ITEMS OF CLOTHING

HEADWEAR

HEADWARE

VEILS

WIMPLES

HOODS

HATS

Wimples
SHAPES & SIZES - FABRICS - COLOURS

The well-bred lady always wore a veil in public for a great deal of the medieval period. The wimple was also widely worn by all medieval women of good breeding and it was only later in time that it was dropped for daily wear by the general populace and retained by nuns and holy women. It was not uncommon, although, for a married woman to wear one if she so chose. Effigies and paintings from the 13th century right through to the 15th century show women wearing wimples.

The most modest way to wear a wimple was over the chin, not under it, as is generally supposed. The image detail at right, Madonna, painted in 1345 by Vitale Da Bologna, shows the correct positioning of the wimple. Wimples were also usually worn by widows regardless of their age.

Shapes & Sizes
It appears there is no one standard size or shape to the wimple other than it passes under the chin and over the neck. It can be a rectangular piece which wraps around the head and neck or a circular piece with a hole cut for the face. There seems to be no one "correct" way to wear a wimple. Some appear to be scanty and other quite voluminous depanding on the time period.

Fabrics
It seems that wimples could be made from a variety of fabrics in the middle ages- ranging from fine opaque linens to gauzy barely-there silks.

For the poorer woman, thick wool was both a practical and warm option to provide protection from the elements- warmth in winter and protection from the sun in summer. The detail at right is from the 1435 painting by Van Der Weyden called Portrait of a Woman with a Winged Turban. It has some kind of wimple involvement and seems to be made of a thick linen.

Colours
Contemporary images and artifacts from the 14th century and earlier show that as with veils, white was the most overwhelmingly popular colour. It was harder to keep white clean and therefore a status symbol to have fabric kept very white. A poorer woman or country woman would often have to be content with natural, unbleached colours as she possessed neither the time for excessive laundering nor a second one to wear while the bleaching process was being undertaken on the first.

One contempory writer, Robert Mannyng complained about saffron coloured kerchiefs and wimples as they made it difficult for a man to tell if he was looking at a yellow wimple or yellowed skin, so it must be concluded that coloured veils were not unknown although definitely not the most popular colour choice.

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