Cointoise is a pendant scarf made from a hat or helmet. Originally, the cloth was worn by
Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
to keep their helmets cool in the heat of
Palestine. Later, it was used a decoration in jousting; the same term being applied later to the veil worn by women which floated from the top of their
hennin
The hennin (french: hennin ; possibly from Flemish nl, henninck meaning cock or rooster) was a headdress in the shape of a cone, steeple, or truncated cone worn in the Late Middle Ages by European women of the nobility. They were most common in ...
s. It is the original of the heraldic "mantle" or wavy scrolls around a coat of arms.
References
*http://www.levinehat.com/glossary
Headgear
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