Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and historyMacalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
History
Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history
Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
Church vestments
On p. 29 we referred to a MS. of uncertain date in the monastery of St
Martin at Autun, which details the vestments worn in the Gallican church
in (probably) the tenth century. This gives a somewhat different
catalogue from the lists of the rest of the Western Church, and displays
some Eastern influence. The _pallium_, _casula_, _alba_, and _stola_ are
described so that they appear identical with the corresponding vestments
elsewhere; the maniple also appears, under the name _vestimentum
parvolum_; and we have in addition the _manualia_ or _manicae_, which do
not appear in any other Western lists; they are said in the MS. to have
been regularly worn 'like bracelets,' and to have covered the arms of
'kings and priests.' This points to vestments after the style of the
=epimanikia= of the Greeks, which will be noticed in their proper place
in Chapter V.
We have now described the vestments worn by the priests of the Western
Church at the Eucharistic service, and are thus in a position to give a
satisfactory answer to the question, 'Were they adaptations of the
Jewish, or natural evolutions of the Roman costume?' We have seen that
the jeweller, the goldsmith, and the embroiderer conspired to make the
vestments of the middle ages as gorgeous as possible, and that therein,
and in some few other particulars, they resembled the Mosaic costume;
but as we go back nearer and nearer to the first ages of Christianity
all the glitter drops off, vestment after vestment disappears, till we
reach the three plain white vestments of the fourth century, from which
it is but a step to the ordinary costume of a Roman citizen of good
position during the second or third century of our era. We have also
seen that all attempts at drawing hidden meanings from the vestments
fail; the results, when not far-fetched, are contradictory and
unconvincing.
[49] Vest. Christ., p. lxxviii.
[50] Vestes etiam sacerdotales per incrementa ad eum qui nunc habetur
auctae sunt ornatum. Nam primis temporibus communi indumento vestiti
missas agebant, sicut et hactenus quidam Orientalium facere
perhibentur.—Walafrid Strabo De Reb. Eccl., cap. xxiv (Migne cxiv 952).
[51] Very often—perhaps more often than not—the lower hem was
ornamented with a narrow edging of embroidery running all round. In
some albs as represented on Continental monuments there is a
considerable distance between the apparel and the hem.
[52] The late brass of Bishop Goodrich, in Ely Cathedral, represents
the stole between the tunicle and dalmatic. This is exceptional, and
probably an engraver's error.
[53] One of these exceptions is presented by a small brass of a priest
(Thomas Westeley, 1535) at Wyvenhoe, near Colchester.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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