A book (another dissertation actually) arrived today and it’s exactly what I need. It’s all working towards what the heck we should call what Anne of Cleves wears; Kopfbedeckung actually I think is the safest bet in general because there are about five layers of distinct pieces.

I got myself extremely lost in the weeds following the etymology within and outside the North Rhine, past and present, hoping for a revelation in word form, variation, and use to hopefully explain the properties captured in art.

So a quick thought experiment for how hard this is. If I was to say I want to draw a bonnet, what do you imagine I mean? Over time, just in English, there are many forms, many materials, many functions.

So that’s the first issue.

Add to that I’m using 19thC historians who have an idea of what a bonnet is to them, writing about bonnets as they appear in documents of a previous century.

Did they even know that form didn’t just change with fashion, the entire meaning can be lost between generations.

Anyway, at least one dictionary was up front about this, which makes me happier, especially as they included other terms also used at the same time with a degree of overlap. And I suspect part of what’s going on is the exceptionalism you find in Cologne of the 16thC. A degree of self determination.

The records I have for after 1550 in JKB rely on French terms, some by way of Dutch. And as the fashion of the court changed with the influence of Maria Hapsburg, it’s not terribly useful for the earlier fashions. Finally as there are few digitised and transcribed documents I have to rely on modern or more widely known terms if I’m lucky and there is a summary, somewhere.