Wimple

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Wimple

The wimple is a garment of medieval Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
worn by women. It is a cloth which usually covers the head and is worn around the neck

Neck

The neck is the part of the body on many limbed vertebrates that distinguishes the head from the torso or trunk. The scientific term signifying "of the neck" is nuchal....
and chin

CHIN

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The wimple is a garment of medieval Europe

Europe

Neck

The neck is the part of the body on many limbed vertebrates that distinguishes the head from the torso or trunk. The scientific term signifying "of the neck" is nuchal....
and chin

CHIN

CHIN may refer to:* Canadian Heritage Information Network, a government agency in Canada that promotes Canadian culture and heritage on the Internet...
. 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

Cornette

A cornette is a piece of female headwear that was especially popular in the 15th to 17th century. It is essentially a type of wimple consisting of a large starched piece of white cloth that is folded upwards in such a way as to create the resemblance of horns on the wearer's head....
). 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

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, Bureaucracy, Noble court and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales....
in his Canterbury Tales has the Wife of Bath and also the Prioress depicted wearing them. Today the wimple is worn by some nun

Nun

A Nun is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life. She may be an monasticism who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent....
s who still don the traditional habit

Religious habit

A religious habit is a distinctive set of garments worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognisable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious Hermit and Anchorite life, although in their case without conformity to a particular uniform style....
. The women who wore wimples were actually observing the following passage in 1 Corinthians 11:5 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christianity Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
: "But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven." The King James Version explicitly lists "wimples" in Isaiah 3:22 as one of a list of female fineries, although the Hebrew term is rendered as shawl or cloak in other versions.

For pictures of the wimple, see:

- with Mary
Blessed Virgin Mary

The Blessed Virgin Mary, sometimes shortened to The Blessed Virgin or The Virgin Mary, is a traditional title used by most Christians and most specifically used by liturgical Christians such as Roman Catholics, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, and some others to describe Mary, mother of Jesus, the mother of...
wearing a wimple
- women with wimples

Wimple

See also