Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history

by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister

From the earliest references to the pallium which we can find, it is clear that it was from the first regarded as a distinctive vestment to be worn by archbishops only.[37] The archbishops of this early period had not the right, any more than their mediaeval successors, of assuming the pallium on their consecration; it was necessary to apply to the Pope for a grant of the vestment, which was only bestowed on the permission of the reigning sovereign being obtained. The earliest document unquestionably relating to the bestowal of the pallium is a letter of Pope Symmachus, bestowing the pallium on Theodore, Archbishop of Laureacus, in Pannonia, 514 A.D.[38] Instances of the royal assent being considered necessary are found in the letters of Pope Vigilius, who delayed the grant of the pallium to Archbishop Auxanius of Arles for two years, pending the consent of Childebert I, King of the Franks;[39] and in the letters of Pope Gregory the Great, who at the request of Childebert II bestowed the pallium on Virgilius, a later Archbishop of the same province.[40]

In 866 Pope Nicholas I declared that no archbishop might be enthroned or might consecrate the Eucharist till he should receive the pallium at the hands of the Pope.[41]

II. The Mappula.—We have seen in discussing the alba that Pope Sylvester, in the middle of the third century, decreed that the deacons of the city of Rome should substitute dalmaticae for colobia; he further charged them to wear a pallium linostimum on their hands. It is clear that this cloth, as its proper name, mappula (little napkin), demonstrates, was designed to serve the utilitarian purpose of a handkerchief, either to wipe the Communion vessels or the face of the minister—probably the latter.[42] This cloth, however, must early have become regarded as a sacred vestment by its wearers, and the exclusive privilege of the Roman priests to wear it was jealously guarded. Attempts were made by the deacons of the neighbouring churches of Ravenna to assume the vestment, and St Gregory found it necessary to interfere, which he did in several letters to that somewhat recalcitrant prelate, John, the Bishop of Ravenna. For the sake of peace, Gregory admitted a compromise whereby the principal deacons of Ravenna were allowed to wear the coveted ornament; but the glamour of carrying a vestment, however inconvenient,[43] which was theoretically confined to the holy city itself, proved too strong a temptation for the deacons of other places, while the Romans (whose exclusive privilege was gone once Ravenna was admitted to a share in it) took no further steps to prevent its assumption. As a natural consequence, the use of the vestment spread over the whole of the Western Church, and by the time when the period at present engaging our attention ended, had become universal.

III. The Dalmatica.—We have already entered at length into the history of this word and of the vestment to which it was applied. It does not seem to have differed essentially from the alba; but it appears that two[44] vestments were worn at Rome, an alba and a dalmatica, though it is evident from the Toletan canons and other sources that at this early period such was not the case elsewhere. In early pictures the two vestments are rarely represented side by side; it is probable that the dalmatica was so long as to conceal the alba, just as the dalmatic on mediaeval effigies of Bishops often hides the tunicle. It seems, however, to have been shown on the ancient picture of Gregory the Great, described by Joannes Diaconus; and we find that Gregory granted its use to Bishop Aregius of Gap and to his Archdeacon (Ep. ix 107: Migne, lxxvii 1033), forwarding the vestments at the same time as the letter. Clearly the Pope does not denote the alba by the word dalmatica, as we have seen St Isidore of Seville do, for Aregius would naturally wear an alba without papal interference. The vestment in question must, therefore, have been another, resembling the alb in outline, but only worn either at Rome or by those on whom the Pope saw fit to confer it.

The history of the spread of the dalmatica must have been similar to that of the mappula. By the time the third period begins we find it established as an independent vestment, differing from its parent, the alba, in one important respect, which will be detailed in the following chapter.

Although not vestments in the strictest sense of the word, we must not conclude this chapter without a brief notice of the two exclusively episcopal insignia noticed in the canons of the fourth council of Toledo, namely, the ring and staff. Rings have been found in the tombs of bishops of the third century. This, however, proves nothing, as their use was universal among both Christians and heathen. Nor can anything definitely ecclesiastical be tortured out of the many descriptive notices which have come down to us of the rings in the possession of individual bishops of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Isidore of Seville (circa 600) lands us on firmer ground; he distinctly says: 'To the bishop at his consecration is given a staff ... a ring likewise is given him to signify pontifical honour, or as a seal for secret things.'[45] We need not, perhaps, discuss the esoteric meaning of the gift as here set forth; but the fact clearly remains that by Isidore's time the gift of a ring and a staff had become an essential part of the ceremony of episcopal ordination. The Toletan canon tells us the same thing. Before that time there is no clear indication of the gift; it is not mentioned in ordination services of earlier date than the sixth century, one of the oldest references to it being in the sacramentary of Gregory the Great (circa 590 A.D.); and even this passage is rejected as an interpolation by Migne.[46]

The Pastoral Staff.—Isidore says, in the passage already quoted, that the staff is given 'that he may rule or correct those set under him, or support the weakness of the weak.'[47]

It is strange that even the pastoral staff has a prototype among the insignia of the heathen priesthood. One of the emblems of the Roman augurs was a lituus, or crook, resembling almost exactly the earliest pastoral staves as we find them shown in the monuments of early Christian art. It was used inter alia for dividing the sky into regions for astrological purposes. The pastoral staff, as represented in early monuments, was much shorter than the mediaeval crozier; and it seems not at all improbable that the pastoral staff was originally a 'Christianization' of this pagan implement.

Other writers have argued in favour of the pastoral staff being simply an adaptation of the common walking-sticks, which were certainly used in churches as a support before the introduction of seats. It has been pointed out, however, that the pastoral staff had become a special member of the insignia of a bishop before the general abolition of these crutches; and this, it must be confessed, is an argument of considerable force against such a hypothesis.

The letter of Celestine to the Bishops of Narbonne and Vienne, part of which we quoted on pp. 26-7, is probably about the earliest available reference to the use of the pastoral staff by members of the episcopal order. This brings the history of pastoral staves back to the early part of the fifth century, and shows that this special ornament was one of the earliest of the external symbols which the church has prescribed for its officers.