The author of Piers Ploughman, carping at the clergy in the latter half of the fourteenth century, says it would be better
“If many a priest bare for their baselards and their brooches,
A pair of beads in their hand, and a book under their arm.
Sire[304] John and Sire Geffrey hath a girdle of silver,
A baselard and a knife, with botons overgilt.”
A little later, he speaks of proud priests habited in patlocks,—a short jacket worn by laymen,—with peaked shoes and large knives or daggers. And in the poems of John Audelay, in the fifteenth century, a parish priest is described in
“His girdle harnesched with silver, his baselard hangs by.”
In the wills of the clergy they themselves describe their “togas” of gay colours, trimmed with various furs, and their ornamented girdles and purses, and make no secret of the objectionable knives and baselards. In the Bury St. Edmunds Wills, Adam de Stanton, a chaplain, A.D. 1370, bequeaths one girdle, with purse and knife, valued at 5s.—a rather large sum of money in those days. In the York wills, John Wynd-hill, Rector of Arnecliffe, A.D. 1431, bequeaths a pair of amber beads, such as Piers Ploughman says a priest ought “to bear in his hand, and a book under his arm;” and, curiously enough, in the next sentence he leaves “an English book of Piers Ploughman;” but he does not seem to have been much influenced by the popular poet’s invectives, for he goes on to bequeath two green gowns and one of murrey and one of sanguine colour, besides two of black, all trimmed with various furs; also, one girdle of sanguine silk, ornamented with silver, and gilded, and another zone of green and white, ornamented with silver and gilded; and he also leaves behind him—proh pudor—his best silver girdle, and a baselard with ivory and silver handle. John Gilby, Rector of Knesale, 1434-5, leaves a red toga, furred with byce, a black zone of silk with gilt bars, and a zone ornamented with silver. J. Bagule, Rector of All Saints, York, A.D. 1438, leaves a little baselard, with a zone harnessed with silver, to Sir T. Astell, a chaplain. W. Duffield, a chantry priest at York, A.D. 1443, leaves a black zone silvered, a purse called a “gypsire,” and a white purse of “Burdeux.” W. Siverd, chaplain, leaves to H. Hobshot a hawk-bag; and to W. Day, parochial chaplain of Calton, a pair of hawk-bag rings; and to J. Sarle, chaplain, “my ruby zone, silvered, and my toga, furred with ‘bevers;’” and to the wife of J. Bridlington, “a ruby purse of satin.” R. Rolleston, provost of the church of Beverley, A.D. 1450, leaves a “toga lunata” with a red hood, a toga and hood of violet, a long toga and hood of black, trimmed with martrons, and a toga and hood of violet. J. Clyft, chaplain, A.D. 1455, leaves a zone of silk, ornamented with silver. J. Tidman, chaplain, A.D. 1458, a toga of violet and one of meld. C. Lassels, chaplain, A.D. 1461, a green toga and a white zone, silvered. T. Horneby, rector of Stokesley, A.D. 1464, a red toga and hood; and, among the Richmondshire Wills, we find that of Sir Henry Halled, Lady-priest of the parish of Kirby-in-Kendal, in 1542 A.D. (four years before the suppression of the chantries), who leaves a short gown and a long gown, whose colour is not specified, but was probably black, which seems by this time to have been the most usual clerical wear.
The accompanying woodcut will admirably illustrate the ornamented girdle, purse, and knife, of which we have been reading. It is from a MS. of Chaucer’s poem of the Romaunt of the Rose (Harl. 4,425, f. 143), and represents a priest confessing a lady in a church. The characters in the scene are, like the poem, allegorical; the priest is Genius, and the lady is Dame Nature; but it is not the less an accurate picture of a confessional scene of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The priest is habited in a robe of purple, with a black cap and a black liripipe attached to it, brought over the shoulder to the front, and falling over the arm. The tab, peeping from beneath the cap above the ear, is red; the girdle, purse, and knife, are, in the original illumination, very clearly represented. In another picture of the same person, at f. 106, the black girdle is represented as ornamented with little circles of gold.
A Priest Confessing a Lady.
Many of these clergymen had one black toga with hood en suite—not for constant use in divine service, for, as we have already seen, they are generally represented in the illuminations with coloured “togas” under their surplices,—but perhaps, for wear on mourning occasions. Thus, in the presentations of York Cathedral, A.D. 1519, “We thynke it were convenient that whene we fetche a corse to the churche, that we shulde be in our blak abbettes [habits] mornyngly, wt our hodes of the same of our hedes, as is used in many other places.”[305]
At the time of the Reformation, when the English clergy abandoned the mediæval official robes, they also desisted from wearing the tonsure, which had for many centuries been the distinguishing mark of a cleric, and they seem generally to have adopted the academical dress, for the model both of their official and their ordinary dress. The Puritan clergy adopted a costume which differed little, if at all, from that of the laity of the same school. But it is curious that this question of clerical dress continued to be one of complaint on one side, and resistance on the other, down to the end of our ecclesiastical legislation. The 74th canon of 1603 is as rhetorical in form, and as querulous in tone, and as minute in its description of the way in which ecclesiastical persons should, and the way in which they should not, dress, as is the Injunction of 1342, which we have already quoted. “The true, ancient, and flourishing churches of Christ, being ever desirous that their prelacy and clergy might be had as well in outward reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of their ministry, did think it fit, by a prescript form of decent and comely apparel, to have them known to the people, and thereby to receive the honour and estimation due to the special messengers and ministers of Almighty God: we, therefore, following their grave judgment and the ancient custom of the Church of England, and hoping that in time new fangleness of apparel in some factious persons will die of itself, do constitute and appoint, that the archbishops and bishops shall not intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their degree. Likewise, all deans, masters of colleges, archdeacons, and prebendaries, in cathedrals and collegiate churches (being priests or deacons), doctors in divinity, law, and physic, bachelors in divinity, masters of arts, and bachelors of law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall wear gowns with standing collars, and sleeves straight at the hands, or wide sleeves, as is used in the universities, with hoods or tippets of silk or sarcenet, and square caps; and that all other ministers admitted, or to be admitted, into that function, shall also usually wear the like apparel as is aforesaid, except tippets only. We do further in like manner ordain, that all the said ecclesiastical persons above mentioned shall usually wear on their journeys cloaks with sleeves, commonly called Priests’ Cloaks, without guards, welts, long buttons, or cuts. And no ecclesiastical person shall wear any coif, or wrought night-cap, but only plain night caps of black silk, satin, or velvet. In all which particulars concerning the apparel here prescribed, our meaning is not to attribute any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments, but for decency, gravity, and order, as is before specified. In private houses and in their studies the said persons ecclesiastical may use any comely and scholarlike apparel, provided that it be not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not in their doublet and hose without coats or cassocks; and that they wear not any light-coloured stockings. Likewise, poor beneficed men and curates (not being able to provide themselves long gowns) may go in short gowns of the fashion aforesaid.”