Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history

by Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister

1. Conventional and meaningless devices.

2. Symbols or figures of Divine or beatified persons, or passages of Scripture and other religious inscriptions.

3. Personal devices.

The number of conventional patterns which meet us embroidered on ecclesiastical vestments is endless, and to attempt to catalogue even the most striking would be an undertaking the magnitude of which would only be equalled by its uselessness. A small collection of rubbings of monumental brasses will convince the reader of this. Floral devices are the most common, either in continuous scrolls or in repetitions and variations of the same pattern; and these are found combined with patterns of the other two groups to fill up the gaps and spandrels between different figures or letters. But grotesque and real animals, wild men, and various other objects of natural history, all have their place; though, if the evidence of the monuments be reliable, these were not so common in England as in the other countries which yielded allegiance to the Western Church. It is, of course, possible that some of these figures may have been intended as emblems of saints,[79] and others may have been heraldic; but it is probable that the majority of them were simply ornaments with no other intention beyond filling up space effectively.

The symbols of Divine or beatified persons are of more interest. These are usually found on the centre orphreys of the chasuble, on the edges and hood of the cope, on mitres, and on rationals or morses, the orphreys of the other vestments being usually conventional, floral, or animal devices. The hood of the cope almost invariably bore some emblematic or sacred device, or else some scene in sacred or traditional history; the edge of the cope and the centre of the chasuble often bore figures of saints in niches, one above another, or else connected scenes from the life of a saint; while the rationals and morses, which were under the province of the enamellers (and were consequently more easily decorated than the embroidered vestments), usually displayed some more elaborate design in miniature.

Of the greatest importance, however, are devices of the third order—those which display the name, initials, rebus, or coat-of-arms of the wearer or the donor of the vestment. In monuments these designs invariably are connected with the name and family of the wearer, while the personal devices recorded in inventories are usually connected with the donor. The reason is, probably, that the vestments catalogued in inventories originally were made for, and worn by, the donors thereof; during their lifetime the devices showed forth the wearers' names; after their death, the names of the testators: while the monuments, which were supposed as nearly as possible to represent the persons commemorated as they appeared while they lived, would naturally pourtray the vestments which they wore, or might have worn, when celebrating mass or conducting the other offices of church service.

Mediaeval priests and embroiderers seem to have shrunk from placing these personal devices on the chasuble, though such ornamentation is not altogether unknown even in that most reverenced of vestments. Thus, at Arundel, Sussex, is a brass representing a priest in ecclesiastic vestments, in which the initials of the wearer occur on the chasuble. The cope, however, often shows initials or other designs[80] which serve to identify the wearer. The same chariness does not seem to have been felt with regard to the other Eucharistic vestments, possibly because they were not so exclusively appropriated to the Eucharistic service. Thus, at Beverley Minster there is a sculptured effigy of a priest whose entire stole is covered with a series of coats-of-arms.

As I have already said, this group of orphrey patterns is of considerably greater importance than the other two, which cannot be regarded as other than mere artistic curiosities. It is generally possible to identify the personality of the priest commemorated by a monument, even if the inscription be lost or defaced, when these convenient symbols enter into the composition of the orphreys on his vesture. This helps us in assigning the date of the monument; and every monument of which we know the date exactly adds something to our stock of knowledge respecting the chronology of mediaeval art.

As giving an idea of the number and variety of the designs employed by the embroiderers and enamellers to decorate the vestments of the church, it has been thought that the following table will not be found uninteresting. It is a classified catalogue of the designs enumerated in a single inventory of a single collection of vestments, the inventory of the commissioners of Henry VIII, drawn up in 1536, of the property of Lincoln Cathedral.

It has not been considered necessary to preserve the uncouth spelling of the original, especially as some words are scarcely spelt the same way twice in the course of the document. Nor has it been thought worth while to swell the bulk of the list by giving details as to the parts of the vestments on which the various objects are represented, or the frequency with which those occurring more than once are found, the purpose of the list being simply to show faintly the variety of designs at the disposal of the embroiderer or enameller. It should be premised that this is by no means a complete list; in many cases the inventory gives little or no information concerning the decoration of the vestment catalogued. Most probably, however, all ornaments of interest or importance are here included: