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‘Different Forms Of Gowns For All Sorts Of Scholars In Their Several Ranks’: Academic Undress At Oxford In 1635, Alex Kerr

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This is a study of a one-page manuscript in the Oxford University Archives with the title ‘Different Forms of Gowns for All Sorts of Scholars in their Several Ranks’, dated June 1635. It was clearly written in connection with the Laudian Code of statutes, which was drafted in 1634 and adopted in 1636. The Code included regulations on university dress and its use at Oxford that would remain in force for 134 years. The document gives a concise specification for Oxford gowns at a time when other written records providing such detail are lacking and pictorial evidence is sparse. This …