Wimple

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Manoah and his wife, the wife wearing a wimple
Manoah and his wife, the wife wearing a wimple
This article is about the woman's headgear. For the Torah belt, see wimpel.

The wimple is a garment of mediaeval Europe worn by women. It is a cloth which usually covers the head and is worn around the neck and chin. At many stages of medieval culture it was unseemly for a married woman to show her hair. A wimple might be elaborately starched, and creased and folded in prescribed ways, even supported on wire or wicker framing (cornette). Italian women abandoned their headcloths in the 15th century, or replaced them with transparent gauze, and showed their elaborate braids. Both elaborate laundry and elaborate braiding demonstrated status, in that such grooming was being performed by others. Geoffrey Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales has the Wife of Bath and also the Prioress depicted wearing. But in Middle English, it would be called a wymple, and anyone wearing it would be not wimpled, but Ywympled

Today the wimple is worn by some nuns who still don the traditional habit.


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Pictures of the wimple:

Gerard David, Adoration of the Magi - with Mary wearing a wimple

Albrecht Dürer, Lamentation of Christ (detail) - women with wimples

Roman Catholic Daughters of Charity sisters wearing starched wimples (cornette) (1950 photo)

Roman Catholic Poor Clare Nuns wearing wimples (2006 photo)

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