At about the year 1300 the almuce, as a hood, was superseded by a cap, which will be described in its proper place. It was therefore thrown back, and suffered to fall behind, somewhat after the fashion of the hood worn in our modern universities. In order to prevent it from slipping off when in this position, it was sewn in front, so that an aperture was made through which the head of the wearer had to be passed. During the fourteenth century it gradually almost entirely lost its hood shape, and became more and more like a tippet, the only relic of its original form being the two long tails which hung in front somewhat like the ends of a stole, and which were doubtless the remains of the strings with which the original hood was fastened. The row of 'cattes tayles' (as the Elizabethan reformers called them) was also retained.
When the almuce was in position on the head, the fur was inside, the cloth outside. Obviously, when the vestment was thrown back over the shoulder, the fur would be outside, the cloth inside. This is a perfectly natural and intelligible transformation. Mrs Dolby, in noticing it, speaks of it in a most misleading manner. After describing the various changes which it underwent from hood to tippet, she says, 'By this time, too, what was originally the outside of the garment had become the lining, and the fur the only material rendered visible,' as though some ecclesiastical ordinance or the freak of some clerical tailor had brought about this transformation. And Dr Rock says: 'Not the least remarkable thing in these changes of the "furred amys" [as he calls it] is, that it became, as it were, turned inside out.' The remarkable thing would have been if anything else had happened.
At Wells Cathedral is the monument of Dean Huse (_ob._ 1305, but the tomb is a century and half later), on which are sculptured, besides the principal effigy, a series of small figures of canons holding books. The almuces of these figures show a unique peculiarity: the tails are fastened together on the breast by a cord which passes through them and hangs down with tasselled ends.
Mr St John Hope, in a paper in 'Archaeologia,' vol. liv, p. 81, has traced the history of the appearance of the almuce during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by reference to sculptured effigies and brasses in England. From this paper I extract the following illustrative examples: