The Heritage of Dress: Being Notes on the History and Evolution of Clothes

by Wilfred Mark Webb

Fig. 129.—A priest in the vestments now worn at the celebration of the Eucharist.

The apparels, according to Druitt, are possibly the remains of the purple bands and other ornamentations of the Roman tunic, from which we have seen that the albe was derived. Over the left arm the priest carries a maniple which is something like a stole. This was originally made of linen, and worn over the fingers of the left hand. There is no doubt but that it was once a napkin and, according to Mr. G. C. Coulton,[28] originally used in the fashion of a modern pocket-handkerchief. That it was a napkin is shown by quotations from ancient writers, and there seems no doubt also that many refinements of Roman civilization, of which the pocket handkerchief was one, were lost in the later Middle Ages. In fact, the handkerchief only began to come into general use in polite society about Henry VIII’s reign, and the maniple of the ministrant at the altar must have lost its original use, or Bernard would not have twice warned him against blowing his nose on his chasuble or surplice.

When speaking of the handkerchief, there is another use which we may mention. It was often employed for ceremonial purposes in connection with the giving of presents, and this idea seems to have come from Eastern lands, where gifts are wrapped in highly ornamental covers. In the parable of the talents, one of them, it will be remembered, was wrapped in a napkin, and even to-day the labourer has his dinner taken to him in a brightly coloured cotton handkerchief.

Among the special vestments of bishops are the dalmatic, which we have already described, and the tunicle, which originally did not differ from it, and began to be worn beneath it about the twelfth century. Others are the buskins or stockings (which were originally reserved for the pope), sandals, ring, gloves, and mitre, together with a pastoral staff adapted from the shepherd’s crook.

Archbishops have a cross staff and a pallium or pall which is probably derived from the same ancestor as the stole, namely the orarium, which, we have seen, was a favour or distinction granted by the Roman Emperor.

The word pallium has been applied to a number of garments in the past, many of which were of a flowing character, and some writers have seen in the archbishop’s pall a small vestige of what was once an ample vestment. Early pictures, however, show the pall looped round the shoulders with one end hanging in front of the body and one behind. Mr. Macalister says that it was difficult sometimes to distinguish between it and the stole, and that the next step in its evolution was to knot the free ends to the loops as shown in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. From this it was but an easy step to the final form which consists of an oval loop with a long tail pendent from each of its ends, so that when it is worn on the person it makes a capital “Y” on the back and another on the chest. It should be pointed out that the pall must not be confounded with the apparel of the chasuble called the orphrey, which also has a “Y” shape.

In connection with the manufacture of the pall there are some interesting proceedings. It is made from the wool of two lambs, and they are solemnly blessed on Saint Agnes’s day in the church dedicated in the name of that saint at Rome. The animals are chosen with special reference to their whiteness and goodness, and are carried into Rome in separate baskets, which are slung over a horse’s back.

On the way to the church the Pope makes the sign of the cross from a window over the lambs, and they, after Mass has been celebrated and they have been blessed by the celebrant, go back to the Pope, who sends them to a nunnery, where they are shorn and the wool made into palls by the nuns.