WIMPLE

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 them. Today the wimple is worn by some nuns who still don the traditional habit.
In Middle English, the word was 'wymple', and anyone wearing one would be 'Ywympled', rather than wimpled.
For pictures of the wimple, see:

★ 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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See also

See also

★ Babushka

★ Hijab