By studying what remains to us of fragments and records we know all the materials which clothed the primitive and mediæval Church, and we find that there was but little originality in textile decoration or in the forms of dress, which either resembled those of the priests in the Jewish synagogue or those of the heathen temples; and were adapted from traditional patterns.
The constant repetition of the cross and the signs of the Passion, with the emblems of saints and martyrs, were interwoven with the ancient classical forms, mixed up with the old symbolisms partially altered to suit their new service of Christian art. Of course such changes were inevitable, while the old motives were being translated to the new uses.
The corselet of Amasis (the Egyptian corselet, p. 20, ante) closely resembles the Jewish ephod, which probably was borrowed from Egypt.[487]
In Rock’s “Church of Our Fathers,” vol. i. p. 409, we find mention of the consular trabea, profusely worked in gold, as being the origin of the cope.
Pl. 51.
St. Mark. Anglo-Saxon Book of the Four Gospels in the Cathedral Library at York.
It has been suggested and disputed that the stole was an adaptation of the latus clavus; indeed, if we compare the examples given by Bock[488] we can hardly doubt that the consular trabea and the latus clavus either served as the models for the Christian Bishop’s dress, or were derived from the same traditional sources. Such is the intimate chain of design from century to century, from age to age; from Egypt to the Holy Land, and thence to Rome.
Bock gives his authorities for saying that the clavus was sometimes an applied border, sometimes a loose stripe hanging down in front, as may be seen in two consular diptychs given in plate [70]. Much has been written on this latus clavus, its origin and meaning, and I shall return to it in reference to the chrysoclavus pattern, p. 337, post, and I refer the reader, who may wish to enter more fully into the questions raised by conflicting opinions regarding the clavus, to Marquardt’s “Handbuch Röm. Alterthümer,” vii. p. 2, pp. 528-533, where great learning and ingenuity have been expended, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusions.[489]