Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third EditionCutts, Edward Lewes
History
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third Edition
Cutts, Edward Lewes
Civilization, Medieval; Middle Ages -- Social life and customs
The cardinalate is not an ecclesiastical "order." Originally the name was
applied to the priests of the chief churches of Rome, who formed the
chapter of the Bishop of Rome. In later times they were the princes of the
papal sovereignty, and the dignity was conferred not only upon the highest
order of the hierarchy, but upon priests, deacons,[291] and even upon men
who had only taken minor orders to qualify themselves for holding office
in the papal kingdom. The red hat, which became their distinctive symbol,
is said to have been given them first by Innocent VI. at the Council of
Lyons in 1245; and De Curbio says they first wore it in 1246, at the
interview between the pope and Louis IX. of France. A representation of it
may be seen in the MS. Royal, 16 G. vi., which is engraved in the
"Pictorial History of England," vol. i. 869. Another very clear and good
representation of the costume of a cardinal is in the plate in Hans
Burgmair's "Der Weise König," already mentioned; a group of them is on the
right side of the drawing, each with a fur-lined hood on his head, and his
hat over the hood. It is not the hat which is peculiar to cardinals, but
the colour of it, and the number of its tassels. Other ecclesiastics wore
the hat of the same shape, but only a cardinal wears it of scarlet.
Moreover, a priest wore only one tassel to each string, a bishop three, a
cardinal seven. It was not the hat only which was scarlet. Wolsey, we
read, was in the habit of dressing entirely in scarlet for his ordinary
costume. In the Decretals of Pope Gregory, Royal, 10 E. iv. f. 3 v., are
representations of cardinals in red gown and hood and hat. On the
following page they are represented, in _pontificalibus_.
The archbishop wore the habit of a bishop, his differences being in the
crosier and pall.[292] His crozier had a cross head instead of a curved
head like the bishop's. Over the chasuble he wore the pall, which was a
flat circular band, or collar, placed loosely round the shoulders, with
long ends hanging down behind and before, made of lambs' wool, and marked
with a number of crosses. Dr. Rock has engraved[293] two remarkably
interesting early representations of archbishops of Ravenna, in which a
very early form of the pontifical garments is given, viz., the sandals,
alb, stole, tunic, chasuble, pall, and tonsure. They are not represented
with either mitre or staff. Other representations of archbishops may be
found of the eleventh century in the Bayeux tapestry, and of the
thirteenth in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii. In the Froissart MS., Harl. 4,380,
at f. 170, is a fifteenth-century representation of the Archbishop of
Canterbury in ordinary dress--a lavender-coloured gown and red liripipe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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