(Botticelli)
It seems to have maintained its pre-eminence as the most suitable vestment for priest or bishop at such high and solemn ceremonies as the Coronation of sovereigns, choral Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, also for processions at great festivals, &c.
The old examples which remain are often extremely beautiful and interesting, showing that the utmost care and thought and almost unlimited time must have been bestowed upon them. They are frequently embroidered all over, or are made of the richest velvet or brocade with hood and orphreys of woven gold.
Diagram, shewing proportions of well-shaped Cope.
Scale ½ inch = 1 foot
Hood may be pointed round or square at the bottom.
The shape is theoretically semicircular, but in practice it is best, when drawing the semicircle, to place the centre a few inches above the straight line which forms the front edge of the garment (diagram). This causes the front to be a little longer from the top to the hem than the back is, and thus allows for the part which is taken up at the neck; when it is worn it rises up there from the shoulders. This becomes quite ungainly when the orphreys (which are laid on the edge of the front) are very wide and stiff, but it again may be partially compensated by fastening the morse rather low on the orphreys and having it of a good size so as to leave a fairly wide opening in front: the whole cope will then settle lower on the shoulders. There is another way of getting over the difficulty, and that is to ‘shape’ it to fit on the shoulders. I have seen one ancient and one modern specimen treated thus, and they look very well when in use, but they are quite exceptional, and this method of course destroys the typical half-circle, and would require the orphreys to be cut to fit also. It is better to keep the orphreys narrow; the only excuse for such very wide ones seems to be the magnificent embroidery of figures and tabernacle-work with which they were so often decorated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when wide orphreys became so generally used.
