VII. The Canon's Cope.—This vestment must be carefully distinguished from the cappa serica, or ordinary cope. It was a simple choir robe, worn at ordinary services, of black cloth, permanently sewn at the neck, though open from the breast downwards, so that it had to be passed over the head. It was not ornamented in any way, and probably for this reason was not popular as an object for treatment among manuscript illuminators or monument sculptors and engravers. A hood was appended, which usually hung on the back.
VIII. The Mozetta.—This is a cape worn over the cope by the Pope, cardinals, and bishops in the Roman Church. It is of white fur or coloured silk, according to the season; the Pope wears a red mozetta bordered with ermine when holding receptions; canons in choir wear a black, bishops and (on penitential seasons) cardinals a violet mozetta; on ordinary occasions cardinals wear a mozetta of red. The vestment is probably a descendant of the almuce, and kin to the chimere.
IX. The Roman Collar.—This being an entirely modern vestment, is properly outside our range. It is an embroidered imitation of the turndown shirt-collar of ordinary dress.
In mediaeval monuments the throat of the priest is exposed, as are also those of present-day members of the older religious orders. Considerations of comfort and appearance have led to the adoption of this collar for the ordinary clergy. It should be 'made,' says Mrs. Dolby, 'of a perfectly straight piece of fine linen or lawn,' and 'bordered on the turnover side and along its short ends by a neatly-stitched hem of half an inch. Opened out, when made, it is two and three-quarter inches wide; the turndown should be not more than one and a half inch deep.... The Roman collar worn by a bishop is violet, that of a cardinal is scarlet.'
X. Ecclesiastical Head-dress.—Pseudo-Alcuin expressly contrasts the Churches of the East and West in this—that the Western clergy officiated at the mass bareheaded, which was not the practice of those of the Eastern Church. This gives us information as to the usage of the Western Church at about the tenth or twelfth century. In the following century a cap is noticed 'as one of the marks by which a Churchman might be known';[78] and it appears in inventories, classed along with mitres.
The use of a cap at Divine service was a matter of special papal permission: thus, Innocent IV issued an indult in 1245 to the Prior and Convent of St Andrew's, Rochester, permitting them to wear caps (pileis uti) in the choir, provided that due reverence be observed at the gospel and the elevation. Two forms of cap are to be seen in mediaeval monuments: one a simple dome-shaped skull-cap, called birettum; the other a circular cap, with a point in the centre, of this shape
, which was peculiar to university dignitaries. The latter is probably the ancestor of the modern biretta; and, indeed, in a brass of Robert Brassie in King's College Chapel, Cambridge (1558), appears a head-dress which is a connecting link between the two.
Fig. 20.—Brass of Robert Brassie, King's College, Cambridge (showing almuce and biretta-like cap).