Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history — John Shaqi
Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and historyMacalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
History
Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history
Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
Church vestments
Ritual in matters of dress had rapidly been growing. Pope Celestine, who
occupied the Roman See from 423 till 432, found it necessary to write a
sharp letter to the Bishops of Vienne and Narbonne for 'devoting
themselves rather to superstitious observances in dress than to purity
of heart and faith.' Certain monks, it appears, had attained to
episcopal rank, but had retained their ascetic costume. Some of
Celestine's sentences are very striking in this connection; and although
they refer primarily to outdoor costume, we cannot but think that, in a
later age, when the regulations governing the ritual uses of vestments
had been formulated, and the vestments themselves had been elaborated to
their ultimate form, the force of his words would have been somewhat
modified. 'By dressing in a cloak [_pallium_],' he says, 'and by girding
themselves with a girdle, they think to fulfil the truth of Scripture,
not in the spirit, but in the letter. For if these precepts were given
to the end that they should be obeyed in this wise, why do they not
likewise that which follows, and carry burning lights in their hands as
well as their pastoral staves? We should be distinguished from the
common people, or from all others, by our learning, not by our dress; by
our habit of life, not by our clothing; by the purity of our minds, not
by the cut of our garments. For if we begin to introduce novelties, we
shall trample under foot the usage which our fathers have handed down to
us, and give place to vain superstitions.'
The fullest information on the subject of vestments during this period
comes from Spain, in the oft-quoted acts of the fourth council of
Toledo, which sat under the presidency of St Isidore of Seville in the
year 633. Of the canons which were drawn up at this council that which
is of the highest importance in this inquiry is the twenty-eighth,
although it is not directly connected with vestment-usage. It provides
for the case of a cleric who had been unjustly degraded from his order,
and ordains that such a one, if he be found innocent in a subsequent
synod, 'cannot be reinstated in his former position unless he regain his
lost dignities before the altar, at the hands of a bishop. If he be a
bishop, he must receive the _orarium_,[15] ring, and staff; if a priest,
the _orarium_ and _planeta_; if a deacon, the _orarium_ and _alba_; if a
subdeacon, the paten and chalice, and similarly for the other
orders—they must receive, on their restoration, whatever they received
on their ordination.'[16]
On the principle which is all but universal, that the clergy of the
higher orders added the insignia of the lower orders to those of their
own, we are enabled by the help of this act to draw up a table of the
vestments recognised in Spain, which shows at a glance the manner in
which they were distributed among the different orders of clergy:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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