In antiquarian or any other investigations it is invariably the best rule, when a puzzle is set for solution, to work backwards from the known to the unknown. We will follow this course in speaking of this vestment, and commence with a description of it as worn at the present day. The modern _subcingulum_ is reserved for the exclusive use of the Pope. It takes the form of a girdle, passed round the alb, and having on the left side a maniple-like appendage. This seems to have been the form which it had in the end of the fourteenth century, for in an 'Ordo Missae Pontificalis,' published by Georgi,[61] we read: 'Primo induit (pontifex) sibi albam, deinde cinctorium cum manipulo ad sinistram partem.' In the century before this Durandus, in his 'Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,' writes: 'Sane a sinistro latere pontificis ex cingulo duplex dependet succinctorium'[62]—a doubled 'apron' hangs on the left hand side; and he likens it to a quiver, in the course of an elaborate comparison between the episcopal vestments of his time and the spiritual armour of the Christian. The _succinctorium_ must have adopted this form about the middle of the thirteenth century. At the beginning of that century we find that it had its use, and was not a mere ornament. In the 'Ordo Romanus' of Cencio de Sabellis, written at the end of the twelfth century,[63] is a description of the new Pope's taking possession of the Church of St John Lateran. He is there described as being 'girt with a belt of crimson silk, hanging from which is a purple _purse_ (bursa) containing twelve precious stones and some musk.' These all had their symbolical meaning: the belt denoted purity, the purse almsgiving, the stones the apostles, the musk 'a good odour in the sight of God.' Innocent III, writing at the commencement of the thirteenth century, describes the vestment as peculiar to _bishops_, but does not refer to it as peculiar to _popes_; neither, be it noticed, does Cencio. The last restriction may have crept in one or two centuries after Innocent. He does not enter into many details concerning it, but he clearly distinguishes it from the _zona_, or girdle, which denotes continence, as the _subcingulum_ signifies abstinence.[64] About this time a fresco was executed on the wall of the _Sagro Speco_ at Subiaco, which remains till the present day. It represents a Pope fully vested, but under the folds of the chasuble on either side is a fretted ornament which is certainly not part of any of the ordinary vestments of any rank of clergy. There is no alternative but to regard Dr Rock as correct in considering this ornament as part of the subcingulum. [Illustration: FIG. 15.—FIGURE OF A POPE. (_Temp._ INNOCENT III.)]