Learning to wear Medieval Headwear

I have been working hard to expand my creativity, knowledge, and skills. Often this requires pushing myself to expand my comfort zone as well. To that endeavor, I recently had an opportunity to participate in an artisan’s swap where a central coordinator set a deadline for the completion of items to be made by hand for our secret swap recipient. Part of the process included filling out an information sheet about ourselves, including interests, likes/dislikes, etc. Because I do not know if the recipient of the item I made has received it yet, or not, this post will only include information and photos of the wondrous items I received from my swap partner this weekend. 

From Baroness Uliana Haiduk who lives in the Barony of Namron in the Northern Region of the Kingdom of Ansteorra: St. Birgitta’s Cap, wimple, veil, forehead strap, pinkeep with pins, both plain and with bedes, all contained within a lovely linen drawstring bag.

First I would like to express that I was absolutely blown away by the scope of this set! In filling out the questionnaire for the swap I will admit that I was hopeful I might receive a set of pins or perhaps a veil. I had noted that I was newly returned to the SCA and in “Living the Dream” again I wanted to become more authentic in the representation of my persona. This would naturally include wearing headwear appropriate to Fourteenth Century England, which is something I had never done before. WOW! I now have a most beautiful set that includes a cap, wimple,veil, and pins!

The artisan, Baroness Ulian Haiduk, included a lovely note along with the gift directing me to the link she had used as her inspiration for creating these items. Within the blog there are tutorials showing how they might also be worn. Click here to visit Katafalk’s blog.  At the blog I also found tips for pulling my braids forward, towards my temples, which helps in keeping them visible and similar to those seen in manuscripts, tapestries, and effigies. Wearing braids is not new to me, but generally I wear them crossed up over my head in what I affectionately call Heidi-style.

Rosenfeld’s Yule Revel December 2019

So the first step was to divide my hair down the center, braiding it into two large braids starting high up at my temples. I then curved each bread back below and behind my ears to make a loop.

 

One braid up, one braid down.

Both braids curled up and back behind my ears

Now I needed to figure out how to wear the beautiful St. Birgitta’s Cap! I will still need to experiment with all of this a few times, but this is what I went with for today, which I think worked well for my first go of it! I think I can position the straps more forward on my head next time.

I love the embroidered section that is used to join the two halves together!

Because the cap is amply sized for me, I did not feel the need to add the linen strip to my forehead. I simply pinned everything directly to my cap instead. In fact, I later folded the front hemmed edge back upon itself to adjust the fit a bit. The sempster who created this ensemble found additional instruction for creating the decorative embroidery at Sarah’s Hand Embroidery Tutorials. Now on to the wimple! I have played around with make-shift veils before, but never a wimple.

I centered the wimple under my chin, brought the two ends up over the braids, and secured it with a single pin through the straps of my cap.

Once I had the wimple centered and pinned I arranged it so that it was comfortable and neat. I eventually unpinned it and put a fold in the front edge which had the pleasing affect of shortening the front length somewhat. I was now ready to add my round veil. This part took me the longest to figure out. It was tricky for me to get the two sides to fall in a similar fashion. I was also unsure if it should be folded back upon itself or not? I started out with a small fold and then increased it to be about two-thirds. Without having done my research, I strongly suspect that like all things in fashion the matter of precisely how these accessories were worn would have differed by geographic location, age, class/rank, and personal preference.

 

Not bad, but could use some adjustments.

I felt there was too much material at my neck.

 

The yellow pins indicate this was my very first attempt at positioning everything. At this point I had not “cuffed” the front edge of my cap, nor had I made a fold in the front edge of the wimple. The veil has a small fold which created an interesting frame about my face. However, I felt there was too much length to the wimple in the front. Making a short fold at my chin alleviated this issue.

This photo is a bit blurry, but I will still include it as it shows the adjustments I made to the position of the pieces.

In this final image my attempt at wearing a wimple and veil, showing the fancy black bede pins, I have made several adjustments. First I had folded back the front edge of my cap, which made a nicer fit for me. Next I made the short fold in the front area of the wimple to reduce the length. This resulted in a much nicer “rippled” effect at the neck. Lastly I then folded the veil almost in half which not only shortened it significantly, it also created a much nicer layered look. Other than the blurriness of the photo itself, I was quite pleased with the outcome of these adjustments! Below is an extant example of a woman wearing a similar veil and wimple, but there are many layers here and her braids are not as visible.

Robert Campin 1375-1444 Early Flemish Master