Eleanor Of Aquitaine - Tumblr Posts

Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

Sophie Marceau as Princess Isabella of France in Braveheart (1995).

Eileen Atkins as  Eleanor of Aquitaine in Robin Hood (2010).

Historical Fashion: Wimples with veils

This headdress was worn for a long period of time during the Middle Ages and was no passing fad. The wimple is a piece of fabric that covers the neck and encircles the head (not to be confused by the Gorget which only covers the neck and does not encircle the head). The look was completed with a veil that covered the head, sometimes unadorned, sometimes with a fillet to hold it in place. According to Encyclopedia Britannica this fashion was brought back to Western Europe from the Middle East due to the Crusades. 

The main functions of this headdress were of course to retain a married woman’s (and a widow’s) modesty and to protect their skin and hair from the elements. The proper way to wear a wimple was on (or over) the chin (see top and middle right for examples). 

Women in the laity would continue to wear this style and its variations up to the 16th century, thereafter it was mostly worn by women in religious orders. 

Two more strong-minded, forceful and determined people could hardly have been matched. Eleanor, who was about thirty, had already been queen of France for fifteen years through her first marriage and by her second she would soon be queen of England. Daughter and heiress of William X, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, she was beautiful, wanton, capricious, sophisticated, highly intelligent and accustomed to having her own way. Henry was nineteen years old, bull-necked, stocky and freckled, a man of electric energy and ferocious impatience, compelling charm and an ungovernable temper. The two would have a tempestuous marriage, but Eleanor bore Henry eight children and two of them kings. [x]