---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:03:11 -0700 From: "Laurie Taylor" <mazarineblu...@gmail.com> To: "'Historical Costume'" <h-cost...@indra.com> Subject: [h-cost] (no subject) Message-ID: <E9C6E08945FD4CD0A2437D9D2252EA50@laurie> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Greetings all, I've been mulling this bit of trivia around in my head for the longest time. I think I need to share it and see if any of you know of any support or documentation for this information. "Most Unusual Concession to Modesty: The earliest Christians believed that the Virgin Mary was impregnated through her ear and that other women as well had used their ears as reproductive organs. For that reason, an exposed female ear was considered no less an outrage than an exposed thigh, and a woman would not appear in public unless clad in a tight-fitting wimple." Felton, Bruce, and Mark Fowler. "Part II, Behavior." The Best, Worst, and Most Unusual: Noteworthy Achievements, Events, Feats and Blunders of Every Conceivable Kind. New York: Galahad, 1994. 428. Print. So, the wimple had to develop for some reason. Is this reason believable? Documentable? Are there any other reasons that would be more legitimate based on available documentation? Laurie Taylor Phoenix ***************************************** I could believe the 'impregnated aurally' bit as I think at least one of the gospels just says something like 'and God spoke to Mary and she was with child' and sillier ideas have come of less. On the other hand I'm extremely dubious about the wimple because it was not a very common item of clothing until the late 12th or early 13th century, and there's rather a long time between that and 'early Christian'. Pre 12th century Christian women often wore large veils that they wrapped around their necks and shoulders in some way, but these weren't what I would call a wimple. Note that the reason nuns wore wimples pre Vatican II is that around this time (late 12th, early 13th centuries) was a time of reformulation of some monastic orders, and the foundation of some of the most popular ones. Religious orders took up what was essentially an extremely modest form of contemporary dress at the time, and then modified it very little thereafter. As to where the wimple actually came from, I expect it was a development of either the earlier large wrapped veil (a wimple is somewhat less cumbersome), or of the 'chinstrap' part of the 'fillet and barbette' headdress. Claire _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
