Coif

Coif (Fr. coiffe, Ital. cuffia, 'a cap'), a covering for the head in general, but more especially the close-fitting cap of white lawn or silk, originally worn by Serjeants-at-law (q.v.). Like the Biretta (q.v.), it always represented distinct rank and dignity. Its use on all professional and official occasions was both an obligation and a privilege. Later it was the custom to wear a small skull-cap of black silk or velvet over the white coif; and in the beginning of the 18th century, when the fashion of powdered wigs in lieu of natural hair invaded the law-courts, in order that the badge of the order might not be concealed, the perquisites contrived a small round patch of black silk edged with white, to be worn on the crown of the wig. The notion that the coif was a device merely to conceal the tonsure of the monkish lawyers rests only on a loose conjecture of the commentator Spelman, and, though carelessly fostered by Lord Campbell, may be consigned to the same category as the conceit, preserved in Brand's Antiquities, which derives the head-dress from a child's caul worn for luck. See Serjeant Pulling's Order of the Coif (1884).