Ever done a study of costume?
Ever noticed that ‘pointed hats’ were seen in all kinds of cultures? Phrygian caps, hennins. . .
As for the ‘distinctive headgear’. . . let’s see. Suppose you had a group of people who were being persecuted. Suppose that your kingdom in Europe, in the 13th century, was Christian (and Christian at that time in Europe was CATHOLIC Christian–or in the Byzantines, Orthodox Christian). Suppose that this group of people, Jews, were for a variety of reasons, mostly doing with usury ie banking/lending, and NOT for ‘Christ killing’, were often victims of hate crimes.
But if they were not identifiable as Jewish people, a person who attacked them could claim, “I didn’t attack a JEWISH person”, how would I know he was Jewish and they were protected?? You see, many rulers, including King John of England at the time of the council, had a policy of looking to protect the Jewish people from attack --in order to extort money from them.
Hmm. What if the Church, acting as a judge for the various kingdoms which were all Christian, decided, “Jewish people will wear a distinctive hat”. Well, nobody could attack a Jewish person and claim they didn’t KNOW they were Jewish, now could they?
If you were thinking about robbing or plundering a Jewish person, the ‘hat’ would give away that you were attacking a protected person. . .so you’d ‘think twice’ about attacking.
It is surprising that so many people are willing to rush to judgment that there could be only one possible reason for an action, and usually a ‘wicked bad reason’.
And if you read the article or others, the ‘witches hat’ is far more likely to be based not on a "Jewish cap’ but on the fantastically high and stylish hennin which medieval women of the higher ranks wore.
But it’s SO easy to find another thing to slam ‘The Church’ with, isn’t it?
en.m.wikipedia.org