Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and historyMacalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
History
Ecclesiastical Vestments: Their development and history
Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart
Church vestments
[72] The bishops of Bamberg had a right to wear the archiepiscopal
pontificalia. See p. 102, _ante_.
[73] The ordinary form of crozier was not unknown in Ireland; the
well-known crozier of Cashel is a beautiful specimen. The crook form
was, however, earlier.
[74] This form of crozier is no doubt contemplated in the prophecy
attributed to the druids of Laoghairé, King of Ireland, as cited in the
law-tract known as the _Senchus Mór_—
'Tiucfaid Tailginn tar muir meirginn
A croinn cromcinn, a cinn tollcinn
A miasa in airthiur atighe,' etc.—
that is, 'the Tonsured ones shall come through the stormy sea, their
staves crook-headed, their heads tonsured, their tables in the east of
their houses,' etc. It is worth noting, apropos of what was said
on p. 115 respecting the bishop's _corona_, that the words 'a cinn
tollcinn'—'their heads tonsured,' are thus glossed in the MS.—'.i. a
coirne ina cennaib'—'_i.e._, their _crowns_ on their heads.'
[75] Sentent. IV, dist. 24, quaest. 3, art. 3, _ad fin._ ed. Parmae
(1873), vol. vii, p. 913.
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CHAPTER IV.
THE HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROCESSIONAL VESTMENTS; THE
ORNAMENTATION OF VESTMENTS.
In addition to the garments already described, which are more properly
appropriated to the Eucharistic service, there are a few which are
assumed on other occasions by the clergy of the Western Church. The
occasions upon which these particular vestments are worn belong properly
to the province of Chapter VII. We accordingly postpone the discussion
of them until that chapter is reached, concerning ourselves here with
the development, shape, and ornamentation of the vestments themselves.
The vestments which we have to describe in this chapter are the cassock,
surplice (with its modifications, the rochet and cotta), almuce, and
cope. These constitute the so-called processional vestments; a misnomer,
because they are not exclusively appropriated to processions. There are,
besides, certain others of a more general character, not strictly
falling under the head of either Eucharistic or Processional vesture,
and they will be more conveniently described in this chapter also. These
are the canon's cope, the mozetta, the Roman collar, and the various
types of sacerdotal head-dress.
I. _The Cassock._—The cassock was the long outer gown which was worn by
everyone, clerical and lay, male and female, during the eleventh,
twelfth, and succeeding centuries. When it was abandoned for the very
much more convenient short coat, that conservatism in ecclesiastical
matters, to which the very existence of ecclesiastical vestments is due,
prevented the clergy from following the example of the laity, and left
the cassock as the distinctive outer garment of the clergy on ordinary
occasions, as it still remains. The dignity attaching to a long garment
was also probably a factor in causing its ecclesiastical retention.
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