Let's check out to find the answers for why do graduates wear caps and gowns? Why dograduates throw their caps in the air when they graduate? Find out more about graduation cap and gown, graduation gowns, graduation caps, hat, dress. History and human facts
Graduation gowns
Graduation gowns
Wearing academic robes is a tradition that dates back to at least the 12th century, around the time when the first universities were being founded in Europe. During this time, most scholars were also clerics or aspiring clerics, and excess in apparel was not encouraged. As such, in the beginning it is thought that there was little difference between what the academics were wearing and the laity, excepting that the academics and clergy tended to wear very plainly colored garb.
Beyond that, the clothing, gown or graduation dress was simply practical. When the universities were originally formed, they had no official buildings of their own to hold lectures in, so classes typically gathered in nearby churches. Their simple robes and outer covering served the purpose of keeping them warm in the drafty medieval church buildings, and the hoods kept the weather off when they ventured out of doors.
The earliest standardization of academic garb occurred as a byproduct of a 1222 edict by Stephen Langton at the Council of Oxford, where it was declared that all clerks should wear a form of the cappa clausa, a long cape typically worn over a robe.
Graduation caps
Graduation caps
The mortarboard is called such due to it resembling the flat board used by bricklayers to hold mortar (called a hawk). The cap is simply a square, flat board fastened to a skullcap with a jaunty tassel fastened to its center. Some historians suggest the mortarboard is the descendant of the biretta, which was headgear often sported by Roman Catholic clerics, scholars and professors. This, in turn, probably derives from common pileus (brimless hat) worn by the laity. The wearing of this hat was first ordered in 1311 by the Church at the Synod of Bergamo, spreading from there as standard headgear by clerics.
By the 15th century, the mortarboard graduation cap was incorporated into the standard garb for many scholars, among others. It was initially not generally undecorated as today (other than the tassel), but early versions could feature elaborate embroidery and adornments.
Further, in the early days at some universities, the mortarboard was reserved for those who had earned the title of “master” or “doctor.”
Throwing caps in the air
The first known instance of this was in 1912 at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. There are slightly conflicting accounts as to the reason they did this, but the general story is that it is because the Academy decided to give them their officers’ hats at the graduation itself. Thus, the graduates chucked their midshipmen’s caps in the air upongraduation, and ceremoniously placed their officers’ hats on. Unfortunately, how that ended up catching on with other universities has been lost to history.
Graduation caps throwing in the air
So from medieval abbeys where the style of dress was more or less just a version of what most people wore in parts of Europe at the time, to modern high school gyms where the garb is decidedly out of place outside of certain ceremonies, caps and gowns have continued to denote academic accomplishment, with no sign of the tradition letting up any time soon.
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