Prior to the fifth century, the clergy were obliged to wear no distinctive dress in private life. As in the days of the Apostles, the bishops, the priests, the clerks, the deacons, and the choristers wore tunics and sandals, as prescribed by the Saviour in the Gospel of St. Mark (vi. 9). They covered themselves with a square piece of black or brown cloth, which was draped around the figure, and was fastened by neither hook nor tie; beneath it was a plain tunic of a dark colour. In the fifth century Pope Celestinus disapproved of this costume, which caused the followers of Christ to be confounded with the Stoic philosophers. In the sixth century the laity had abandoned the Roman style of costume, and wore short dresses, copied from those of the barbarians who had become the rulers of Gaul; but the Church, careful of the dignity of its ministers, refused to adopt this expensive alteration. Henceforward a broad distinction was established between the dress of the clergy and that of the laity. The Council of Agde (506 A.D.) ordered all clerks to wear clothes and shoes of a peculiar cut, in conformity with their religious profession. Two later councils forbade them the use of the Roman military cloak (_sagum_) and of purple-coloured stuffs. Gregory the Great forbade his household to wear any dress but the long toga, as the one essentially appropriate to the people of the Church. This costume, with scarcely any modification, was worn by all orthodox ecclesiastics, through all the changes of the Middle Ages, until the seventeenth century. The priest, when in the exercise of his holy functions, was not expected to make any change in his dress. Still, from the fourth to the ninth century everything seems to show that his proper costume was always white, or at least that it was so during the celebration of the highest ceremonies. St. Chrysostom, feeling the approach of death, and being anxious to partake of the holy sacrament, called for his white vestments, and distributed those he was wearing, even to his shoes, among his assistants. The customs and traditions of the West conformed in this to those of the East. The neophyte was stripped of his worldly garments, he was clad in a white or religious robe (_habitus religionis_), and was then considered fit to perform his duties. Sometimes, however, the white robes of the sovereign pontiff were adorned with bands of gold or purple. White was not mixed with other tints in the dress of the clergy till towards the ninth century; the five hues admitted by religious symbolism date only from the twelfth century. [Illustration: Fig. 187.--Romanesque perforated Handbell, representing the symbols of the Four Evangelists (Twelfth Century).--From the Archæological Museum at Rheims.]