple matter: for each degree several styles of gown, hood and cap may have coexisted. Two university chancellors imposed detailed rules, Lord Burghley at Cambridge in 15851 and Archbishop William Laud at Oxford in 1636.2 Each provided an elaborate scheme of punishments for those who transgressed, but occasional admonitions later show that their rules were not always rigorously observed. However, by the time Vice-Chancellor John Fell issued revised statutes and his Orders to Tailors in 1666, the pattern of each item of academic dress for graduates and undergraduates, at Oxford at any rate, was firmly established, with little room for deviation.3 This article examines one intriguing example of variation in academic dress dating from exactly four hundred years ago and asks: just what did Masters of Arts wear in the early seventeenth century?4 It is part of a wider investigation, still work in progress, into change and diversity in academic dress in the century before George Edwards and David Loggan published their superb costume engravings.5 No such definitive pictorial record is known to exist for earlier periods and we have to rely very much on monumental e∞gies for our evidence.6 There are some painted portraits, but details are di∞cult to make out if the