# The vernicle

*The Veil of Veronica; *vera icon**

**Known today as.** The cloth with which Veronica was said to have wiped Christ’s face on the way to Calvary, leaving his image; and the copies and badges made of it.

Kind: Sacramental

## What was it used for?

Pilgrims to Rome, where the relic was shown at St. Peter’s, wore its image as a badge; prayers before it carried rich indulgences.

## What does modern science say?

A veil is still kept at St. Peter’s and shown on Passion Sunday.

## What lore surrounds it?

The name was read as *vera icon*, “true image.” Chaucer’s Pardoner, back from Rome, “had a vernicle sewn upon his cap.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Chaucer.** The Pardoner wears a vernicle sewn on his cap as the badge of his journey to Rome.

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia derives Veronica from the image itself: “to distinguish at Rome the oldest and best known of these images it was called vera icon (true image), which ordinary language soon made veronica … By degrees, popular imagination mistook this word for the name of a person and attached thereto several legends which vary according to the country.” In Italy she cures Tiberius “by making him touch the sacred image”; in France she marries Zacheus and goes to Rocamadour; near Bordeaux she lands at Soulac; “in many places she is identified with the Haemorrhissa who was cured in the Gospel.” St. Charles Borromeo “excluded the Office of St. Veronica from the Milan Missal.”

## Sources

- Chaucer, G. *The Canterbury Tales*, General Prologue.
- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Veronica, Saint.” newadvent.org/cathen/15362a.htm

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*The vernicle.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/vernicle

Historical description, not medical advice.