In a few effigies the maniple is represented on the right wrist. For this there is no liturgical authority, and it can only be attributed to the blundering of the engraver or sculptor.[54]
In reference to its original utilitarian purpose, Amalarius assigns to the maniple the significance of the 'purification of the mind.' Pseudo-Alcuin holds it to denote this present life (in qua superfluos humores patimur). It is also said to denote penitence, caution, and the prize in the racecourse.
The width of the maniple is the same as that of the stole—the length is given at from three feet to three feet eight inches.
VI. The Dalmatic.—I am unable to find any representation of this vestment older than the ninth century, showing the special features which distinguished it from the other vestments of the mediaeval period. Before that date the dalmatic seems to have been identical with the alba, possibly distinguished from it by being a little shorter when, as at Rome, the two vestments were worn together.
Fig. 8.—Deacon in Episcopal Dalmatic. (From Randworth Church.)
Fig. 9.—Deacon in Diaconal Dalmatic.
In the mediaeval period, however, this vestment (and its modification, the tunicle) is marked out from all others by being slit up a short distance on either side. These side-slits were decorated with fringes; but here an important theoretical distinction must be observed between the dalmatic of a bishop and that of a deacon. This was often neglected in mediaeval times, and is consequently frequently overlooked by ecclesiologists of the present day. In the dalmatic, as worn by a bishop, the side-slits, the lower hems, and the ends of the sleeves were fringed; in the dalmatic of a deacon there were also fringes, but only on the left sleeve and along the left slit.
The true reason for this distinction is probably to be sought in the same direction as that which prompted the peculiar diaconal method of wearing the orarium—convenience. The deacon, who was practically the servitor at the altar, required to have his right side free and unhampered as much as possible; the heavy fringes, which might have impeded him, were therefore dispensed with upon that side. But such an explanation would by no means satisfy the early mediaeval writers on vestments, and we are accordingly informed that as the left side typifies this present life and the right that which is to come, so the fringes on the left indicate those cares through which we must pass in this world, while their absence on the right symbolizes our freedom from care in the world to come. Why the bishop was not regarded as exempt from care in the future world does not appear.
Another singular piece of blundering meets us at St David's Cathedral. Here we have two effigies representing clerics, who, though they wear the dalmatic, yet show the stole disposed symmetrically, in the manner of priests.[55] Either the presence of the dalmatic or the presbyteral stole must be incorrect; but in our ignorance of the identity of the persons whom these effigies commemorate we cannot decide which. Bloxam's idea, that these figures represent archdeacons, though ingenious, is untenable; for there is no authority for assigning the dalmatic to an archdeacon of priestly grade; and we have other figures of priests known to have been archdeacons in various parts of England, none of which show the dalmatic.