Mr St John Hope, in a paper in 'Archaeologia,' vol. liv, p. 81, has traced the history of the appearance of the almuce during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by reference to sculptured effigies and brasses in England. From this paper I extract the following illustrative examples: 1. An effigy in Hereford Cathedral, _circa_ 1311, shows the almuce 'like a short cape down to the elbows, with long and broad pendants in front, and turned back round the neck like a loose, high-standing collar. The chief point to notice, however, is that the vestment is quite open in front and not joined on the breast, showing that it was put on like a woman's shawl.' 2. Another effigy in the same cathedral, _circa_ 1320, shows a similar arrangement with the addition of a large morse to fasten the almuce. 3. In the fifteenth century, when the pendent tails became common, we find two brasses at Cobham, Kent, one showing the almuce clasped on the breast by a brooch, the other showing it open all down the front under the cope. 4. In a drawing at New College, Oxford, executed about 1446, the Warden of Winchester College is represented in a furred almuce not open in front, but the Fellows who stand near him wear almuces laced up the front. This drawing is reproduced in 'Archaeologia,' vol. liii, plate 14. 5. An effigy dating from the very end of the fifteenth century in St Martin's, Birmingham, illustrates the almuce as it appeared when the cape was joined completely across the breast. To these facts we may add that as a general rule the two front tails in the earlier representations of almuces have plain ends; in those of later representations (from _circa_ 1450) the tails have a small ornamental tassel, or tuft, attached to their ends. [Illustration] VI. _The Cope._—The cope may date back, as a vestment, to the ninth century, but in that form it is certainly not older. Before that time it was nothing more or less than an overcoat, which the clergy kept on in their cold and draughty churches or in open-air processions. It is represented in an Anglo-Saxon pontifical of _circa_ 900 as a plain cloth vestment, fastened at the neck by a brooch or morse; the shape is similar to that which we find in later times. The shape of the cope was very much that of half the chasuble. It was secured at the neck by a brooch, and suffered to drape on the person. The material, at least in mediaeval times, was silk, cloth of gold, velvet, or other precious stuffs. It was magnificently embroidered, jewelled, and enriched with precious metals, the embroideries consisting either of strips along the straight edges, which hung down in front, or else of these strips combined with patterns running over the entire surface of the vestment, or confined to the lower border. It is hard to say whether the cope or the chasuble was the richer vestment in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.