When new this cope could show, written in tall gold letters more than an inch high, an inscription now cut up and lost, as the unbroken word “Ne” on one of its shreds, and a solitary “V” on another, are all that remains of it, the first on the lower right side; the second, in the like place, to the left. Though so short, the Latin word leads us to think that it was the beginning of the anthem to the seven penitential psalms, “Ne reminiscaris, Domine, delicta nostra, vel parentum nostrorum; neque vindictam sumas de peccatis nostris,” a suitable prayer for a liturgical garment, upon which the mercies of the Great Atonement are so well set forth in the Crucifixion, the overthrow of Antichrist, and the crowning of the saints in heaven.
In its original state it could give us, not, as now, only eight apostles, but their whole number. Even as yet the patches on the right-hand side afford us three of the missing heads, while another patch to the left shows us the hand with a book, belonging to the fourth. The lower part of this vestment has been sadly cut away, and reshaped with shreds from itself; and perhaps at such a time were added its present heraldic orphrey, morse, and border, perhaps some fifty years after the embroidering of the other portions of this invaluable and matchless specimen of the far-famed “Opus Anglicum,” or English needlework.
The early writers throughout Christendom, Greek as well as Latin, distinguished “nine choirs” of angels, or three great hierarchies, in the upper of which were the “cherubim, or seraphim, and thrones;” in the middle one, the “dominations, virtues, and powers;” in the lower hierarchy, the “principalities, angels, and archangels.” Now, while looking at the rather large number of angels figured here, we shall find that this division into three parts, each part again containing other three, has been accurately observed. Led a good way by Ezekiel (i.), but not following that prophet step by step, our mediæval draughtsmen found out for themselves a certain angel form. To this they gave a human shape having but one head, and that of a comely youth, clothing him with six wings, as Isaias told (vi. 2) of the seraphim, and in place of the calf’s cloven hoofs, they made it with the feet of man; instead of its body being full of eyes, this feature is not unoften to be perceived upon the wings, but oftenest those wings themselves are composed of the bright-eyed feathers borrowed from the peacock’s tail.
Those eight angels standing upon wheels, and so placed that they are everywhere by those quatrefoils wherein our Lord’s person comes, may be taken to represent the upper hierarchy of the angelic host; those other angels—and two of them only are entire—not upon wheels, and far away from our Lord, one of the perfect ones under St. Peter, the other under St. Paul, no doubt belong to the second hierarchy; while those two having but one, not three, pair of wings, the first under the death, the other under the burial of the Virgin, both of them holding up golden crowns, one in each hand, represent, we may presume, the lowest of the three hierarchies. All of them, like our Lord and His apostles, are barefoot. All of them have their hands uplifted in prayer.
For every lover of English heraldic studies this cope, so plentifully blazoned with armorial bearings, will have an especial value, equal to that belonging to many an ancient roll of arms. To begin with its orphrey: that broad band may, in regard to its shields, be distinguished into three parts, one that falls immediately about the neck of the cleric wearing this vestment, and the other two portions right and left. In this first or middle piece the shields, four in number, are of a round shape, but, unlike the square ones, through both the other two side portions, are not set upon squares alternately green and crimson (faded to brown) as are the quatrefoils on the body of the cope. Taking this centre-piece first, to the left we have—
6. Checky azure and or, a chevron ermine. Warwick.
7. Quarterly 1 and 4 gules, a three-towered castle or; 2 and 3 argent, a lion rampant azure. Castile and Leon.
8. Vair or and gules, within a bordure azure, charged with sixteen horse-shoes argent. Ferrers.
9. Azure, three barnacles or, on a chief ermine a demi-lion rampant gules. Geneville.
These four shields are round, as was said before, and upon a green ground, having nothing besides upon it. All the rest composing this orphrey are squares of the diamond form, and put upon a grounding alternately crimson and green; on the crimson are two peacocks and two swans in gold; on the green, four stars of eight rays in gold voided crimson. Now, beginning at the furthermost left side, we see these blazons:—