Sudarium is a Latin word, literally meaning 'sweat cloth', used for wiping the face clean. Small cloths of various sorts, for which sudarium is a general term, played a considerable role in Ancient Roman formal manners and court ceremonial, and many such uses transferred to Christian liturgical usage

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

 and art. Different Greek terms are used in the Eastern Orthodox churches, but in the Roman Catholic and other Western churches, the term "sudarium" has been used for several textile objects:

• The maniple
  Maniple (vestment)
  The maniple is a liturgical vestment used primarily within the Catholic Church, and occasionally used by some Anglo-Catholic and Lutheran clergy. It is an embroidered band of silk or similar fabric that when worn hangs from the left arm...
  
  , a cloth of fine quality to wipe away perspiration, or an ornamental handkerchief which was seldom put into actual use, but was generally carried in the hand as an ornament as was commonly done by people of rank in ordinary life, now formalized as a vestment
  Vestment
  Vestments are liturgical garments and articles associated primarily with the Christian religion, especially among Latin Rite and other Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans...
  
  .
• The predecessor of the humeral veil
  Humeral veil
  The humeral veil is one of the liturgical vestments of the Roman Rite, also used in some Anglican and Lutheran churches. It consists of a piece of cloth about 2.75 m long and 90 cm wide draped over the shoulders and down the front, normally of silk or cloth of gold...
  
  
• The predecessor of the vimpa
  Vimpa
  A vimpa is a veil or shawl worn over the shoulders of servers who carry the miter and crosier during liturgical functions when they are not being used by the bishop, in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and some other western churches....
  
  , a veil or shawl worn over the shoulders of servers who carry the mitre and crosier in liturgical functions when they are not being used by the bishop
• The cloth suspended from the crozier at the place where the bishop would grasp it, still depicted in ecclesiastical heraldry and used by Cistercian abbots. Also called pannisellus
• The veil used by the subdeacon to hold the paten; a pall(a) or mappula, the forerunner of the chalice veil, the ends of which he threw over his right shoulder

It specifically refers to two relics of the Passion of Jesus, the Sudarium of Oviedo

Sudarium of Oviedo

The Sudarium of Oviedo, or Shroud of Oviedo, is a bloodstained cloth, measuring c. 84 x 53 cm, kept in the Cámara Santa of the Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain. The Sudarium is claimed to be the cloth wrapped around the head of Jesus Christ after he died, as mentioned in the Gospel of...

 and the Veil of Veronica

Veil of Veronica

The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium , often called simply "The Veronica" and known in Italian as the Volto Santo or Holy Face is a Catholic relic, which, according to legend, bears the likeness of the Face of Jesus not made by human hand The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium (Latin for sweat-cloth),...

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The Sudarium is related to the Sudra (סודרא) mentioned in the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

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Sources and references

• Sudarium articles from The Catholic Encyclopaedia