Bands (neckwear) - Legal and Academic Costume

Legal and Academic Costume

Bands varied from small white turn-down collars and ruffs to point lace bands, depending upon fashion, until the mid-seventeenth century, when plain white bands came to be the invariable neck-wear of all judges, serjeants, barristers, students and clerical and academical men.

The bands are two strips of bleached holland or similar material, falling down the front from the collar. Plain linen 'falling bands', developed from the falling collar, replaced the ruff about 1640. By 1650 they were universal. Originally in the form of a wide collar, tied with a lace in front, by the 1680s they had diminished to the traditional form of two rectangles of linen tied at the throat.

Bands did not become academically significant until they were abandoned as an ordinary lay fashion after the Restoration in 1660. They became identified as specifically applicable to clerical, legal and academic individuals in the early eighteenth century, when they became longer and narrower in form.

From the eighteenth century judges and Queen's Counsel took to wearing lace jabots instead of bands at courts and leveés. Bands are now worn by judges, Queen's Counsel, (utter) barristers, solicitors, court officials, certain public officials, university officials and less frequently also by graduands (for example, they are compulsory for male Cambridge graduands, and optional for women). These also form part of the full dress of Queen's Counsel, circuit judges, and the Lord Chief Justice.

Mourning bands, which have a double pleat running down the middle of each wing or tongue, are still used by barristers. Clergy may also wear bands, which may be of black material, which are also known as Geneva bands.

By the end of the seventeenth century Queen's Counsel wore richly laced cravats. From the later part of the eighteenth century they wore bands instead of the cravat as undress. In the eighteenth century a lace fall was often used as an alternative to the bands by judges in full dress.

Both falling and standing bands were usually white, lace or lace-edged cambric or silk, but both might be plain.

The standing bands, a semi-circular collar, the curved edge standing up round the back of the head. While the straight horizontal edges in front met under the chin and were tied by band-strings, the collar occasionally was worn turned down. It was supported on a wire frame attached to the neck of the doublet behind. The starched collar rested on this. It was usually of linen, but also lawn and lace. They were popular for a quarter of a century.

The soft, unstiffened collar draped over the shoulders of the doublet were called falling-bands. Until the Civil War barristers wore falling bands, also known as a rabat, with about six tabs arranged one upon the other, and having the appearance of ruffs rather than bands. They differed from the bands of the clergy of that period in that they were not poked as the latter were. Lawyers took to modern bands about the middle of the seventeenth century. They continued in ecclesiastical use well into the nineteenth century in the smaller, linen strip or tab form- short-bands. These are retained by some Church of England ministers, academics, lawyers, ministers of the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the English non-conformist churches .

Bands were adopted early in the eighteenth century, by parish clerks and dissenting ministers, as well as by clergymen of the established churches in Europe. The bands were fairly wide, set close together. The outer white edge is the hemmed linen fabric which, being turned over onto itself three times, is opaque.

The falling bands, worn 1540s to 1670s, could take three forms. Firstly, a small turned-down collar from a high neck-band, with an inverted v-or pyramidal-shaped spread under the chin and tied by band-strings sometimes visible but usually concealed. They were plain, or lace edged. These were popular 1590 to 1605, especially in military or Puritan circles, reappearing 1620-50, when they were usually larger. Secondly, they could take the form of a wide collar, spreading horizontally from side to side across the shoulder, with the band-strings as formerly. These were popular 1630s to 1640s. Thirdly, a deep collar or bib, square-cut, spreading down the chest, the front borders meeting edge to edge flat, or with an inverted box-pleat. The corners were square or frequently rounded after 1660. Broad lace borders were usual. With the band-strings as formerly, these were popular 1640s to 1670s.