Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history

by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister

It is probable that considerable laxity existed in the manner of wearing the ecclesiastical orarium, for the fourth Council of Toledo thought it necessary to enact a special canon to regulate the method in which this vestment should be disposed. The fortieth act of this assembly restricts the number of oraria to one, and enjoins that deacons should wear the orarium over the left shoulder, leaving the right side free so as to facilitate the execution of their duties in Divine service.[29] This act also provides that the diaconal orarium should be plain, not ornamented with gold or embroidery. It will be noticed that this Toletan council favoured the derivation of the word orarium from orare.

The wearing of the orarium was still further regulated by two of the councils which met at Braga. The second council of Braga (563 A.D.) decreed that 'since in some churches of this province the deacons wear their oraria hidden under the tunic, so that they cannot be distinguished from the subdeacons, for the future they must be placed over their shoulders.'[30] The fourth council (675 A.D.) made an important decree regulating the wearing of the orarium by priests, which has been since followed universally. The vestment was to be passed round the neck, over each shoulder, crossed in front, and secured in this position under the girdle of the alba.[31]

The last enactment of importance is that of the council of Mayence (813 A.D.), which ordered that priests should wear their oraria 'without intermission.'[32]

The orarium, then, was a narrow strip of cloth, disposed about the persons of the clergy in various manners according to their rank. To it corresponded in name, shape, and method of disposition, a garment common among the Romans, though admittedly rather an honourable ornament than an actual article of clothing. Yet when we remember how the clavi were employed to distinguish rank among the earlier clergy, this latter fact may be regarded as strengthening the evidence of identity which the correspondence in all salient features affords. Some other theories of its origin will be discussed when we have treated of the pallium.

III. The Planeta.—In the earlier and purer days of the Roman people, the dress which alone was recognised as the proper costume for the citizen was the toga. This was one of the most inconvenient and cumbrous articles of dress ever invented—a great oblong cloth, fifteen feet by ten, thrown in a complicated manner over the left shoulder, folded in front, and hanging loose about the feet. We can hardly feel surprised at finding that, when the citizens came to regard comfort before appearances to such an extent as to adopt sleeved tunics, a more convenient form of this outdoor costume was adopted. There were three varieties of this new[33] garment, each of which has its own name; these were the paenula, the casula, and the planeta.

The paenula was a garment which in the early days of the Republic was allotted to slaves. A slave wearing this dress is introduced into the 'Mostellaria' (IV iii 51) of Plautus. Indeed, according to Julius Pollux ('Onomasticon,' vii 61), the dramatist Rhinthon, who lived in the fourth century B.C., introduced a mention of this garment into his 'Iphigeneia in Tauris,' a fact which would seem to indicate that the dress was much older than his own time, as otherwise his audience would be unfavourably impressed by the anachronism. Numerous allusions in classical Latin authors show that it was adopted as a travelling dress because of its warmth and comparative convenience;[34] but on no account was it worn within the walls of the city. Gradually, however, the use of the garment spread, till Alexander Severus (222-235 A.D.), as Lampridius tells us, permitted elders to wear the paenula within the city in cold weather, though at the same time he forbade women to do so except when on a journey.[35]

The casula was a poor and inferior variety of the paenula, which, when the latter was promoted to be the costume of senators and emperors, succeeded it as the garb of the poorer classes. The original meaning of the name is 'little house'—a diminutive of casa—and there is little evidence to guide us as to the exact appearance of the garment which it denoted. The name would lead us to infer that, like the paenula, it enveloped the entire body; but it is probable that it was made of coarser and cheaper material. The fact that it was early adopted as the distinctive dress of monks would lead us to this conclusion; beyond this there is no reason for supposing that it differed in outline from the paenula.

The planeta first appears in the fifth century A.D. Cassianus (De Habitu Monachorum, i 7) mentions it as a dress whose price prevents its use as a monastic habit; and St Isidore, two centuries later, expressly forbids members of religious orders to wear it. The planeta must therefore have been more costly than the casula, and, as we find it mentioned in the sixth century as the dress of nobles and of senators, it was probably the most expensive of the three.

The general shape of the garment, as shown in Roman paintings or effigies, is that of a cloak enveloping the body, sewn in front, and put on by being passed over the head, for which a suitable aperture was provided. And this shape is identical with the outer vestment which we see in early representations of clerics. The modification which was early adopted, that of making the vestment oval in form, so as to lessen the width over the shoulders and so to give more freedom to the arms, was obviously regulated by convenience.

Thus we have seen that the three principal vestments, as we find them detailed in the earliest lists and depicted in the earliest monuments, are identical in shape, disposition, and name with the Roman civil costume of the second or third century of the Christian era.