Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and historyMacalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
History
Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history
Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
Church vestments
The chasuble surmounts and safeguards all the other vestments; hence the
chasuble signifies love, which surmounts all the other virtues, and
safeguards and illumines their beauty with its protection; so says
Rabanus Maurus, prettily enough. Amalarius disagrees; he holds that as
the chasuble is common to all clerics, so it ought to set forth the
works which are common to all: fasting, thirsting, watching, poverty,
reading, singing, praying, and the rest. The pseudo-Alcuin and Ivo of
Chartres agree with Rabanus, though for different reasons. Innocent III,
however, holds it to signify the virtue of apostolical succession: 'For
this is the vestment of Aaron, to the skirt of which the oil ran down;
but it ran down from his head to his beard and from his beard to the
skirt. Forasmuch as we all receive of His spirit, first the Apostles,
afterwards the rest.' Further, he goes on to say that because the
stretching out of the hands divides the chasuble into two complete and
similar parts, so that vestment typifies the old and new church before
and after the time of Christ.
VIII. _The Sandals._—The sandals of the Roman citizens are well
known—mere soles, secured across the instep by one or more thongs of
leather, and clearly designed to protect the wearer from stony roads
without unnecessarily cramping or confining his feet—an important
consideration in a hot climate.
Such a sandal must have been worn by the early clergy as Roman citizens,
and probably long continued in use among the lower orders of clerics. It
was, and still is, the only foot-covering of certain monastic orders,
and in some cases was retained even by monks who had attained to
episcopal rank. In St Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny, which contains a
unique collection of mediaeval effigies and incised slabs, superior in
merit to many better-known specimens of mediaeval art, there exists a
most interesting effigy of a former bishop, de Ledrede, who died _circa_
1350. He is represented fully vested in Eucharistic dress; but in place
of the episcopal sandals, which an ordinary bishop would have worn, he
wears the simpler monastic sandal, which covers only the sole and
instep; and shows the cord of St Francis hanging below his alb.
The extension of the Church into more northern and colder regions, and
the importation of foreign customs into the southern metropolis itself,
probably suggested the transformation of the somewhat scanty sandal into
a more appropriate and more comfortable shoe. The traditions of the old
custom were, however, long maintained in a curious way: the upper
leathers of the shoe were fenestrated or cut into open-work patterns,
the result being that the bare surface of the foot showed through and
displayed the decoration in light flesh-tint against the dark leather of
the shoe. When the episcopal stocking was added to the equipment of the
bishop, the colour became bright scarlet, though the effect remained
much the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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