On account of the great antiquity of the cardinalate, there are many things of minor importance connected with it that are buried in the obscurity of ages. Such are appellations of honor and distinctions in dress; but all writers agree that after the IXth century there was a remarkable increase in what we might call the accessories of this great office. Passing over a decree which Tamagna (who yet is an authority on cardinalitial matters) ascribes to the Emperor Constantine, in which the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church were put on the same footing before the state with senators and consuls, and received other marks of imperial favor, it is certain that during the Middle Ages they were frequently called senators, were styled individually Dominus, and addressed as Venerande Pater, as we learn from a memorandum drawn up by a Roman canonist in 1227. In the accounts of the Sacred College from the beginning of the XIVth century up to the year 1378, the cardinals are called Reverendi Patres et Domini. But from this period they assumed the superlative, and up to the whole of the XVth century were styled Reverendissimi.[131] Urban VIII., on the 10th of June, 1630, gave them the title of eminence, which was not, however, unknown to the early Middle Ages, when it was given to certain great officers of the Byzantine Empire in Italy. Urban’s immediate successor, Innocent X., forbade cardinals to use any other designation than that of cardinal, or title than that of eminence, or to put any crown, coronet, or crest above their arms, which were to be overarched by the hat alone. When Cardinal de’ Medici read the decree, with what was then in such a personage considered exemplary submission, he requested his friends and the members of his household never to call him highness any more, and immediately had the grand-ducal crown removed from wherever it was blazoned. In course of time, however, cardinals of imperial or royal lineage were allowed to assume a style expressive of their birth; thus the last of the Stuarts, the Cardinal Duke of York, etc., was always called Royal Highness at Rome. The pope writes to a cardinal-bishop as “Our venerable brother,” but to a cardinal-priest or deacon as “Our beloved son”; and a cardinal writing to the pope who has raised him to the purple should add at the end of his letter, after all the other formulas of respectful conclusion, the words, et creatura. Although the cardinals hold a rank so exalted, they are in many ways made to remember their complete dependence in ecclesiastical matters upon the sovereign pontiff. There is a peculiar act of homage due by them to the pope, which is called Obedience, and consists in going up publicly one by one in stately procession, with cappa magna of royal ermine, and outspread trailing scarlet robe, to kiss the ring after making a profound inclination to the pontiff sitting on his throne. This is surely the grandest sight of the Sistine Chapel, and we have often thought in seeing it what a good reminder it was to those most eminent spiritual princes that, how great soever they might be, they were after all but the rays of a greater luminary without which they would have no existence. The obedience is done at Mass and Vespers; but never twice on the same day, nor in services for the dead.
The color of a cardinal’s dress is red, unless he belong to a religious order, in which case he retains that of his habit, but uses the same form of dress as the others. In 1245, Innocent IV. conferred upon the cardinals at the first Council of Lyons the famous distinction of the red hat, which is so peculiarly the ornament of their rank that, in common parlance, to “receive the hat” is the same as to be raised to the cardinalate. The special significance of the hat is, that it is placed by the hands of the pope himself upon the dome of thought and seat of that intellect by which the cardinal will give learned and loyal counsel in the government of the church; and its color signifies that the wearer is prepared to lose the last drop of his blood rather than betray his trust. Our readers will be reminded here of that angry vaunt of Henry VIII. about Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who was lying in prison because he would not acknowledge the royal supremacy in matters of religion. When news came to England that Paul III. had raised him to the purple, the king exclaimed, “The pope may send him the hat, but I will take care that he have no head to wear it on”; in fact, the bishop was shortly afterwards beheaded. This hat is now one of ceremony only, and serves but twice: once, when the cardinal receives it in consistory, and next when it rests upon the catafalque at his obsequies. It is then suspended from the ceiling of the chapel or aisle of the church in which he may be buried. The form is round, with a low crown and wide, stiff rim, from the inside of which hang fifteen tassels attached in a triangle from one to five. At the ceremony of giving the hat the pope says, in Latin: “Receive for the glory of Almighty God and the adornment of the Holy Apostolic See, this red hat, the sign of the unequalled dignity of the cardinalate, by which is declared that even to death, by the shedding of thy blood, thou shouldst show thyself intrepid for the exaltation of the blessed faith, for the peace and tranquillity of the Christian people, for the increase and prosperity of the Holy Roman Church. In the name of the Father ✠; and of the Son ✠; and of the Holy ✠ Ghost. Amen.” Paul II., in 1464, added other red ornaments, and among them the red beretta or cap to be worn on ordinary occasions; but cardinals belonging to religious orders continued to use the hood of their habit or a cap of the same color, until Gregory XIV. made them wear the red. This point of costume is illustrated by an anecdote which we have heard from an eye-witness; it also shows that one should not be sure of promotion—until it comes.
Pope Gregory XVI. was a great admirer of a certain abbot in Rome, whose habit was white, and rumor ran that he would certainly be made a cardinal. Some time before the next consistory, the pope, with a considerable retinue—it was thought significantly—went to visit the monastery, the father of which was this learned monk, and there refreshments were served in the suite of apartments called, in large Roman convents, the cardinal’s rooms, because reserved for the use of that dignitary, should one be created belonging to the order. When the trays of delicious pyramidal ice-creams were brought in, the pope deliberately took the white one presented to him on bended knee by a chamberlain and handed it to the Lord Abbot sitting beside and a little behind him, then took a red one for himself. No one, of course, began until Gregory had tasted first, and while all eyes were on him he took the top off his own ice-cream, turned and put it on his neighbor’s, saying with a smile as he looked around him, “How well, gentlemen, the red caps the white!” Alas! the poor abbot; he understood it as doubtless was meant he should, but he was foolish enough to act upon it, and procure his scarlet outfit. This came to the ears of the pope, who was so displeased that he scratched him off the list, nor could any friends ever get him reinstated; and it was only when Cardinal Doria said that he was positively wasting away with the disappointment and mortification, that the pope consented to make him an archbishop in partibus.
In the greater chapels, in the grand procession on Corpus Christi, and on other occasions the cardinal-bishops wear copes fastened by a pectoral jewel called Formale, which is of gold ornamented with three pine cones of mother-of-pearl, the priests (even though they may have the episcopal character) wear chasubles, and the deacons dalmatics, but all use white damask mitres with red fringes at the extremity of the bands. In their Titles and Deaconries, also elsewhere, when they officiate, the cardinals have the use of pontificals. The custom of wearing mitres is said to have begun for cardinals of the two lower orders only in the XIth century. One of the distinctive ornaments of a cardinal is the gold ring set with a sapphire, and engraved on the metal surface of the inside with the arms of the pope who has created him. It is put on his finger by the Sovereign Pontiff with these words, some of which are omitted in the case of deacons: “For the honor of Almighty God, of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul, and of the blessed N. N. (naming the Title) we commit unto thee the church of —— (naming it), with its clergy, people, and succursal chapels.” The actual value of this ring is only twenty-five dollars, but for many centuries the newly-created cardinal has been expected to give a large sum of money for some pious purpose, which was different under different popes, but was perpetually allotted by Gregory XV., in 1622, to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Students of the Propaganda will remember the elegant tablet and commemorative inscription originally set up in the college church, but now encased in the wall near the library. For a long time the sum was larger than at present and was paid in gold, but in consideration of the general distress in the early part of this century Pius VII. reduced it to six hundred scudi of silver, equal to about seven hundred and fifty dollars of our paper money. The last cardinal who gave the full amount before the reduction was Della Somaglia, in 1795.
The Roman ceremonial shows the singular importance of the cardinalate, by the disposition ordered to be made of its members even after death. It is prescribed that when life has departed a veil be thrown over the face, and the body, dressed in chasuble if bishop or priest, otherwise in dalmatic, shall lie in state.
The hat used in his creation must be deposited at his feet, and after his funeral be suspended over his tomb. His body must be laid in a cypress-wood coffin in presence of a notary and his official family, a member of which—the major-domo—lays at his feet a little case containing a scroll of parchment on which has been written a brief account of the more important events of his life. Then the first coffin is enclosed in another of lead, and the two together in a third one of some kind of precious wood, each coffin having been sealed with the seals of the dead cardinal and the living notary. The body thus secured is borne by night with funeral pomp of carriages and torches and long array of chanting friars to the church of requiem, where it remains until the day appointed for the Mass, at which the cardinals and pope are present, and the latter gives the final absolution.
When carriages first came into use in Italy, which was about the year 1500, they were considered effeminate and a species of refined luxury, so much so that Pius IV., at a consistory held on November 27, 1564, in a grave discourse exhorted the cardinals not to use a means of conveyance fit only for women, but to continue to come to the palace in the virile manner that had been so long the custom—that is, on horseback; and reminded them that when the Emperor Charles V. returned into Spain from his visit to Italy, he had said that no sight pleased him there so much as the magnificent cavalcade of the cardinals on their way to the chapels and consistories. After this they always rode or were carried in litters or sedan-chairs, until the beginning of the XVIIth century, when it became impossible any longer to hinder them from using the new and more convenient style which had become general for all people of means. Urban VIII., in 1625, by ordering cardinals to put scarlet head-gear on their horses, seemed to sanction the change; but it appears to have been abused, by some at least, in a manner described by Innocent X. (1676), in a pathetic address, as ill becoming those who had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. We may get an idea of the ostentation, when we know that but a few years previously Maurice of Savoy (who afterwards by permission renounced the cardinalate for reasons of state) used to go to the Vatican with a following of two hundred splendid equipages and a numerous escort of horsemen in brilliant uniforms. The modern custom (which has been interrupted by the Italian usurpers) is certainly very modest.
The cardinals proceed to the minor functions with a single carriage and two on gala days, but princes by birth have three.
Each carriage is red, finished with gilt ornaments, and drawn by a pair of superb black horses from a particular breed of the Campagna. The scarlet umbrella carried by one of the somnolent footmen behind is seldom taken out of its cover, being merely a reminiscence of the old fashion when their eminences rode, and it might be of service against the rain or the sun.
Cardinals belonging to a religious order of monks or friars who wear beards retain them after their exaltation; but others must be clean shaven. There have been considerable changes in this matter, and cardinals wore no beards in the XVth century. In fact, the long, silky, and well-cultivated beard of Bessarion (a Greek) lost him the election to the papacy after the death of Nicholas V., in 1455. It was also the occasion of his death with chagrin at an atrocious insult offered him by Louis XI. of France; for being on an embassy to compose the differences between that monarch and the Duke of Burgundy, he wrote to the latter stating the object of his mission before having made his visit to the former, which so enraged that punctilious king that when the legate came the first thing he did was to pull his magnificent beard and say: