Some of the vestments there mentioned may need a few words of explanation. The alb was a kind of long coat with close fitting sleeves made of white[298] linen, and usually, at least during the celebration of divine service, ornamented with four to six square pieces of cloth of gold, or other rich stuff, or of goldsmith’s work, which were placed on the skirt before and behind, on the wrist of each sleeve, and on the back and breast. The dalmatic of the deacon was a kind of tunic, reaching generally a little below the knees, and slit some way up the sides, and with short, broad sleeves; it was usually ornamented with a broad hem, which passed round the side slits. The sub-deacon’s tunicle was like the dalmatic, but rather shorter, and less ornamented. The cope was a kind of cloak, usually of rich material, fastened across the chest by a large brooch; it was worn by priests in choir and in processions, and on other occasions of state and ceremony. The chasuble was the Eucharistic vestment; originally it was a circle of rich cloth with a slit in the middle, through which the head was passed, and then it fell in ample folds all round the figure. Gradually it was made oval in shape, continually decreasing in width, so as to leave less of the garment to encumber the arms. In its modern shape it consists of two stiff rectangular pieces of cloth, one piece falling before, the other behind, and fastened together at the shoulders of the wearer. The ancient inventories of cathedrals, abbeys, and churches show us that the cope and chasuble were made in every colour, of every rich material, and sometimes embroidered and jewelled. Indeed, all the official robes of the clergy were of the costliest material and most beautiful workmanship which could be obtained. England was celebrated for its skill in the arts employed in their production, and an anecdote of the time of Henry III. shows us that the English ecclesiastical vestments excited admiration and cupidity even at Rome. Their richness had nothing to do with personal pride or luxury on the part of the priests. They were not the property of the clergy, but were generally presented to the churches, to which they belonged in perpetuity; and they were made thus costly on the principle of honouring the divine worship. As men gave their costliest material and noblest Art for the erection of the place in which it was offered, so also for the appliances used in its ministration, and the robes of the ministrants.
In full sacerdotal habit the priests wore the apparelled alb, and stole, and over that the dalmatic, and either the cope or the chasuble over all, with the amys thrown back like a hood over the cope or chasuble. Representations of priests in pontificalibus abound in illuminated MSS., and in their monumental effigies, to such an extent that we need hardly quote any particular examples. Representations of the inferior orders are comparatively rare. Examples of deacons may be found engraved in Dr. Rock’s “Church of our Fathers,” i. 376, 378, 379, 443, and 444. Two others of early fourteenth-century date may be found in the Add. MS. 10,294, f. 72, one wearing a dalmatic of cloth of gold, the other of scarlet, over the alb. Two others of the latter part of the fourteenth century are seen in King Richard II.’s Book of Hours (Dom. A. xvii. f. 176), one in blue dalmatic embroidered with gold, the other red embroidered with gold. A monumental effigy of a deacon under a mural arch at Avon Dassett, Warwickshire, was referred to by Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in a recent lecture at the Architectural Museum, South Kensington. The effigy, which is of the thirteenth century, is in alb, stole, and dalmatic. We are indebted to Mr. Bloxam for a note of another mutilated effigy of a deacon of the fourteenth century among the ruins of Furness Abbey; he is habited in the alb only, with a girdle round the middle, whose tasselled knobs hang down in front. The stole is passed across the body from the left shoulder, and is fastened together at the right hip.
Dr. Rock, vol. i. p. 384, engraves a very good representation of a ninth-century sub-deacon in his tunicle, holding a pitcher in one hand and an empty chalice in the other; and in vol. ii. p. 89, an acolyte, in what seems to be a surplice, with a scarlet hood—part of his ordinary costume—over it, the date of the drawing being cir. 1395 A.D. We have already noted the costume of an ostiary at p. 215. In the illuminations we frequently find an inferior minister attending upon a priest when engaged in his office, but in many cases it is difficult to determine whether he is deacon, sub-deacon, or acolyte, e.g.—in the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,294, at f. 72, is a priest officiating at a funeral, attended by a minister, who is habited in a pink under robe—his ordinary dress—and over it a short white garment with wide loose sleeves, which may be either a deacon’s dalmatic, or a sub-deacon’s tunic, or an acolyte’s surplice. In the Add. MS. 10,293, at f. 154, is a representation of a priest celebrating mass in a hermitage, with a minister kneeling behind him, habited in a white alb only, holding a lighted taper. Again, in the MS. Royal, 14 E. iii. f. 86, is a picture of a prior dressed like some of the canons in our woodcut from Richard II.’s Book of Hours, in a blue under robe, white surplice, and red stole crossed over the breast, and his furred hood on his head; he is baptizing a heathen king, and an attendant minister, who is dressed in the ordinary secular habit of the time, stands beside, holding the chrismatory. In the same history of Richard Earl of Warwick which we have already quoted, there is at f. 213 v., a boy in a short surplice with a censer. In the early fourteenth-century MS., Royal, 14 E. iii. at f. 84 v., is a picture of a bishop anointing a king; an attendant minister, who carries a holy water vessel and aspersoir, is dressed in a surplice over a pink tunic. The surplice is found in almost as many and as different shapes in the Middle Ages as now; sometimes with narrow sleeves and tight up to the neck; sometimes with shorter and wider sleeves and falling low at the neck; sometimes longer and sometimes shorter in the skirt; never, however, so long as altogether to hide the cassock beneath. In addition to the references already given, it may be sufficient to name as further authorities for ecclesiastical costumes generally:—for Saxon times, the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, engraved in the Archæologia; for the thirteenth century, Queen Mary’s Psalter, Royal, 2 B. vii.; for the fourteenth, Royal, 20, c. vii.; for the fifteenth century, Lydgate’s “Life of St. Edmund;” for the sixteenth century, Hans Burgmaier’s “Der Weise König,” and the various works on sepulchral monuments and monumental brasses.
Coronation Procession of Charles V. of France.
The accompanying woodcut from Col. Johnes’s Froissart, vol. i. p. 635, representing the coronation procession of Charles V. of France, will help us to exhibit some of the orders of the clergy with their proper costume and symbols. First goes the aquabajalus, in alb, sprinkling holy water; then a cross-bearer in cassock and surplice; then two priests, in cassock, surplice, and cope; then follows a canon in his cap (biretta), with his furred amys over his arm.[299]
But the clergy wore these robes only when actually engaged in some official act. What was their ordinary costume is generally little known, and it is a part of the subject in which we are especially interested in these papers. From the earliest times of the English Church downwards it was considered by the rulers of the Church that clergymen ought to be distinguished from laymen not only by the tonsure, but also by their dress. We do not find that any uniform habit was prescribed to them, such as distinguished the regular orders of monks and friars from the laity, and from one another; but we gather from the canons of synods, and the injunctions of bishops, that the clergy were expected to wear their clothes not too gay in colour, and not too fashionably cut; that they were to abstain from wearing ornaments or carrying arms; and that their horse furniture was to be in the same severe style. We also gather from the frequent repetition of canons on the subject, and the growing earnestness of their tone, that these injunctions were very generally disregarded. We need not take the reader through the whole series of authorities which may be found in the various collections of councils; a single quotation from the injunctions of John (Stratford) Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1342, will suffice to give us a comprehensive sketch of the general contents of the whole series.
“The external costume often shows the internal character and condition of persons; and though the behaviour of clerks ought to be an example and pattern of the laity, yet the abuse of clerks, which has gained ground more than usually in these days in tonsures, in garments, in horse trappings, and other things, has now generated an abominable scandal among the people, while persons holding ecclesiastical dignities, rectories, honourable prebends, and benefices with cure of souls, even when ordained to holy orders, scorn to wear the crown (which is the token of the heavenly kingdom and of perfection), and, using the distinction of hair extended almost to the shoulders like effeminate persons, walk about clothed in a military rather than a clerical outer habit, viz., short, or notably scant, and with excessively wide sleeves, which do not cover the elbows, but hang down, lined, or, as they say, turned up with fur or silk, and hoods with tippets of wonderful length, and with long beards; and rashly dare, contrary to the canonical sanctions, to use rings indifferently on their fingers; and to be girt with zones, studded with precious stones of wonderful size, with purses engraved with various figures, enamelled and gilt, and attached to them (i.e. to the girdle), with knives, hanging after the fashion of swords, also with buskins red and even checked, green shoes and peaked and cut[300] in many ways, with cruppers (croperiis) to their saddles, and horns hanging to their necks, capes and cloaks furred openly at the edges to such an extent, that little or no distinction appears of clerks from laymen, whereby they render themselves, through their demerits, unworthy of the privilege of their order and profession.
“We therefore, wishing henceforward to prevent such errors, &c., command and ordain, that whoever obtain ecclesiastical benefices in our province, especially if ordained to holy orders, wear clerical garments and tonsure suitable to their status; but if any clerks of our province go publicly in an outer garment short, or notably scant, or in one with long or excessively wide sleeves, not touching the elbow round about, but hanging, with untonsured hair and long beard, or publicly wear their rings on their fingers, &c., if, on admonition, they do not reform within six months, they shall be suspended, and shall only be absolved by their diocesan, and then only on condition that they pay one-fifth of a year’s income to the poor of the place through the diocesan,” &c., &c.