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Rh Richard II. (1391, see Fairholt, ii. 341) in an entry for “twenty-one linen coifs for counterfeiting men of the law in the king’s play at Christmas.” The serjeant-at-law’s “houve of silk” is also mentioned in Piers the Plowman (latter half of the 14th century) together with his furred cloak. Chaucer, at the same period, describes his serjeant-at-law as wearing a party-coloured gown and girdle with bars.

The earliest document quoted by Planché and others with reference to judges' costume is a Close-roll of 20 Edw. III. (1347). See also a wardrobe-roll of 21 Edw. III., and wardrobe accounts of II Richard II. and 22 Henry VI., all quoted in Dugdale’s Origines Juridiciales, from which we gather that the robes of the judges varied in colour, in the 14th and 15th centuries, from scarlet to green or “violet in grain,” and that their winter gowns were furred with budge or miniver.



For the early 15th century there are more data. Firstly, there is the illumination of the serjeant-at-law in the Ellesmere MS. of The Canterbury Tales (reproduced in Furnivall’s 6-text edition for the Chaucer Society), in which he is shown wearing a short, party-coloured rayed gown of red and blue, lined with white fur, a hood and tippet edged with white fur, and a white coif with two little bands showing below the hood. Secondly, there are a certain number of effigies or brasses of judges and sergeants belonging to the first half of the 15th century. Of judges, an early brass is that of Sir John Cassy (c. 1400) (see fig. 2).

For the second half of the 15th century the authority is Chief-Justice Fortescue, who, writing in the reign of Henry VI., describes the dress of the serjeant-at-law as follows:— “Roba longa ad instar sacerdotis cum capicio penulato circa humeros ejus, et desuper collobium, cum duobus labellulis, qualiter uti solent doctores legum in universitatibus quibusdam, cum supra descriptor birreto vestiebatur.” “He was clothed in a long robe, after the fashion of a priest, with a furred cape about his shoulders, and above it a hood, with two bands, such as are used by doctors of laws in some universities, with the coif as described above” (De Laudibus Legum Angliae, cap. li.). Fortescue continues: “But being once made a justice, instead of his hood, he shall wear a cloak closed upon his right shoulder, all the other ornaments of a serjeant still remaining; saving that a justice shall wear no party-coloured vesture, as a serjeant may, and his cape is furred with miniver, whereas the serjeant’s cape is furred with white lamb (budge).”

This description of Fortescue’s is borne out by some illuminations from a 15th-century MS. representing sittings of the four superior courts in the time of Henry VI. (reproduced in Archaealogia, vol. xxxix. p. 358, &c., with an article by G. R. Corner; see plate). In them we see the scarlet robes of the judges furred with miniver, and the party-coloured rayed gowns, tippets and hoods of the sergeants, besides the costume of the minor officials of the court. Both sergeants and judges wear 1; coif, certain of the judges also wearing furred caps or turban-li e head-dresses. The colour of the sergeants party-coloured robes seems to have varied; in these illuminations they are blue and green, but by the 17th century, to quote Dugdale, Origines Juridiciales, cap. 38: “The robes they now use do still somewhat resemble those of the justices of either bench, and are of three distinct colours, viz. murrey, black, furred with white, and scarlet; but the robe which they usually wear at their creation only is of two colours, viz. murrey and mouse colour; where unto they have a hood suitable, as also a coif of white silk or linen.” (See also Pulling, p. 218, and Druitt, p. 225.) Sir E. Brabrook (Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiquaries, 2nd series, vol. iii. p. 414) quotes descriptions of calls of sergeants showing that as late as 1700 the sergeants wore party-coloured gowns at their creation and during the year following, and stating on what occasions they wore their black, scarlet or purple gowns (the last with scarlet or purple hoods). At the last general call (1736), and at the creation of a serjeant in 1762, party-coloured robes were still worn, but at a creation of 1809 they are no longer found. Until their final abolition the sergeants wore purple robes at their creation, and on ordinary occasions a black cloth or silk gown, with a scarlet robe for state occasions.



Illustrations of judicial costumes in the 16th century are to be found in vol. 1. of Vetusta Monumenta (Soc. of Antiquaries, 1747), in which are reproduced, firstly, a “painted table in the King’s Exchequer,” temp. Henry VII., on which the officials of the Exchequer are shown wearing long gowns, furred tippets and mantles, with coifs (see fig. 3); and secondly, a sitting of the Court of Wards and Liveries, temp. Elizabeth, in which are shown sergeants wearing party-coloured gowns, tippets, hoods and coifs (see also Pulling, facing pp. 86 and 214). About this time the square cap, otherwise known as the cornered, black or sentence cap (the last from the fact of its being put on by the judge when pronouncing sentence of death), begins to be seen in monuments (cf. that of Sir Richard Harpur, temp. Mary; Fairhold, p. 223). Sometimes this cap is worn over the coif only, sometimes over the coif and skull-cap (cf. the portrait of Sir Edward Coke, in Pulling, facing p. 180). The form also varies; sometimes, as in the portrait of Coke, it has no ear-flaps, some times, as in its present form, it has. The form with ear-flaps is held by some to be a combination of the square cap and skull-cap. The square cap was a mark of dignity, worn or carried on solemn occasions, hence its use when pronouncing sentence of death, to mark the solemnity of the moment.

Among the State Papers of 1625 is a “Discourse on what robes and apparel the judges are to wear, and how the sergeants-at-law are to wear their robes, and when,” and on the 4th of July 1625 there was a “solemn decree and rule made by all the judges of the courts at Westminster,” which is quoted in Dugdale (loc. cit.) and Pulling (p. 215, footnote).

This costume is illustrated in Hollar’s engraving of the coronation procession of Charles II. Towards the end of the 17th century the judges took to wearing wigs, and have continued to wear them ever since. The wearing of wigs naturally concealed the coif and velvet skull-cap, so a device had to be invented by which they could still be displayed. The expedient was hit upon of putting a round patch of white stuff, with a black spot in the middle of it, on the crown of the wig of certain of the judges, to represent the coif and skull-cap. The rank of serjeant no longer existing, this round patch has now disappeared, the only trace of it left being the circular depression on the crown of the wig.

The costume of judges of the High Court at the present day differs very little from that given in the order of 1635; but the cap is carried in the hand as a part of the full dress, and only worn when a judge is passing sentence of death. The