During Lent it was the practice to cover up the images in the church with a curtain called the velum quadrigesimale. In the Fabric Rolls of York, for instance, we read the following entry (Anno 1518, 1519):
'Pro coloribus ad pingendum caminos de novo factos et pro e fauthoms cordarum pro suspensione pannorum quadrigesimalium ante novum crucifixum ivs.
'Pro pictione unius panni pendentis coram novo crucifixo in tempore quadrigesimali, et pro les curtayn ringes et pro les laic ac pro suicione alterius panni xiis.'
A point respecting the ring is worth mention. Doctors of Divinity and bishops only may wear a ring in the Western Church, and the former must take it off when celebrating mass.
Besides the Episcopal and Diaconal dalmatic, there is a third kind, to which allusion must be made: the Imperial dalmatic, which from time immemorial has been placed on the sovereigns of Europe at their coronation.
The Imperial Dalmatic in the treasury of St Peter's at Rome is thus described:
'It is laid upon a foundation of deep blue silk, having four different subjects on the shoulders behind and in front, exhibiting—although taken from different actions—the glorification of the body of our Lord. The whole has been carefully wrought with gold tambour and silk, and the numerous figures (as many as fifty-four) surrounding our Redeemer, who sits enthroned on a rainbow in the centre, display simplicity and gracefulness of design. The field of the vestment is powdered with flowers and crosses of gold and silver, having the bottom enriched with a running floriated pattern. It has also a representation of paradise, wherein the flowers, carried by tigers of gold, are of emerald green, turquoise blue, and flame colour. Crosses of silver cantonned with tears of gold, and of gold cantonned with tears of silver alternately, are inserted in the flowing foliage at the edge. Other crosses within circles are also placed after the same rule, when of gold in medallions of silver, and when of silver in the reverse order.
'This vestment is assigned to the 12th century. It has been conjectured that this dalmatic was formerly used by the German emperors when they were consecrated and crowned, and when they assisted the pope at the office of mass. On such occasions the emperor discharged the functions of subdeacon or deacon, and, clothed with a dalmatic, chanted the Epistle and Gospel; in illustration of this custom it may be remarked that several of the German Emperors took part in the service, even so late as Charles V, who sung the Gospel at Boulogne in 1529. The dalmatic was, in fact, in those times, as it continues at the present day, both a regal and ecclesiastical habit, and it has constantly been the custom of European kingdoms for the sovereigns to wear it at their coronation.'[101]
But the Ecclesiastical nature of the regal costume of the middle ages does not end with the dalmatic. Thus, the effigy of Richard I. at Fontevraud wears a cope-like mantle, a dalmatic, and a white sub-tunic, answering to the distinctive costumes of bishop or priest, deacon and subdeacon respectively. When the body of Edward I was exhumed at Westminster in 1774, he was found to wear among other garments a dalmatic and a stole, crossed on the breast in the priestly manner. The body of John, in Worcester, was found in 1797 to be habited in costume similar to that represented on his effigy, with the addition of a monk's cowl, no doubt adopted in order to safeguard his prospects of future happiness, as death in the monastic habit was regarded as ensuring a passport to heaven.
The vestments of the Eastern Church are much simpler, and the rites connected with them have nothing like the complexity associated with those of the Western Church. They have but two colours, for instance—violet for fast-days (including Lent),[102] and white for the rest of the year—and ridicule the elaboration to which liturgical colours have been brought in the Western Church. This fact might be indicated, if any disproof of the existence of a primitive system of liturgical colours were needed.