Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history

by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister

§ II. The Anglican Church.

The history of vestments and their usage in England subsequent to the reformation is not lacking in complexity, and is rendered harder to unravel by the heated discussions carried on, and the contradictory assertions brought forward, at the present day by the various parties within the English church. It is no part of our duty here to give an account of the different recensions of the liturgy published and approved in the years after the reformation; we are here only concerned with the rubrical directions which they contain to regulate the use of vestments permitted in the English church.

The first English Prayer-Book, published in 1549, contained the following injunction:

'Upon the day and at the time appointed for the ministration of the Holy Communion, the Priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say, a white alb plain with a vestment or cope. And where there be many Priests or Deacons there so many shall be ready to help the Priest in the ministrations as shall be requisite; and shall have upon them likewise the vestures appointed for their ministry, that is to say, albes with tunicles.'

It is quite clear, even without the documentary evidence which is forthcoming, that this was merely intended as temporary, as, indeed, was the whole 1549 Prayer-Book. In a letter which Fagius and Bucer addressed to their Strassburg friends, describing their reception by Archbishop Cranmer, there is given a short account of the ceremonies then in use. In the course of this letter, they say, 'We hear that some concessions have been made both to a respect for antiquity and to the infirmity of the present age, such, for instance, as the vestments commonly used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.'

An inspection of the rubric will show that it was ingeniously designed to please all parties. The word 'vestment,' of course, means the chasuble, the vestment par excellence, and therefore often spoken of in that apparently general way. The 'alb and vestment' being specified did not necessarily exclude all the other vestments which were worn between these two. Hence those clergy who preferred the old rites and ceremonies might read the rubric into permitting, or even enjoining, the maintenance of the old vestments,[91] while those who subscribed to the principles of the reforming party might set at defiance all old usages by wearing the cope while celebrating the Communion.

Another rubric relating to vestments appears in the first Prayer-Book. This is the first rubric printed after the order for the Communion, and runs thus:

'Upon Wednesdays and Fridays the English Litany shall be said or sung in all places ... and though there be none to communicate with the Priest, yet these days (after the Litany ended) the Priest shall put upon him a plain albe or surplice, with a cope, and say all things at the altar (appointed to be said at the celebration of the Lord's Supper) until after the offertory....'

Finally, in this Prayer-Book also occurs the following:

'In the saying or singing of Mattins and Evensong, baptizing and burying, the minister in parish churches and chapels annexed to the same shall use a surplice. And in all cathedral churches and colleges the archdeacons, deans, provosts, masters, prebendaries, and fellows, being graduates, may use in the quire, besides their surplices, such hood as appertaineth to their several degrees. And whensoever the bishop shall celebrate the Holy Communion in the church, or execute any other public ministration, he shall have upon him, beside his rochet, a surplice or albe, and a cope or vestment, and also his pastoral staff in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain.'

The revised Prayer-Book of 1552 is much more stringent in its reformation of vestment-use. It condescends to mention vestments but once, in a prohibitory rubric, which reduces vestment-use in the English Church to an almost Presbyterian simplicity. This rubric is as follows:

'And here it is to be noted that the minister at the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use neither albe, vestment, nor cope: but being archbishop or bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet: and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only.'

In the Prayer-Book of 1559 a rubric is to be found requiring the restoration of the vestments and ornaments of the first Prayer-Book, thereby setting aside the order of the second Prayer-Book. At the consecration of Archbishop Parker in 1559, we are told that at morning prayer the archbishop-elect wore his academical robes. After the sermon, the archbishop-elect and the four attendant bishops proceeded to the vestry, and returned prepared for the communion service, the archbishop in a linen surplice, the Bishop of Chichester in a silk cope, the Bishops of Hereford and Bedford in linen surplices, but the Bishop of Exeter (Miles Coverdale) in a woollen cassock only. Two chaplains of the archbishop, who assisted the Bishop of Chichester at the communion service, also wore silk copes.

After the communion service they again proceeded to the vestry and returned, the archbishop in 'episcopal alb,' surplice, chimere of black silk, and a collar of precious sable-fur round his neck; the Bishops of Chichester and Hereford in episcopalia, namely, surplice and chimere. Coverdale and the Bishop of Bedford wore cassocks only.

This passage shows us that the right of private judgment was exercised, even at such an important ceremony as the consecration of an archbishop, in 1559 as now. The Puritan principles of Coverdale were given full sway even when acting in cooperation with his less austere brethren.

It also introduces us to a new vestment, the chimere, which is one of the greatest puzzles to be found in the subject of vestments. Since the Reformation, it has continued ever since as a dress peculiar to bishops, but its origin and the exact date of its introduction are uncertain.

The chimere is a short coat, properly without sleeves; but in England the tailors of the Stuart period transferred the sleeves of the rochet to the chimere. Hence the modern English bishops wear sleeveless rochets and sleeved chimeres—both solecisms. The English chimere is black, though from the reign of Edward VI to that of Elizabeth it was scarlet; but the form current on the Continent, a large cape called the mantelletum, is scarlet, and the chimere worn by the Roman prelates in England is purple.

It is not unlikely, from the appearance of the vestment, that it is a modification of the cope or almuce—possibly a combination of the two vestments.

In 1560 Thos Sampson writes complaining to Peter Martyr that 'three of our lately-appointed bishops are to officiate at the table of the Lord, one as priest, another as deacon, and a third as subdeacon, before the image of the crucifix, or at least not far from it, with candles, and habited in the golden vestments of the papacy.' This seems to indicate that at Court (where this was to take place) the old vestments were kept up. From a letter of Miles Coverdale's written in 1566, we learn that the square cap, bands, and tippet were enjoined to be worn out of doors ('Zurich Letters,' vol. i, p. 63, vol. ii, p. 121; Parker Society).

In all the subsequent Prayer-Books, the 'Ornaments Rubric,' as it is called, is the source of our information with respect to the vestments required to be worn in the English Church. This famous rubric runs thus (as given in the Prayer-Book of 1662):

'And here it is to be noted, that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth.'

The indefiniteness observed in the Edwardian rubrics, to which this injunction refers, invests the 'Ornaments Rubric' with a certain vagueness; and this is responsible for the long and violent strife that has waged around it, and for the chaotic condition of modern Anglican order, both in vestments and other observances.

Recent attempts have been made on the part of individual clergymen to introduce certain details of the ritual of the Western Church into the services of the Church of England. All such innovations are, however, regarded as illegal, and clergymen attempting to introduce them lay themselves open to prosecution. The rulings in the case known as the Folkestone ritual case (Elphinstone v. Purchas) is the standard of reference in such matters. Among many other details, the use of the following vestments was declared absolutely contrary to the Ecclesiastical Law of England: The biretta, chasuble, alb, and tunicle at the Holy Communion; the cope at Holy Communion except on high feast days in cathedrals and collegiate churches. On other occasions a decent and comely surplice is to be used by every minister saying the public prayers or administering the sacrament or other rites of the Church.[92]

This tendency to elaboration and to revival of mediaeval practices is not, however, altogether of modern growth. In Wells Cathedral is the effigy of Bishop Creighton, who died in 1672, clad in cassock, amice, alb, and cope, the latter with a jewelled border. On his head is a cap with side-flaps, over which is a mitra pretiosa. More singular still, considering that the person commemorated was an ardent reformer, is the brass of Bishop Goodrick at Ely Cathedral, who died in 1554. He is represented in full Eucharistic vestments of the pre-Reformation period. Both these apparent anomalies are probably to be accounted for by the Romanizing tendency of the reigning monarchs under whom both these persons lived.

The vestments of the clergy did not escape the lash of the satirists of Queen Elizabeth's reign. About 1565, for instance, a tract was published entitled 'A pleasant Dialogue between a Soldier of Berwick and an English chaplain: wherein are largely handled and laid open such reasons as are brought for maintenance of Popish Traditions in our English Church.' The soldier speaks thus to Bernard, the priest: 'But, Bernard, I pray thee, tell me of thine honesty what was the cause that thou hast been in so many changes of apparel this forenoon, now black, now white, now in silk and gold, and now at length in this swouping black gown, and this sarcenet flaunting tippet.' This describes Bernard as first in his ordinary cassock or clerical dress; then in his surplice for morning prayer; then in the cope for communion; and, lastly, in the preaching gown and tippet. The passage is interesting, as it brings the practice of wearing a black gown at the sermon, once universal in the English Church, but now fast dying out, back almost to the reformation.

One more English church vestment remains to be noticed—the scarf. This is a broad black band of silk, which is worn like a stole, passed round the back of the neck and allowed to depend on either side. It is worn by doctors of divinity and by the clerical authorities of collegiate and cathedral bodies. Its origin is possibly to be found in the stole, but it is more probably a modification of an article of University costume.

During the imposition of Episcopacy upon Scotland in the Stuart period the dress of the clergy was of a form designed by no less a person than his Sacred Majesty King James I himself. At that monarch's own request the Parliament of 1609 passed an Act authorizing him to do so, assigning in its preface the reasons for this step to be 'that it had been found by daily experience that the greatness of his Majesty's empire, the magnificence of his Court, the fame of his wisdom, the civility of his subjects, were alluring princes and strangers from every part of the world, and that it was fitting that bishops and ministers, judges and magistrates, should appear before those in becoming apparel; it was therefore referred to his Majesty's serene wisdom to devise appropriate garments and robes of office for these different functionaries.'

The result of this was an order 'that ministers should wear black clothes and in the pulpit black gowns; that bishops and doctors of divinity should wear "black cassikins syde to their knee" [equivalent to the "bishop's apron" of the modern English prelate and the short Presbyterian cassock], black gowns above, and a black craip [scarf] about their necks. The bishops were ordained to have their gowns with lumbard sleeves, according to the form of England, with tippets and craips about their craigs [necks].'

In 1631 Charles I directed the surplice to be worn. In 1633, when he visited Scotland, the bishops and chaplains officiated before him in surplices. He induced Parliament to pass an Act like that of 1609, giving him the power to regulate clerical costume; but this was so much objected to by the clergy themselves (some of whom expressed a fear that his Majesty would order them to wear 'hoods and bells'), that in 1634 they petitioned the King not to interfere with the arrangements of his predecessor; and their request seems to have been granted.