The Ballybunion Knitted Cap is a 16th century, single-brimmed knitted cap found in Ballybunion, Co. Kerry, Ireland.
Following access to the cap for recording and a garment construction analysis, thanks to the National Museum of Ireland, the pattern for the cap was recorded as part of an experimental archaeology experiment measuring the experiences and skills that were required and aided 16th century cap knitters in knitting caps and an understanding on the amount of time required to knit them for a MSc Archaeology thesis at University College Dublin.

The cap is constructed in the round using 100g of fingering weight yarn and both 3mm and 4mm double-pointed knitting needles.

As this is a reconstruction of a 16th century knitted cap as an artefact, the pattern is one-sized, for an adult-sized head, and is not scaled out to accommodate for differing head sizes.

In the 16th century, hats are non-verbal communicators of an individual’s socioeconomic status in Europe. In England, sumptuary legislation is present from the mid-fourteenth century onwards (Kirtio, 2012). During the 16th century, under the Tudor monarchy and especially under the reign of Elizabeth I, there were many sumptuary laws which both limited and enforced different statutes on the personal dress of individuals which became known as the “Acts of Apparel” (Kirtio, 2012). The “Acts of Apparel” were utilised by Elizabeth I in order to stimulate England’s production economy through prohibiting importation of foreign clothing and clothing materials whilst also maintaining social regulation of social classes (Kirtio, 2012) through demanding the wearing of certain garments by the ‘lower classes’. Tudor people in the England during the 16th century regarded knitted caps as “suitable for, and indicative of, lower rank” (Malcolm-Davies, 2015): “He is of no account or estimation amongst men, if he have not a velvet or taffeta hat” (Stubbes, 1583; quoted in Hayward, 2002; quoted in Malcolm-Davies, 2015). Not only were there 16th century opinions of knitted caps being for ‘lower rank’ individuals such as that mentioned above, but there were also acts of parliament that made wearing of knitted caps mandatory for ‘lower rank’ individuals. The statute that solidified the knitted cap being a garment to be associated with ‘lower class’ individuals was The Cappers’ Act, a statute passed by the Parliament of England in 1571 AD which mandated that every person above the age of six years (except for “Maids, Ladies, Gentlewomen, Noble Personages, and every Lord, Knight and Gentleman of 20 Marks Land”) in England on Sundays and holidays should wear (except when travelling), “a Cap of Wool knit, thicked and dressed in England, made within this Realm, and only dressed and finished by some of the Trade of Cappers, upon pain to forfeit for every Day of not wearing three Shillings four Pence”.

Bibliography:
Hayward, M. (2002) ‘‘The sign of some degree’?: The financial, social and sartorial significance of male headwear at the courts of Henry VIII and Edward VI’, Costume, 36, pp. 1-17.

Kirtio, L. (2012) ‘’The inordinate excess in apparel’: Sumptuary Legislation in Tudor England’, Constellations, 3(1), Available at: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/constellations/index... e/view/1222 (Accessed 17 June 2014).

Malcolm-Davies, J, and Davidson, H. (2015) ‘”He is of no account … if he have not a velvet or taffeta hat”: A survey of sixteenth century knitted caps’, in Grömer, K. and Pritchard, F. (eds.) Aspects of the design, production and use of textiles and clothing from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Era, Budapest: Archaeolingua, pp. 223-232.

Stubbs, P. (1583) Anatomie of abuses, s.n., S.l.