II. _The Girdle_, with which the alb is secured, is a narrow band, usually of silk, the ends of which terminate in a tassel. The colour of the girdle is properly white, though occasionally it varied with the colour of the day. Though (as stated) properly of silk, it is sometimes made of cotton. Occasionally the girdle was embroidered in colours. In the Westminster inventory of 1388 we have: 'Zone serice sunt septem diversi operis et diversorum colorum.' The following is a selection of the esoteric meanings ascribed to this vestment: _custodia mentis_; _discretio omnium virtutum_; _virtus continentiae_; _perfecta Christi caritas_. The length of the girdle is stated at about four yards. The length of the alb, it should be noticed, was so considerable that it was necessary to draw it through the girdle and let it hang over above it. It is therefore extremely rare (if not unknown) for the girdle to be visible on mediaeval monuments, for even in those exceptional effigies in which the whole length of the alb is visible, the latter vestment entirely conceals the girdle by falling over it. III. _The Amice._—This vestment was quite unknown in the earlier period: it was a mediaeval invention. The amice was clearly originally intended to serve as a hood; and a survival of this use remains in the ritual of vesting, in which the priest first places the vestment on his head, with the prayer 'Impone Domine capiti meo galeam salutis ad expugnandum diabolicos incursus,' before adjusting it round his neck. In several dioceses of France the amice was worn as a hood upon the head from All Saints' Day till Easter, and something of the same kind may have been the practice elsewhere; thus, we find an effigy of a priest in Towyn, Merionethshire, and another in Beverley Minster, in which the amice is drawn over the head hoodwise. In shape the amice was a rectangle (the dimensions are given as thirty-six inches by twenty-five inches). At each end strings were sewn, which were of sufficient length to cross over the breast and encircle the body. An apparel of embroidered work ran along one of the long sides; so that when the vestment was in position it was turned down, like a collar, over the other vestments round the neck, and so far open as to leave the throat of the wearer exposed. A small cross was marked in the centre of the upper edge of the vestment. So much of this vestment was concealed that there appears to have been little or no scope for variety of treatment, either in form or material. The latter seems always to have been linen. The _orphreys_ (embroidered edges), of course, are subject to the same unlimited variation of design as the corresponding ornaments on other vestments; but the shape is constant.