ITEMS OF CLOTHING

HEADWEAR

HEADWARE

VEILS

WIMPLES

HOODS

HATS

Veils
The Well-bred Lady's Coverchief
SHAPES & SIZES - FABRICS - COLOURS - DECORATIVE FEATURES - THE GOFFERED VEIL

The well-bred lady always wore a veil in public for the most of the medieval period. It was shocking to display the hair- which was seen as ungodly and a lure to good men. The wimple was also widely worn by all 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. Women in Italy abandoned the veil considerably earlier than other parts of Europe and England in favour of elaborate braids and beading which might also utilise a small strip of gauzy veil around the ears.

A law passed between 1162 and 1202, in the municipal statues of Arles forbade prostitutes to cover their hair with a veil lest they should be mistaken for a woman of good virtue and encouraged good women to snatch the veils from the heads of women of suspected ill-repute.

Many countries of the world today, especially Middle Eastern countries, require that a woman's hair remain covered in public as a sign of her humility and modesty to her husband and to God. Discussions with many liberated women in these Muslim countries show that they actively choose to continue to wear a veil as a tribute to the Virgin Mary and as a show of modesty and not as a symbol of oppression by the men of their society. It was only the Western society which discontinued the wearing of the veil and wimple. In this respect, wearing a veil was seen as a sign of good breeding and is no different to the generation of our grandmothers who were firmly hatted, stockinged and gloved whenever they left the house.

Shapes & Sizes
It appears there is no one standard size or shape to the veil with many variations depicted in art and in memorial brasses. It appears that veils could be long or short, rectangular or oval in shape with no particular regulations or guidelines in regard to social status. It also appears than more than one veil could be worn at a time.

At some times during the Middle Ages, veils worn by the wealthier and more fashionable were pinned in many overlapping layers, as shown in the detail at right in the 1435 painting by Van Der Weyden of "Holbien's Wife". It is unclear why such a fashion developed.

Fabrics
It seems that veils and 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.
Fine Flemish linens could have thread counts of between 60 and 200 per inch. Existing fragments appear to be bleached and pressed. Fine Flemish linens could cost thirty times as much as finely woven wools indicating the good quality and desirability of the fabric. In 1410, Christine de Pisan wrote of fine linens woven more more delicate than silk was made in one piece without seam and in an entirely new way that was very expensive.

Colours
Contemporary images and artifacts from the 14th century show that 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.

At certain periods of the Middle Ages a veil with two bands of blue around the border was required by law to be worn by Jewish women as an identifying marker of their faith. Coloured veils were not entirely unknown, but it is certain that they were not the most popular.

Decorative Features
Although many veils were unadorned, it seems that embroidery and ruffles as features were not unknown. The detail on the image at right shows the Virgin from the painting Virgin and Child wearing a veil not only with an edging completely worked with pearls but also a gold band around the entire edge. It is dated at 1345-1350 from Prague.

A great deal of the artwork and statues in Prague during the middle ages were shown to have quite a large degree of decorative features- notably ruffles, beaded or pearl edging and in some cases, gold embroidery around the edges.

Complaints from a 13th century preacher in Germany, Berthold of Regensburg, included that the women twitched their veils hither and thither, gilded them with gold thread and spent a good six months work on a single veil.

A French song of the 13th century tells of a traveling merchant who sold kerchiefs with flowers and birds embroidered on them, although most contemporary illustrations of that time period show plain white of varying degrees of fineness and fabric.

The detail from the painting "The Flight Into Egypt" Lorenzo in 1405 (above at left) shows a woman wearing a long, shawl-like veil with white embroidery along the bottom and what appears to be a fringe at the bottom edge only.

The Goffered Veil or Nebule
This veil was mostly popular during the period of 1350 to 1380, although there are examples of this style of veil both earlier and later.

It consisted of an intricate lattice or honeycomb effect made from ruffles which formed a frame around the face. It was usually held in place by a fillet. The goffered veil was still worn by all levels of society.

Many illuminations, manuscripts, brasses and effigies show this style of headdress. Shown here at right is a stature dated at around 1370 to 1430 of the Madonna and child still showing the goffered veil.

The brass effigy above is of Euphemia of Pomerania, the Queen of Denmark and is dated 1330. Some English churches also show this type of veiling. Lady Despencer wears the goffered veil in her effigy at Tewkesbury Abbey. A brass of Margaret Torrington in Great Berkhampstead Church, Hertfordshire.

The painting at left by Van Eyck "Portrait of Margareta Van Eyck", dated 1433, shows a wonderful example of a ruffled veil worn in many layers.

The detail, at right, shows a close up of the pleated ruffles which appear to have been pleated and then sewn on.

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