Finally, in this Prayer-Book also occurs the following:
'In the saying or singing of Mattins and Evensong, baptizing and burying, the minister in parish churches and chapels annexed to the same shall use a surplice. And in all cathedral churches and colleges the archdeacons, deans, provosts, masters, prebendaries, and fellows, being graduates, may use in the quire, besides their surplices, such hood as appertaineth to their several degrees. And whensoever the bishop shall celebrate the Holy Communion in the church, or execute any other public ministration, he shall have upon him, beside his rochet, a surplice or albe, and a cope or vestment, and also his pastoral staff in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain.'
The revised Prayer-Book of 1552 is much more stringent in its reformation of vestment-use. It condescends to mention vestments but once, in a prohibitory rubric, which reduces vestment-use in the English Church to an almost Presbyterian simplicity. This rubric is as follows:
'And here it is to be noted that the minister at the time of the communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use neither albe, vestment, nor cope: but being archbishop or bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet: and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only.'
In the Prayer-Book of 1559 a rubric is to be found requiring the restoration of the vestments and ornaments of the first Prayer-Book, thereby setting aside the order of the second Prayer-Book. At the consecration of Archbishop Parker in 1559, we are told that at morning prayer the archbishop-elect wore his academical robes. After the sermon, the archbishop-elect and the four attendant bishops proceeded to the vestry, and returned prepared for the communion service, the archbishop in a linen surplice, the Bishop of Chichester in a silk cope, the Bishops of Hereford and Bedford in linen surplices, but the Bishop of Exeter (Miles Coverdale) in a woollen cassock only. Two chaplains of the archbishop, who assisted the Bishop of Chichester at the communion service, also wore silk copes.
After the communion service they again proceeded to the vestry and returned, the archbishop in 'episcopal alb,' surplice, chimere of black silk, and a collar of precious sable-fur round his neck; the Bishops of Chichester and Hereford in episcopalia, namely, surplice and chimere. Coverdale and the Bishop of Bedford wore cassocks only.
This passage shows us that the right of private judgment was exercised, even at such an important ceremony as the consecration of an archbishop, in 1559 as now. The Puritan principles of Coverdale were given full sway even when acting in cooperation with his less austere brethren.
It also introduces us to a new vestment, the chimere, which is one of the greatest puzzles to be found in the subject of vestments. Since the Reformation, it has continued ever since as a dress peculiar to bishops, but its origin and the exact date of its introduction are uncertain.
The chimere is a short coat, properly without sleeves; but in England the tailors of the Stuart period transferred the sleeves of the rochet to the chimere. Hence the modern English bishops wear sleeveless rochets and sleeved chimeres—both solecisms. The English chimere is black, though from the reign of Edward VI to that of Elizabeth it was scarlet; but the form current on the Continent, a large cape called the mantelletum, is scarlet, and the chimere worn by the Roman prelates in England is purple.
It is not unlikely, from the appearance of the vestment, that it is a modification of the cope or almuce—possibly a combination of the two vestments.