Virgin's veil

The Virgin's veil was a Christian relic believed to have once belonged to Mary, mother of Jesus.

In a sermon of Patriarch Euthymius I of Constantinople (907–912) in the Menologion of Basil II, it is said that the Emperor Arcadius (395–424) acquired the relic, which Mary had worn at the birth of Jesus and placed it in a basilica dedicated to the Virgin in Blachernae.

According to the Euthymiac History, the Empress Pulcheria (450–453) asked for Marian relics from the Patriarch Juvenal of Jerusalem, who sent her two dresses (ἱμάτια, imatia) and a burial shroud (ἐντάφια, entaphia) in a casket, which she deposited in the basilica in Blachernae.

In the 7th century, Theodore Synkellos records that the relic and its casket had been stolen from a Jewish widow by two patricians named Galbios and Kandidos.

The first source to call the garment a veil (περιβολή, peribolē) is Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, writing about the Rus' siege of 860.

Writers from the 10th century on consistently call it a maphorion, a type of mantle covering the head and shoulders.

On 9 November 926, the Emperor Romanos I wore the maphorion when he left Constantinople to negotiate with Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria.

Alexios' biography, the Alexiad is one of the last works to refer to the maphorion of Mary as an actual relic.

It is usually described as a chemise (undergarment) or tunic, or occasionally a supparum (shawl), all garments typically of linen.