Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and historyMacalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
History
Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history
Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
Church vestments
The fenestrated sandals were abandoned about the fourteenth century in
favour of shoes, in shape very much resembling the modern ankle-shoe. It
would have been inconsistent, however, with the spirit of the fourteenth
century to have abandoned the decorative effect produced by the
open-work, and neglected to find some substitute. This substitute was
found in lavish embroidery and in ornamentation with jewels and spangles
of gold. The sandals, in fact, became as elaborate as did the rest of
the ecclesiastical vestments.
The sandals, as above described, were worn by bishops only, at the
Eucharistic service. Deacons and priests appear to have worn simple
everyday shoes, without ornamentation of any kind. The fenestrated shoes
(which were popular among the dandies of the day as well as consecrated
to the bishops) were expressly forbidden to them, as also were coloured
shoes, or shoes of the preposterous shapes occasionally in vogue among
the laity of the middle ages.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.—BISHOP WAYNFLETE'S EPISCOPAL SANDAL.]
'As the sandals partly cover the feet and leave them partly bare,' says
Rabanus, 'so the teachers of the Gospel should reveal part of the Gospel
and should hide the rest, that the faithful and pious may have enough
knowledge thereof, and the infidel and despiser may find no matter for
blasphemy. And this kind of shoe warns us likewise that we should have a
care to our flesh and our bodies in matters of necessity, not in matters
of lust.'
Amalarius of Metz enters into further details, incidentally touching on
some points of difference which obtained between the sandal of the
bishop and that of the priest in his day—the first half of the ninth
century. The following is a translation of his words:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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