It has been reserved for the antiquaries of our own day to formulate the true principles of scientific archaeology. We smile at the childish fancies which are gravely put forward in works not more than fifty years old; small wonder is it, then, that we find these early treatises on vestments disappointing. All are firmly impressed with the Levitical origin of the usage and shape of Christian vesture; and the majority are occupied with vague speculations concerning the symbolic meaning of the individual items in an ecclesiastical outfit. Mr. Marriott assigns a reason for the then universal belief in the Levitical origin of ecclesiastical vestments which is highly ingenious, and probably correct. I cannot do better than cite his words on the subject: 'Churchmen who had travelled widely, as then some did, in East as well as West, could hardly fail to notice the remarkable fact, that at Constantinople as at Rome, at Canterbury as at Arles, Vienna or Lyons, one general type of ministering dress was maintained, varying only in some minor details; and that this dress everywhere presented a most marked contrast to what was _in their time_ the prevailing dress of the laity. And as all knowledge of classical antiquity had for three centuries or more been well-nigh extinct in the church, it was not less natural that they should have sought a solution of the phenomenon thus presented to them in a theory of Levitical origin, which from that time forward was generally accepted.'[49] Rabanus Maurus, as we have already stated (_supra_, p. 12), was the first who endeavoured to draw the parallel between the Christian and the Jewish vestments. The older writers saw the difficulties in the way of establishing a complete correspondence. Thus Walfrid Strabo (_circa_ 840), in chapter xxiv of his 'De Rebus Ecclesiasticis,' merely says: '_Numero_ autem suo antiquis respondent' (In their _number_ they correspond to the ancient vestments); and he further admits that mass was formerly celebrated by a priest robed in everyday dress.[50] But, as the desire to prove the correspondence grew more widespread, changes and additions were rapidly made in the vestments themselves, with a view to assimilating the two systems. In the interval between the ninth and eleventh centuries the number of recognised vestments was doubled by the accretions thus made to the original set. As the simplest and most intelligible method of exhibiting the extent of these changes, I have drawn up the subjoined table, in which are given the lists of vestments known to writers on ecclesiastical matters during this interval of time. These lists are placed in parallel columns, and a uniform system of nomenclature has been adopted, so that the reader can see at a glance the date of the various additions: