[44] Civil dress presented parallel cases: the Emperor Augustus wore four tunics in cold weather. [45] Huic dum consecratur datur baculus ... datur et annulus propter signum pontificalis honoris vel signaculum secretorum.—Isidorus de Off. Eccl., lib. ii, cap. v. [46] _Ad annulum digito imponendam_: Accipe annulum fidei, scilicet signaculum quatenus sponsam Dei, videlicet sanctam ecclesiam, intemerata fide ornatus illibate custodias. [47] Ut subditam plebem vel regat vel corrigat vel infirmitatem infirmorum sustineat. [48] Romanus autem Pontifex Pastorali virga non utitur—Innoc. III Papa, De Sacr. Altar. Myst. i 62 (Migne ccxvii, 795). Ideoque summum Pontificem eiusmodi; incurvatam virgam non gerere quia eius potestas nullis locorum limitibus circumscribitur at ubique patet.—De Saussay, Panoplia Clericorum (Paris 1646), p. 102. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. THE FINAL FORM OF VESTMENTS IN THE WESTERN CHURCH. Hitherto, to a great extent, we have been groping in the dark, guided only by the dim light yielded by obscure passages in early writers or by half-defaced frescoes and shattered sculptures. Much is conjectural, much uncertain; and often the shreds of information obtained from different sources appear contradictory, requiring patient thought and investigation to unravel the entanglement and reconcile the inconsistencies. The progress of Christian literature and art had been retarded first by persecution, then by war and tumult. This partly accounts for the comparative scantiness of the material extant for a history of the Christian antiquities of the first eight centuries. But with the ninth century a new era began, which lasted unchecked all through the Middle Ages. The military genius of Charles the Great effected a general peace in the year 812; and under his enthusiastic patronage a true renaissance took place in learning and in art. Architecture and manuscript illumination were carried to a high degree of perfection, and for the first time active and systematic researches were made into the details of the doctrine and ritual of the church in the preceding centuries. As a natural consequence of the inquiring spirit which thus made itself felt, the number of books and tracts on ecclesiastical matters multiplied enormously. Among the many branches of study which were and are open to the inquiry of the ecclesiologist, few occupied the attention of these ninth-century writers more than the vestments worn by the priests when ministering in Divine service.