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Classic: Why do British lawyers wear wigs? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: classic episode. Can you believe it already a classic? How
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0:53
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Speaker 1: I think we told you, oh, and I'm bad. I
1:01
Speaker 1: think we told you that the uh that this episode
1:05
Speaker 1: is is about British lawyers, right do we tell him that?
1:08
Speaker 1: And all? I don't recall, but now he knows. How
1:11
Speaker 1: do you feel about this? Max? Oh? I feel pretty good.
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Speaker 1: I mean thankfully. I read the tea leaves and I
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Speaker 1: already you know have the episode selected and everything, so
1:19
Speaker 1: we should be good. You're the best. Well, it turns
1:22
Speaker 1: out that British lawyers you may have seen them in
1:24
Speaker 1: like you know, British law and order. That's gotta be
1:27
Speaker 1: a thing, right or the very least, you know British
1:29
Speaker 1: crime procedural shows the lawyers still to this day out
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Speaker 1: of a sense of nostalgia perhaps and tradition, which we
1:36
Speaker 1: know the Brits are big on. Where these weird powdered wigs. Yes,
1:41
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1:44
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1:49
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1:53
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1:56
Speaker 1: show from the very beginning, just as is our we're
2:00
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2:03
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2:06
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2:08
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2:12
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2:16
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2:18
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2:20
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2:24
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2:26
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2:29
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2:32
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2:34
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2:38
Speaker 1: we were only going to do this show for like
2:41
Speaker 1: six weeks yep. So we definitely have a bit of
2:43
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2:46
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2:49
Speaker 1: the end of the movie because you know, this is
2:51
Speaker 1: all there is, so why not just go for it?
2:54
Speaker 1: And so we hope that everyone has had a great weekend.
2:58
Speaker 1: I hope that you have a month day off as well.
3:01
Speaker 1: If you have ever asked yourself why on earth do
3:05
Speaker 1: British lawyers wear those wigs, well, we're going to tell you.
3:41
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. My name is Ben Bullen. I
3:44
Speaker 1: am not a lawyer mine. You don't here like those
3:48
Speaker 1: lawyer jokes. Lawyers really get craped on, don't they. Yeah,
3:52
Speaker 1: they get a tough time, especially in the world of commons.
3:54
Speaker 1: They say, llawyer, what's uh, what do you call a
3:57
Speaker 1: hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean a good star.
4:00
Speaker 1: I also heard one that says, what's the difference between
4:03
Speaker 1: a dead lawyer and a dead dog in the street?
4:06
Speaker 1: There are skid marks in front of the dog. So
4:09
Speaker 1: hi to all our lawyer listener friends, I'm Noel Brown.
4:12
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous history. Um. Before we started are a producer,
4:17
Speaker 1: Alex said, all right, we're rolling on laser wigs. Yeah,
4:21
Speaker 1: I want to do a podcast on laser wigs. But
4:24
Speaker 1: apparently that's not a thing. But lawyer wigs are. Yes,
4:30
Speaker 1: lawyer wigs are a thing. Growing up as a kid,
4:34
Speaker 1: I was always very skeptical about this night. I had
4:37
Speaker 1: assumed that it was just like a television thing, televisual
4:43
Speaker 1: sight gag. So what we're talking about is something that
4:46
Speaker 1: maybe unfamiliar to a lot of people, but it's definitely
4:50
Speaker 1: familiar to you if you live in a lot of
4:53
Speaker 1: commonwealth countries, you know, and that is that in the
4:58
Speaker 1: legal system, especially like the UK, I think is the
5:01
Speaker 1: most well known for this in the In the legal system,
5:04
Speaker 1: these people who are practitioners of law, the dark arts,
5:11
Speaker 1: the dark arts uh. Their formal courtroom attire includes these
5:18
Speaker 1: incredibly anachronistic wigs, you know that, like powdered wigs. Just
5:24
Speaker 1: just think George Washington. Yeah, it's like they're George Washington wigs,
5:29
Speaker 1: like a founding father wig and its the this goes
5:33
Speaker 1: for uh, male as well as female judges and barrissters, right,
5:39
Speaker 1: and there's like a hierarchy of like wig quality too.
5:43
Speaker 1: We'll get into all that. But this is a fascinating world,
5:45
Speaker 1: the world of of of legal whiggery. Um. I mean seriously,
5:51
Speaker 1: this is pretty comical, but it's also there's a lot
5:53
Speaker 1: of really fun stuff to unpack here. So why don't
5:56
Speaker 1: we get to unpack him? Sure? Yeah, So you know,
6:02
Speaker 1: tradition is a dangerous and tricky thing, and our species
6:06
Speaker 1: loves doing stuff just because someone else did it earlier.
6:09
Speaker 1: Tradition is a hell of a drug. Rick James said that.
6:12
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that was That was Rick James. The
6:16
Speaker 1: thing with these wigs is that they are thought by
6:21
Speaker 1: the proponents of the practice to impart and air of formality.
6:26
Speaker 1: You know that the idea is that you go into
6:29
Speaker 1: a courtroom and you sit down and you see the whigs,
6:32
Speaker 1: and that, coupled with the judiciary proceedings, make you think,
6:37
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is serious. You think someone somewhere down
6:40
Speaker 1: the line misconstrued the word formality with hilarity, right right,
6:46
Speaker 1: And we're not. We're not making fun of We're not
6:51
Speaker 1: making serious fun, I should say, of this practice. But
6:55
Speaker 1: you can understand how strange this seems to people who
6:59
Speaker 1: are not familiar with it. The wigs, according to other proponents,
7:06
Speaker 1: are an emblem of anonymity. They distanced the wearer from
7:13
Speaker 1: personal involvement, and they visually draw on the supremacy of
7:17
Speaker 1: the law. This is according to a guy named Kevin Newton,
7:20
Speaker 1: a DC based lawyer who studied law at the University
7:23
Speaker 1: of London. And they have a name. It's not just
7:26
Speaker 1: called a lawyer wig or a laser wig. These uh,
7:30
Speaker 1: these headpieces are called perukes p e r u K
7:37
Speaker 1: so punk sounding peruke. I don't know why you get
7:41
Speaker 1: peruked up, you know, so the the rules are pretty
7:46
Speaker 1: specific as well, So I'm going to peruke. But a
7:51
Speaker 1: peruke it's got a name, and it's just I guess,
7:53
Speaker 1: I guess that specifically, would could you use that term
7:56
Speaker 1: outside of the legal the courtroom setting for this style
8:00
Speaker 1: isle of wig? Is it referring to the style of wig,
8:02
Speaker 1: or specifically a wig used in legal setting. I don't know.
8:07
Speaker 1: Peruke is an archaic term for a periwig, which is
8:12
Speaker 1: a highly styled wig that used to be warm for
8:15
Speaker 1: both by both men and women. So in this situation,
8:22
Speaker 1: I imagine them drawing the line at the use of
8:24
Speaker 1: the phrase periwig. I'm like, no, we're calling them peruke. So,
8:29
Speaker 1: because this is serious, definitely has a more of an
8:33
Speaker 1: air of kind of finality to it, you know, like
8:37
Speaker 1: it's a much more kind of sharp edged word of cherry.
8:41
Speaker 1: Wig sounds frivolous, it sounds too there's too much whimsy,
8:44
Speaker 1: and it's check this out, man wigs. If a barrister
8:50
Speaker 1: doesn't wear a wig, it's considered an insult to the court,
8:55
Speaker 1: stop the process. A barrister, yes, a barrister. So there
8:59
Speaker 1: are barristers, solicitors, and judges. Barrister can be distinguished from
9:06
Speaker 1: a solicitor because they wear a wig and a gown
9:08
Speaker 1: in court, and they also work at higher levels than solicitors.
9:13
Speaker 1: Their main role is to act as advocates in legal hearings.
9:16
Speaker 1: So there they stand in the court and they plead
9:19
Speaker 1: a case on behalf of their clients to the judge
9:22
Speaker 1: who is also peruked up. But like I was saying earlier,
9:25
Speaker 1: been uh, you know, do you know about the whig arkey?
9:29
Speaker 1: The higher the hierarchy of wigs, Like it's it's a thing.
9:31
Speaker 1: It's really really cool. Lay it out for me. Oh man.
9:34
Speaker 1: So you know, you've got your barristers who wear these
9:38
Speaker 1: slightly kind of frizzed up wigs that are kind of
9:41
Speaker 1: frizzy at the crown, and they have horizontal curls on
9:45
Speaker 1: the sides and the back like little uh like like
9:48
Speaker 1: you know, like your mom's curlers, you know that kind
9:51
Speaker 1: of like a little nice tight What do you call that?
9:54
Speaker 1: What kind of curl is that? Is there a name
9:55
Speaker 1: for it? I would go, Jerry, it's a more of
9:59
Speaker 1: a could you say ringlet? A ringlet? Yes, ringlet exactly.
10:04
Speaker 1: That is exactly the word I was fishing for. So yeah,
10:07
Speaker 1: but they're like very organized in there. They flow down
10:09
Speaker 1: the sides and the back um and then they have
10:12
Speaker 1: too long kind of Jedi braids of hair that hang
10:16
Speaker 1: down below the hairline on the neck and they sport
10:20
Speaker 1: a looped curl at each end. Right, So it's like
10:24
Speaker 1: that's kind of like a Jedi a Jedi braid. These
10:27
Speaker 1: are yeah, these are very specific, very specific, and you've
10:32
Speaker 1: got different types of lawyers, different styles of wigs. The
10:37
Speaker 1: best one though, is the judge, because the judge has
10:40
Speaker 1: a similar, similarly styled wig, but it's way like it's
10:44
Speaker 1: like a blown out version of the barrister's wig. It's
10:48
Speaker 1: a full wig um from a slightly frizzed out top
10:52
Speaker 1: and it kind of transitions into this tight, horizontal array
10:57
Speaker 1: of curls that go several inches down your shoulder. And
11:02
Speaker 1: these wigs, all of them, from judge to barrister what
11:05
Speaker 1: have you, are made of white horsehair um. And there's
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Speaker 1: a certain amount of gravitas that's associated with the yellowing
11:15
Speaker 1: that happens as the whigs age, because it imparts a
11:18
Speaker 1: certain amount of you know, respect, You've got you know,
11:22
Speaker 1: you've got that yellow wig. You've been at this for
11:24
Speaker 1: a while, sir or madam. Nowadays, obviously wearing one of
11:31
Speaker 1: these is at the very best a fashion statement, you know,
11:36
Speaker 1: like if our if our super producer Alex showed up
11:39
Speaker 1: one day and said, you know, it was wearing a
11:42
Speaker 1: barrister's wig. This is me now, guys, this is the
11:45
Speaker 1: choice I've made in life. Of course we would support
11:49
Speaker 1: him because we're all actually friends, but it would be
11:53
Speaker 1: weird because people don't typically wear wigs in that style.
11:57
Speaker 1: Now people still wear wigs in general, but they're very
12:01
Speaker 1: it's very different nowadays. And once upon a time, wigs
12:06
Speaker 1: were considered an essential part of being a well put
12:11
Speaker 1: together professional, like if you if you were a person
12:15
Speaker 1: of substance and means, then you wore a wig. It
12:18
Speaker 1: was during that time culturally when wigs began to appear
12:22
Speaker 1: in courtrooms and so it was seen as a mark
12:25
Speaker 1: of a bit of elitism, a mark of authenticity, mark
12:29
Speaker 1: of professionalism, and a mark of success. This was in
12:33
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century, so only the creme de la creme,
12:37
Speaker 1: socially speaking, were those powdered wigs that were made of
12:40
Speaker 1: as you said, no horse hair. Those were just the
12:43
Speaker 1: really dope ones though, like those are the the upper
12:46
Speaker 1: echelon of powdered wigs. There's a whole array of materials
12:52
Speaker 1: that kind of stepped down the quality ladder. I guess
12:56
Speaker 1: he could say, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a
12:58
Speaker 1: goat hair, old cotton hair, stolen from the dead. That
13:03
Speaker 1: is true. I want one of those. You want to
13:06
Speaker 1: you want a dead man's scalp. Dead man's scalps tell
13:10
Speaker 1: no tales, my friend. And that's dark. I don't know
13:14
Speaker 1: what that even means. I don't know. I was into it.
13:17
Speaker 1: I could see it contextually. Yeah, and like a line
13:21
Speaker 1: kind of cut your eyes at me a little bit
13:22
Speaker 1: there they cut my eyes at you? Is that a
13:24
Speaker 1: weird expression? It is? I was trying to figure out what,
13:28
Speaker 1: how what would that would intain, know, like like like
13:31
Speaker 1: a little like a little side side eye. There you go?
13:33
Speaker 1: How is it okay? I'm just for everything. You can't
13:36
Speaker 1: see this. I'm just moving my head and maintaining eye contact. Well.
13:41
Speaker 1: Whether or not the wig trade involved cutting of eyes,
13:45
Speaker 1: it also involved a practice that remains around in the
13:49
Speaker 1: modern day, which is that there were people who would
13:51
Speaker 1: grow their hair out and then sell it, and people
13:54
Speaker 1: buy real human hair wigs and all joking aside. Uh,
13:59
Speaker 1: nowadays that is a thing, Um there is. There are
14:02
Speaker 1: human hair wigs that are sold. But the thing that
14:04
Speaker 1: I always associate that with is the whole locks of love.
14:07
Speaker 1: Uh scene, I guess where people will sell their hair
14:11
Speaker 1: to not sell, donate their hair to be made into
14:13
Speaker 1: wigs for cancer patients. Who have lost their hair through chemotherapy.
14:17
Speaker 1: I think that's super cool. I have a friend um,
14:19
Speaker 1: who I used to do sound with back in the day,
14:22
Speaker 1: like a production you know, audio jobs, and he had
14:26
Speaker 1: the most luxurious head of hair just down his back,
14:30
Speaker 1: just like a like a great lion. And his mother
14:33
Speaker 1: got sick with cancer and he donated all his hair,
14:35
Speaker 1: and I had a wig made out of his hair
14:37
Speaker 1: to give to his mother, and I thought that was
14:39
Speaker 1: just the sweetest. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's hard freaking yeah,
14:43
Speaker 1: it really is. But the reason that this is important
14:47
Speaker 1: that he would donate this, or that anyone would donate this,
14:49
Speaker 1: is because today these kind of wigs are very, very expensive. Yeah, yeah,
14:55
Speaker 1: this is the this is the top in real human hair,
14:58
Speaker 1: and sometimes people rate it by the region of the
15:01
Speaker 1: world where this hair originates. But this is still what's
15:06
Speaker 1: really weird to me about this man. In the seventeenth century,
15:11
Speaker 1: while you could get a human hair wig, it was
15:14
Speaker 1: still a couple steps down below the status symbol of
15:18
Speaker 1: a horse hair wig. Exactly different different times, different strokes,
15:22
Speaker 1: I suppose. But today these wigs that are used in
15:27
Speaker 1: the English court system, they're like a prerequisite, like you
15:31
Speaker 1: have to like you graduate, you get your law degree,
15:33
Speaker 1: you go and buy your first wig. But like I
15:36
Speaker 1: was saying before, you kind of want to hang onto
15:38
Speaker 1: it because you want that air, that patina, that that
15:42
Speaker 1: yellow thing to happen. So people know that you mean
15:45
Speaker 1: business and that you've been in the game for a minute,
15:47
Speaker 1: you've been wigging out. You're an o g wigster. And
15:51
Speaker 1: uh there they they go for from a you know,
15:54
Speaker 1: five bucks for like one of these smaller, slightly less
15:58
Speaker 1: ornate barrister wigs, harter wig, your starter wig too, like
16:02
Speaker 1: three grand for a judge wig, these ones that go
16:06
Speaker 1: you know, all the way down the back. There's a
16:08
Speaker 1: significant investment. And so maybe one of the questions we
16:12
Speaker 1: would ask is we said that this was all the
16:16
Speaker 1: rage fashion wise, right, but why it turns out most
16:24
Speaker 1: most people overwhelmingly When I say most people, I mean
16:28
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly historians blame it on syphilis. Always comes back down
16:32
Speaker 1: a syphilis that took a turn. Things have indeed taken
16:39
Speaker 1: a turn for the syphiltic. Uh, corpse whigs wasn't enough.
16:43
Speaker 1: The corpse whigs that was just like a little bit
16:46
Speaker 1: of a slight ummi added into the story. But now
16:50
Speaker 1: this is becoming. This part of the show is syphilis centric.
16:56
Speaker 1: In the sixteenth century, a lot of people in Europe
17:01
Speaker 1: were contracting syphilis. It was also known as the syphilic
17:04
Speaker 1: sixt yes, yeah, as you probably know it better as
17:08
Speaker 1: the syphilytic. You know. So the treatment used for syphilis, penicillin,
17:17
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be discovered until nineteen, so people with
17:21
Speaker 1: syphilis didn't have a treatment program. Instead, they got rashes, blindness,
17:27
Speaker 1: open sores, eventually dementia and then hair loss. I mean
17:32
Speaker 1: there's market for probably all kinds of like devices and
17:35
Speaker 1: cosmetic little accoutrement to cover up scars and things like that.
17:40
Speaker 1: You know, if you think of like half masks for
17:43
Speaker 1: faces and stuff that had some form of deformity that
17:47
Speaker 1: could have resulted from something like syphilis. Oh yeah, that's
17:50
Speaker 1: a really good point. I didn't think about that. I
17:52
Speaker 1: just wonder who like cornered the market on you know,
17:55
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, cause cosmetic accessories, shall we say.
17:59
Speaker 1: I always thought those things were cool growing up, you know,
18:02
Speaker 1: seeing the seeing the half mask in the Phantom of
18:05
Speaker 1: the Opera, for instance, that was great. I if I
18:09
Speaker 1: could get away with it, I would just wear one
18:11
Speaker 1: of those but it would be a little bit anticlimactic
18:14
Speaker 1: and disappointing. You know when I finally took it off,
18:17
Speaker 1: if I had a normal face, So I can lose
18:20
Speaker 1: a nose, you can lose like a hole, like your
18:21
Speaker 1: nose can totally get eating away. Leg I just typed
18:24
Speaker 1: in syphilis mask, uh, and I pretty disturbing actually came
18:29
Speaker 1: right up. It's a wire frame with a pair of
18:31
Speaker 1: glasses and a fake nose, but it looks like clearly
18:34
Speaker 1: as is an artifact. Um, and then we've got masks,
18:37
Speaker 1: like we're talking about all that stuff. But you know,
18:41
Speaker 1: if you just had hair loss, a wig would be
18:44
Speaker 1: your best friend and a crucial one because hair loss
18:48
Speaker 1: was very problematic for people social lives at this time.
18:52
Speaker 1: So in this kind of this continues a little bit today. Uh,
18:58
Speaker 1: long hair at the time was super in fashion. It
19:02
Speaker 1: was all the rage, and because of the prevalence of syphilis,
19:06
Speaker 1: if somebody was prematurely balding, everyone just sort of thought
19:11
Speaker 1: they had syphilis, which is is a really tough, a
19:17
Speaker 1: really tough situation, unfair for uh, people who are just
19:21
Speaker 1: balding naturally. But you know, Larry David would take great
19:25
Speaker 1: issue with this notion. Of but you know, bald um
19:31
Speaker 1: what's the word bald is um? You know, they look
19:33
Speaker 1: at a bald person and you immediately assume they have syphilis.
19:36
Speaker 1: You know, that's a that's problematic in the you know
19:38
Speaker 1: you guys. You know Larry David, right, Larry David one
19:42
Speaker 1: of the most famous baldman and entertainment. I know, he
19:45
Speaker 1: makes it. He sort of like carries that torch, you know, proudly,
19:50
Speaker 1: very proudly, and can tankerously. No, it's weird because even today,
19:55
Speaker 1: especially in the entertainment industry, people who are prematurely balding
19:59
Speaker 1: are are kind of typecast. You know, well, they said,
20:03
Speaker 1: it's it's seen as like some sort of deficiency in
20:05
Speaker 1: your your person, right, like a for instance, if you
20:10
Speaker 1: if you're watching most television shows, you're watching action film
20:14
Speaker 1: or something, and you meet a balding character, the chances
20:21
Speaker 1: are overwhelming that they're going to be like a lower
20:24
Speaker 1: level sleazy villain. And that's completely not true about real people,
20:28
Speaker 1: uh real The idea of sleazy villain e knows no
20:34
Speaker 1: specific appearance type or template. But that's still better than
20:40
Speaker 1: what was happening in the sixteenth century, where someone would
20:43
Speaker 1: look at another person who had hair loss and then say, oh,
20:47
Speaker 1: they have syphilis. Also, wigs were a big help for
20:51
Speaker 1: people who had another, uh prominent hair problem lice. Oh yeah, man,
20:58
Speaker 1: my kid got lice. Why what's really? Oh yeah. And
21:01
Speaker 1: the thing about even today lice is seen. It's got
21:05
Speaker 1: this stigma that it carries, right where like your kid
21:07
Speaker 1: gets lice and people look at you here like you're
21:09
Speaker 1: a crappy parent, you know, like I did a bad
21:12
Speaker 1: job keeping my kid clean or whatever. You know. But
21:15
Speaker 1: the thing about lice is it spreads, and kids they're
21:18
Speaker 1: always you know, touching each other and you know, play
21:21
Speaker 1: in and being kids and all this stuff. And yeah,
21:23
Speaker 1: well you know when one kid at school gets lice,
21:25
Speaker 1: like it's can we assume like the whole school has lice?
21:28
Speaker 1: And so you know, let's just think of this period
21:31
Speaker 1: in English history as just like a a macro cosmic
21:36
Speaker 1: schoolyard where everyone is just giving everyone lice and syphilis.
21:41
Speaker 1: It might, you know, it did reach the higher realms
21:45
Speaker 1: of society. Here's an interesting story. Lice doesn't discriminate, lest
21:52
Speaker 1: does it discriminate. Louis the fourteen King of France, the
21:57
Speaker 1: son king. He was the king from six three, seventeen fifteen,
22:01
Speaker 1: and he was prematurely balding. So he got over this
22:06
Speaker 1: by or I guess, compensated for this by wearing a wig.
22:10
Speaker 1: And yes, historians do believe that he contracted syphilis. And
22:17
Speaker 1: once he started wearing this wig, it's the king of France.
22:20
Speaker 1: He started a trend, and the upper class, the upper
22:24
Speaker 1: crust of Europe, a lot of them started wearing wigs,
22:27
Speaker 1: including Charles the Second, who was Louis's cousin and was
22:32
Speaker 1: rumored to also have contracted syphilis. I'm telling you, man,
22:36
Speaker 1: syphilis was out of control. Seriously. I mean, if the
22:40
Speaker 1: King of France has syphilis, then you know it's running rampant.
22:44
Speaker 1: I mean it's like he's you can't, like what I'm saying,
22:46
Speaker 1: Like syphilis and lice, they don't discriminate there. That's not
22:49
Speaker 1: just like reserved for the unwashed masses, freaking the sun king. Dude,
22:54
Speaker 1: have you seen this guy? Have you seen his hair? Yeah?
22:57
Speaker 1: And that's what we're getting with this, aren't we Yeah,
22:59
Speaker 1: it's a lot a lot of hair. But it's like
23:01
Speaker 1: he kind of set this, uh, set this thing up
23:04
Speaker 1: as like a massive fashion trend. And then other people
23:07
Speaker 1: started doing it because you know, the king could have
23:10
Speaker 1: you killed upon a word, and if you're hanging out
23:13
Speaker 1: in court all the time, you're probably I think there
23:16
Speaker 1: was a little bit of syncophancy. You know. It wasn't
23:18
Speaker 1: even court though, just right, it was everybody. Yeah, it
23:21
Speaker 1: was that court. Came later I kind of read, yeah,
23:23
Speaker 1: the court, I guess, I mean the the King's court.
23:28
Speaker 1: Excuse me, see here we are. We're missing a misconstruing courts.
23:32
Speaker 1: It's a it's not our fault, it's English. It's my fault. No,
23:36
Speaker 1: it's my I take responsible. I take full responsibility for
23:39
Speaker 1: misconstruing court. Just then in the court of the Crimston King, well,
23:43
Speaker 1: we can't judge whether we We can't judge whether you
23:47
Speaker 1: should be guilty of that responsibility because neither of us
23:49
Speaker 1: has a peruke. It's true, we can't even present our case.
23:53
Speaker 1: It's confusing to Alex s a who has a gigantic
23:58
Speaker 1: judge wig God right now, really really does. And he
24:00
Speaker 1: is looking at us quite judgmentally with those piercing bespectacled eyes,
24:06
Speaker 1: those long, long log Oh my god, he just kind
24:09
Speaker 1: of tipped them down, and I swear to God, I
24:11
Speaker 1: looked into his eyes and I saw the void. Man,
24:13
Speaker 1: I saw the abyss went back at me. The practice
24:20
Speaker 1: of wearing these wigs in like legal courts, actual courts
24:25
Speaker 1: of law did come later, and I believe it was
24:28
Speaker 1: in the late eighties or so. I think that's right. UM.
24:34
Speaker 1: In this article on how stuff works dot com plug um,
24:39
Speaker 1: you can see a rendering I guess it's like a
24:41
Speaker 1: woodcut kind of thing of UM some attorneys and it
24:46
Speaker 1: looks like one of them has got the wig on
24:48
Speaker 1: and he's got some really sick like mutton chops too
24:51
Speaker 1: on the sides. But then there's two guys behind him
24:53
Speaker 1: that don't have them. So I'm wondering if it was
24:56
Speaker 1: like it didn't really get codified or become like it
24:59
Speaker 1: was be like a thing that people did out of
25:02
Speaker 1: fashion at first, and then over time it became more
25:06
Speaker 1: like this is the uniform of the court. And something
25:10
Speaker 1: we didn't mention that I came up in another article
25:12
Speaker 1: that I that I was reading. UM. As far as
25:16
Speaker 1: why they still do this today, we talked about the
25:19
Speaker 1: idea how it gave an air of anonymity and like
25:22
Speaker 1: sort of like we're all equal in the eyes of
25:24
Speaker 1: the law or something. But if you thought about the
25:26
Speaker 1: fact that, um, it possibly imparted some very literal anonymity,
25:33
Speaker 1: almost like a disguise, so hardened criminals. Maybe I wouldn't
25:38
Speaker 1: know you on the street. That's a really interesting point. Yeah,
25:43
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder if that played or how much
25:45
Speaker 1: of a role that played. You know, we do know
25:48
Speaker 1: that it persisted after weeks fell out of fashion, right yeah. Yeah,
25:53
Speaker 1: And like you know, like you said, it's like totally
25:54
Speaker 1: a historical kind of like like you know, the English,
25:58
Speaker 1: we're all about tradition and the English. Like I just know,
26:03
Speaker 1: like you know, everyone in England, the English and their traditions. Um.
26:08
Speaker 1: But you know, it does appear on first glance that
26:12
Speaker 1: this is like what that is, but they there do
26:15
Speaker 1: seem to be some functional reasons behind it the whole,
26:19
Speaker 1: Like maybe it's like sort of like a semi disguise.
26:22
Speaker 1: It also could prevent jurors from judging you based on
26:27
Speaker 1: your your your fashion sense, because all I mean, it
26:30
Speaker 1: is a fashioning thing, but everyone has their own type
26:33
Speaker 1: of each role has a specific type of wig. We're
26:37
Speaker 1: not like these aren't bedazzled. There's no like you don't
26:39
Speaker 1: get special you know, buretts or anything. In your in
26:42
Speaker 1: your court wig, and it is, as you said, part
26:44
Speaker 1: of a uniform. So it further, uh, it further removes yes,
26:49
Speaker 1: individual or unique identifiers. This was interesting to me as well.
26:56
Speaker 1: By the early eighteen hundreds, only a few types of
27:01
Speaker 1: people wore wigs in this in this sense, those in
27:05
Speaker 1: the legal profession coachman and bishops. And bishops I think
27:11
Speaker 1: short shortly after eighteen thirties or so, bishops finally cracked
27:16
Speaker 1: the deal and they were allowed to stop wearing wigs.
27:20
Speaker 1: And recently, as we record this, some of the laws
27:26
Speaker 1: regarding this historical tradition changed. In two thousand and seven,
27:33
Speaker 1: new dress rules did away with barrister wigs. Mainly, I
27:36
Speaker 1: think it's contemptible. You know. It's like, if we can't
27:40
Speaker 1: depend on British lawyers of all stripes wearing these ridiculous
27:46
Speaker 1: head dresses, what can we depend on. That's a good
27:50
Speaker 1: question you. I think you will be happy to note
27:53
Speaker 1: that wigs do remain in use in criminal cases, thank god.
27:59
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe that's another thing, right, Maybe maybe that
28:03
Speaker 1: is another plank in the platform or the argument that
28:07
Speaker 1: wigs serve a practical purpose. They are no longer required
28:13
Speaker 1: for family or civil court appearances or even while appearing
28:17
Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court in the UK, but in criminal
28:20
Speaker 1: cases you got a wig up. All over the UK
28:23
Speaker 1: and Ireland, judges also continued to wear those luxurious what
28:28
Speaker 1: do you call it ben ringlets until when the practice
28:33
Speaker 1: would discontinue. And also English and British colonies like Canada,
28:37
Speaker 1: UM who some of their provinces abandoned the wig deal,
28:40
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the nine centuries, or even Jamaica which
28:43
Speaker 1: got rid of wigs back in um lawyers and judges
28:48
Speaker 1: now only wear wigs in like kind of ceremonies, I guess,
28:53
Speaker 1: or because I don't know what is a trial if
28:56
Speaker 1: not a ceremony in a super official event. Yeah, so yeah,
29:01
Speaker 1: that's weird. And let's say you're someone who's thinking, man,
29:05
Speaker 1: I really want to see this practice. I want to
29:08
Speaker 1: see history in action, you know what I mean? Then
29:13
Speaker 1: your odds, uh, your odds maybe best in Hong Kong
29:17
Speaker 1: of all places. According to a lawyer in Hong Kong
29:21
Speaker 1: named Johnny Moke, the symbolic aspect of the wig and
29:26
Speaker 1: gown is very important to Hong Kong, and he said,
29:30
Speaker 1: my feeling is that Hong Kong will probably be one
29:32
Speaker 1: of the last jurisdictions where wig and gown will continue
29:36
Speaker 1: to be used. So we might need to take a trip.
29:40
Speaker 1: You know. Now we've finally got a a compelling reason
29:44
Speaker 1: to uh tell our tell our bosses to send us
29:47
Speaker 1: to Hong Kong. You know, I'm down. Alex says he
29:51
Speaker 1: has a friend in Hong Kong. We go stay with
29:53
Speaker 1: do they? What is their position on wigs? He says
29:57
Speaker 1: their apartment is two square feet would means that, Um
30:01
Speaker 1: that sounds like plenty of room. Yeah, what could go wrong?
30:05
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man, We'll have a misadventure, a gown
30:07
Speaker 1: and wig misadventure. Um. Well, I think that's it for today,
30:12
Speaker 1: right yeah? Man, that history was dumb? Right, well, I
30:18
Speaker 1: guess ridiculous? Was that dumb? It's ridiculous, absurd, it's wacky, right,
30:23
Speaker 1: It's strage, you know, It's it's strange how easily bizarre
30:27
Speaker 1: things can become normal. Totally British listeners. I'm not dogging
30:32
Speaker 1: your system. I just know it's just it's it's wild,
30:34
Speaker 1: you know. I guess when I say dumb, it's just
30:37
Speaker 1: like it's so easy for some little snippets, some little
30:40
Speaker 1: like thing to just infiltrate culture, like almost accidentally, and
30:46
Speaker 1: it makes me. It makes me wonder about the stories
30:48
Speaker 1: of other things that are part of accepted forms of
30:53
Speaker 1: dress that are also kind of ridiculous when you think
30:55
Speaker 1: about it. Neckties, neckties, bow ties, bow ties, they're not
30:59
Speaker 1: doing anything, you know. Uh, polo shirts with two buttons
31:03
Speaker 1: at the top. What's that about? I'm wearing one now,
31:05
Speaker 1: I know. I was just spitball in here is if
31:07
Speaker 1: some people could see medallions, I guess you know, you
31:11
Speaker 1: want to just show a little nip. I don't even
31:14
Speaker 1: think that's going to reach a nip. Well before we
31:18
Speaker 1: head into the slippery slope of nip slips, it maybe
31:21
Speaker 1: time for us to call it a day, book our
31:24
Speaker 1: tickets to Hong Kong and see wigs in action. I'm down, man,
31:28
Speaker 1: let's go, let's go. But before we do that, uh, listeners,
31:32
Speaker 1: tell us your wigtails. Does anyone have like a wig
31:35
Speaker 1: story or have you? Are you a hardened British criminal
31:38
Speaker 1: and you had to be dressed down by a barrister
31:42
Speaker 1: with ringlets? I would find it hard to take that
31:45
Speaker 1: person seriously. The barrister, you know they're standing in there
31:48
Speaker 1: with that wig. If it's supposed to like, I guess
31:50
Speaker 1: in part some kind of fear strike fear into the
31:53
Speaker 1: hearts of criminals. I would just snicker the whole time. Yeah, yeah,
31:56
Speaker 1: Well we're from very different culture, so true. World's apart
32:00
Speaker 1: in terms of head covering in the legal system at
32:03
Speaker 1: least uh was at one point being send us your tails,
32:07
Speaker 1: send us your wigtails. We have Facebook, we have you
32:10
Speaker 1: can just start Ridiculous History. I think we're the only one. Yeah,
32:14
Speaker 1: you can find us on Instagram, all all the all
32:17
Speaker 1: the good stuff. We even discussed doing a Pinterest account,
32:21
Speaker 1: which we might get to. But you can also email
32:24
Speaker 1: us directly at Ridiculous at how stuff works dot com.
32:28
Speaker 1: And please be sure and tune in for your next
32:31
Speaker 1: installment of Ridiculous Headdresses Immune History. That's the name of
32:38
Speaker 1: the show. Can we get a law in order? I
32:42
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Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
33:09
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.