CHAPTER II. THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS IN THE WESTERN CHURCH.

The last chapter has carried us down to the end of the fourth century A.D. For some time back the Roman Empire had been showing signs of disintegration. Already the three sons of Constantine had divided the imperial power among themselves; but the rule thus severed had again been united in the person of Constantius. In 395, however, the emperor Theodosius died, and left the empire of the world to be parted between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius.

It would be outside our scope to enter into the details of the far-reaching consequences of this great event. For our present purpose it is sufficient to state that, with the empire in which it had been born and nurtured, the church was divided into two parts, which were thenceforth to {25} develop independently, now in parallel, now in widely divergent lines.

It will be convenient to regard the first chapter as dealing with the period between the institution of Christianity and the partition of the Roman Empire; and in the present chapter to discuss the interval between the latter event and the accession of Charles the Great. We thereby divide the history into two epochs of approximately four centuries each, with characteristics sufficiently well marked to distinguish one from the other. Following Marriott, we shall name the first the primitive, the second the transitional period. We have seen that there is no evidence that vestments of any definite form were prescribed for use during the former epoch; we shall see in the present chapter how vestment-usage rapidly developed in the churches of the West till it culminated in the gorgeous enrichment of mediaeval times.

Although the differences between the vestments of the Western and the Eastern churches consist largely in matters of detail, they are sufficiently conspicuous, and their histories are sufficiently divergent, to render their independent treatment advisable. We shall therefore postpone the discussion of the latter till we have investigated the evolution and subsequent elaboration of the former.

The empire to which Honorius succeeded consisted {26} of Italy, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. Although the evidence which is extant does not permit us to trace completely the history of vestments throughout this period, yet from scattered documents we are able to see that for the most part the development of ecclesiastical costume proceeded on the same lines throughout this vast area.

Ritual in matters of dress had rapidly been growing. Pope Celestine, who occupied the Roman See from 423 till 432, found it necessary to write a sharp letter to the Bishops of Vienne and Narbonne for 'devoting themselves rather to superstitious observances in dress than to purity of heart and faith.' Certain monks, it appears, had attained to episcopal rank, but had retained their ascetic costume. Some of Celestine's sentences are very striking in this connection; and although they refer primarily to outdoor costume, we cannot but think that, in a later age, when the regulations governing the ritual uses of vestments had been formulated, and the vestments themselves had been elaborated to their ultimate form, the force of his words would have been somewhat modified. 'By dressing in a cloak [pallium],' he says, 'and by girding themselves with a girdle, they think to fulfil the truth of Scripture, not in the spirit, but in the letter. For if these precepts were given to the end that they should be obeyed in this wise, why do they not likewise that which {27} follows, and carry burning lights in their hands as well as their pastoral staves? We should be distinguished from the common people, or from all others, by our learning, not by our dress; by our habit of life, not by our clothing; by the purity of our minds, not by the cut of our garments. For if we begin to introduce novelties, we shall trample under foot the usage which our fathers have handed down to us, and give place to vain superstitions.'

The fullest information on the subject of vestments during this period comes from Spain, in the oft-quoted acts of the fourth council of Toledo, which sat under the presidency of St Isidore of Seville in the year 633. Of the canons which were drawn up at this council that which is of the highest importance in this inquiry is the twenty-eighth, although it is not directly connected with vestment-usage. It provides for the case of a cleric who had been unjustly degraded from his order, and ordains that such a one, if he be found innocent in a subsequent synod, 'cannot be reinstated in his former position unless he regain his lost dignities before the altar, at the hands of a bishop. If he be a bishop, he must receive the orarium,[15] ring, and staff; if a priest, the orarium {28} and planeta; if a deacon, the orarium and alba; if a subdeacon, the paten and chalice, and similarly for the other orders—they must receive, on their restoration, whatever they received on their ordination.'[16]

On the principle which is all but universal, that the clergy of the higher orders added the insignia of the lower orders to those of their own, we are enabled by the help of this act to draw up a table of the vestments recognised in Spain, which shows at a glance the manner in which they were distributed among the different orders of clergy:

    Alba: worn by all alike.
    Orarium: worn by deacons, priests, and bishops.
    Planeta: worn by priests and bishops.
    Ring and staff: exclusively for bishops.

Some letters of Gregory the Great (Bishop of Rome 590-604) give us particulars relating to {29} three other vestments not in general use throughout the church. These are the dalmatica, the mappula, and the pallium. Lastly, an anonymous MS. of uncertain date[17] enumerates the pallium, casula, manualia, vestimentum, alba, and stola as the vestments worn in the Gallican Church. It is to be regretted that none of the British authors of the period have preserved any record of contemporary vestment-usage in this country; we have, however, no reason to suppose that it differed from that of the Continent.

Let us now take each of the above vestments in order, and collect whatever information is obtainable upon their appearance and history, comparing each in turn with its supposed Roman prototype.

I. The Alba.—This word is the abbreviated form of the full name, tunica alba, by which a flowing tunic of white linen was denoted. It appears that the first use of this word as a technical term for a special robe is in a passage of Trebellius Pollio (in Claud., xiv, xvii), who {30} speaks of an alba subserica, mentioned in a letter sent from Valerian to Zosimio, Procurator of Syria, about 260-270 A.D. In the 41st canon of the fourth council of Carthage (circa 400 A.D.)[18] we meet with the first use of this word in an ecclesiastical connection, in one of the earliest (if not the earliest) regulations ever passed to govern the ritual usage of vestments. This ordains that the deacon shall wear an alba only 'tempore oblationis tantum vel lectionis.'

The constant evidence of contemporary pictures indicates that the alba was a long, full, and flowing vesture. In this respect it differed from the Mosaic tunic, on the one hand, and the mediaeval alb on the other. Both these vestments fitted closely to the body for reasons of convenience, for a flowing tunic would obviously hamper the Levitical priest in the discharge of his sacrificial duties, and would not sit comfortably under the vestments with which it was overlaid in mediaeval times.

Nearly two centuries after the fourth council of Carthage we find the first council of Narbonne (A.D. 589) enacting that 'neither deacon nor subdeacon, nor yet the lector, shall presume to put off his alba till after mass is over.'[19] To this {31} canon, which was clearly framed to check some tendency to irregularity that had become noticeable in the celebration of mass, we are indebted for two facts: first, that ritual usage in vestments was now firmly established; and second, that the alba was the dress of the minor orders of clergy. This latter point is not clearly brought out in the Toletan canon already quoted.

Of the garments worn in everyday life by the Roman citizen, the innermost was the tunica talaris, or long tunic. This article of dress was white, usually of wool; it was passed over the head and reached to the feet, the epithet talaris ('reaching to the ankles') being employed to distinguish it, as the tunic of ceremony, from the short tunics worn when freedom was required for active exertion.[20] It fitted tolerably closely to the body, though it was sufficiently loose to require a girdle to confine it. The tunics of senators and equites were distinguished by two bands of purple, in the former case broad (lati clavi), in the latter narrow (angusti clavi), which passed from the sides of the aperture for the head down to the lower hem of the garment.

A comparison of the ecclesiastical tunica alba with the civil tunica talaris will bring out some remarkable points of resemblance. Both were {32} worn in the same manner, and both reached to the feet; it is true that the ecclesiastical dress was slightly fuller than the civil, but this was necessary, as room was required underneath the alba for the wearer's everyday dress. Further, we find ecclesiastics represented in ancient frescoes wearing albae which actually show ornaments disposed like the clavi of the tunica talaris. These clavi were early employed by the Christians to distinguish, by their relative width, the representations of Our Lord from those of the Apostles, or to discriminate between the figures of ecclesiastics of different orders.

It is also important to notice that the alba is invariably furnished with tight sleeves reaching to the wrist. The tunic was originally a sleeveless garment; but with the growth of luxury, a new kind provided with sleeves gradually came into favour. These two forms of tunic were distinguished by different names: the older or sleeveless tunic was called colobium, a Latinization of the Greek name κολόβιον;[21] and the latter or sleeved tunic was named tunica manicata or tunica dalmatica, from the name of the province to which its invention was ascribed.

In the early days of Rome the use of a tunica dalmatica stamped the wearer with the stigma of effeminacy and utter want of self-respect. The {33} parents of Cornelius Scipio and of Fabius are said to have openly disgraced them in their boyhood, as a punishment ad corrigendos mores, by compelling them to appear in public in this attire. The despicable emperors Commodus and Elagabalus offended all persons of good taste by coming out before all the people in the same costume: the latter impudently calling himself another Scipio or Fabius, in reference to the incident just related.[22] This, however, cannot mean that the scandal lay in the adoption of the luxurious tunica dalmatica in preference to the colobium (for Rome in the time of Elagabalus was too deeply steeped in luxury and vice to feel shocked at an Emperor merely preferring an under-garment with sleeves to one without those appendages); it rather consisted in his neglecting to put on his pallium, or outer dress, over it. In fact, the tunica dalmatica must have quite ousted its severer rival in popular favour by the time of Elagabalus: for we find that in 258, only thirty-six years after the death of that emperor, St Cyprian of Carthage wore a tunica dalmatica, over which was a byrrhus, or cloak, when led out to martyrdom.[23] It is absurd to suppose that Cyprian, on such a solemn occasion, {34} would have assumed a merely luxurious garment, and equally absurd to imagine that he would have worn ecclesiastical vestments at the time, as some commentators on the passage have held. There remains only one other alternative—that the tunica dalmatica was the form of tunic which was in regular use at the time, and this seems quite the most satisfactory hypothesis.

The most important mention of the tunica dalmatica in connection with ecclesiastical matters is in the decree of Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, 253-257. That prelate ordained 'that deacons should use the dalmatica in the church, and that their left hands should be covered with a cloth of mingled wool and linen.'[24] Various authors supplement this passage; thus, the anonymous author of the tract 'De Divinis Officiis,' formerly attributed to Alcuin, tells us that 'the use of dalmaticae was instituted by Pope Sylvester, for previously colobia had been worn.'[25]

Much importance has been attached to this decree. It is regarded as an additional and incontrovertible proof that ecclesiastical vestments {35} were in use in the primitive church. But on examination, however, it will be found no more to bear such a construction than St Paul's request for his φαιλόνη. The ordinance merely shows that Sylvester had a laudable desire to improve the aesthetics of public worship, and, with this end in view, decreed that thenceforward ecclesiastics should all wear the tunica dalmatica—which had quite outgrown its early evil reputation, and must be admitted to have been a better-looking garment than the scanty and somewhat undignified colobium. It is not at all improbable that many of the clergy wore dalmaticae even before Sylvester's edict: in this case the edict would have the additional advantage of securing uniformity.

All attempts to set up the dalmatica as a separate vestment in early times fail hopelessly. It is unknown to the drafters of the Toletan canons, and no early representation of an ecclesiastic is extant having two vestments visible under the planeta.[26] This would certainly be the case if the two were independent vestments. It is true that St Isidore of Seville wrote, 'Dalmatica vestis primum in Dalmatia provincia Graecia texta est sacerdotalis, candida cum clavis ex purpura;'[27] (the dalmatica is a priestly vestment first made in {36} Dalmatia, a province of Greece, white with purple clavi); but the concluding words show that he was merely thinking of the alba under its more specific name, dalmatica.

A brief recapitulation of this somewhat lengthy argument may not be out of place. Two forms of tunic may be said to have contended one with another for the favour of the Roman people—the sleeveless colobium and the sleeved dalmatica. The latter ultimately gained the victory; and the decree of Pope Sylvester, commanding all ecclesiastics under his authority to assume it in place of the former, finally established its use in the church. Now, when we find that, two or three centuries after Sylvester's time, a vestment was worn by ecclesiastics in Divine service identical with the tunica dalmatica in almost every respect, even to the presence of the clavi, which (in the secular dress) indicated the rank of the wearer, it is only natural to regard the one as directly derived from the other.

There is one other point of importance in the history of this vestment in the transitional period. It was found that such a flowing garment as the alba seriously incommoded the priest on some occasions, particularly in administering baptism by immersion. Accordingly, an alba fitting closely to the body was invented for use on such occasions, and is represented in certain MS. illuminations, {37} particularly a ninth-century pontifical now in the St Minerva Library at Rome. The special importance of this point is due to the fact that this baptismal alba was probably the immediate parent of the mediaeval alb; the closer vestment being found more convenient on other occasions as well as that of baptism, and having gradually become adopted in all the other offices of the Church as well.
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Fig. 2.—A Bishop administering Baptism.

II. The Orarium.—Both this vestment and the name by which it was known have given much trouble to scholars. The following list of the various derivations which have been suggested for the word orarium (arranged in order of probability) is not uninteresting:
{38}

    1. Ora, because used to wipe the face.
    2. Orare, because used in prayer.
    3. ὥρα, because it indicated the time of the different parts of the service.
    4. ὡραΐζειν, because the deacon was beautified with it.
    5. Ora (a coast), because (alleged to have been) originally the edging of a lost garment.
    6. ὁράω, because the sight of it indicated whether a priest or deacon was ministering (!).

There can be little doubt that the first is the true etymology. The others are all more or less fanciful; and the orarium was certainly employed originally as a scarf. Ambrose speaks of the face of the dead Lazarus being bound with an orarium; and Augustine uses the same word to indicate a bandage employed to tie up a wounded eye.

Numerous effigies of late date are extant which exhibit a kind of scarf, passing over the left shoulder diagonally downwards to the right side, and fastened under the right arm. As Albertus Rubenius long ago pointed out, these scarves must not be confused with the clavi which ornamented the tunics of senators and equites; for they are worn over the pallium, or outer garment, and are disposed in a manner quite different from that in which the clavi fall.

What, then, are these scarves? The answer to this question is supplied by Flavius Vopiscus in his Life of Aurelian, who, he says, 'was the first to grant oraria to the Roman people, to be worn as {39} favours.'[28] Now, the references which we have just made to Ambrose and Augustine—not to mention others which might equally well be quoted—show that the oraria, whatever may have been the method in which they were worn, must have been narrow strips of some kind of cloth. These peculiar scarves, which are to be seen on certain monuments, do not appear on any effigy dating before the time of Aurelian; the natural inference, therefore, is that the scarves which we see thus represented are actually the oraria, granted to the Roman people by that emperor and his successors. If this argument be not valid, then it is impossible to say either what these scarves really are, or what was the true appearance of the civil orarium.

It is probable that considerable laxity existed in the manner of wearing the ecclesiastical orarium, for the fourth Council of Toledo thought it necessary to enact a special canon to regulate the method in which this vestment should be disposed. The fortieth act of this assembly restricts the number of oraria to one, and enjoins that deacons should wear the orarium over the left shoulder, leaving the right side free so as to facilitate the {40} execution of their duties in Divine service.[29] This act also provides that the diaconal orarium should be plain, not ornamented with gold or embroidery. It will be noticed that this Toletan council favoured the derivation of the word orarium from orare.

The wearing of the orarium was still further regulated by two of the councils which met at Braga. The second council of Braga (563 A.D.) decreed that 'since in some churches of this province the deacons wear their oraria hidden under the tunic, so that they cannot be distinguished from the subdeacons, for the future they must be placed over their shoulders.'[30] The fourth {41} council (675 A.D.) made an important decree regulating the wearing of the orarium by priests, which has been since followed universally. The vestment was to be passed round the neck, over each shoulder, crossed in front, and secured in this position under the girdle of the alba.[31]

The last enactment of importance is that of the council of Mayence (813 A.D.), which ordered that priests should wear their oraria 'without intermission.'[32]

{42} The orarium, then, was a narrow strip of cloth, disposed about the persons of the clergy in various manners according to their rank. To it corresponded in name, shape, and method of disposition, a garment common among the Romans, though admittedly rather an honourable ornament than an actual article of clothing. Yet when we remember how the clavi were employed to distinguish rank among the earlier clergy, this latter fact may be regarded as strengthening the evidence of identity which the correspondence in all salient features affords. Some other theories of its origin will be discussed when we have treated of the pallium.

III. The Planeta.—In the earlier and purer days of the Roman people, the dress which alone was recognised as the proper costume for the citizen was the toga. This was one of the most inconvenient and cumbrous articles of dress ever invented—a great oblong cloth, fifteen feet by ten, thrown in a complicated manner over the left shoulder, folded in front, and hanging loose about the feet. We can hardly feel surprised at finding that, when the citizens came to regard comfort before appearances to such an extent as to adopt sleeved tunics, a more convenient form of this {43} outdoor costume was adopted. There were three varieties of this new[33] garment, each of which has its own name; these were the paenula, the casula, and the planeta.

The paenula was a garment which in the early days of the Republic was allotted to slaves. A slave wearing this dress is introduced into the 'Mostellaria' (IV iii 51) of Plautus. Indeed, according to Julius Pollux ('Onomasticon,' vii 61), the dramatist Rhinthon, who lived in the fourth century B.C., introduced a mention of this garment into his 'Iphigeneia in Tauris,' a fact which would seem to indicate that the dress was much older than his own time, as otherwise his audience would be unfavourably impressed by the anachronism. Numerous allusions in classical Latin authors show that it was adopted as a travelling dress because of its warmth and comparative convenience;[34] but on no account was it worn within the walls of the city. Gradually, however, the use of the garment spread, till Alexander Severus (222-235 A.D.), as Lampridius tells us, permitted elders to wear the paenula within the city in cold {44} weather, though at the same time he forbade women to do so except when on a journey.[35]

The casula was a poor and inferior variety of the paenula, which, when the latter was promoted to be the costume of senators and emperors, succeeded it as the garb of the poorer classes. The original meaning of the name is 'little house'—a diminutive of casa—and there is little evidence to guide us as to the exact appearance of the garment which it denoted. The name would lead us to infer that, like the paenula, it enveloped the entire body; but it is probable that it was made of coarser and cheaper material. The fact that it was early adopted as the distinctive dress of monks would lead us to this conclusion; beyond this there is no reason for supposing that it differed in outline from the paenula.

The planeta first appears in the fifth century A.D. Cassianus (De Habitu Monachorum, i 7) mentions it as a dress whose price prevents its use as a monastic habit; and St Isidore, two centuries later, expressly forbids members of religious orders to wear it. The planeta must therefore have been more costly than the casula, and, as we find it mentioned in the sixth century as the dress of {45} nobles and of senators, it was probably the most expensive of the three.

The general shape of the garment, as shown in Roman paintings or effigies, is that of a cloak enveloping the body, sewn in front, and put on by being passed over the head, for which a suitable aperture was provided. And this shape is identical with the outer vestment which we see in early representations of clerics. The modification which was early adopted, that of making the vestment oval in form, so as to lessen the width over the shoulders and so to give more freedom to the arms, was obviously regulated by convenience.

Thus we have seen that the three principal vestments, as we find them detailed in the earliest lists and depicted in the earliest monuments, are identical in shape, disposition, and name with the Roman civil costume of the second or third century of the Christian era.

Three additional vestments are found enumerated in the letters of St Gregory the Great and elsewhere which were not worn universally throughout the church, but were either carefully confined to the clergy of the city of Rome itself or were in the gift, so to speak, of the Pope. These are the pallium, the mappula, and the dalmatica.

I. The Pallium.—In classical Latin this word is used either as the equivalent of toga or in the general sense of the English 'robe.' It is also {46} used in the earlier ecclesiastical writers of the casula, or coarse outer garment of monks, as in the passage from Celestine quoted on p. 26. Yet another use of the word pallium is found in the expression pallium linostimum, which denoted a cloth, the use of which was ordained to deacons by Pope {47} Sylvester, as we shall presently see when discussing the mappula.
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Fig. 3.—Ecclesiastics from the Mosaics in S Vitale, Ravenna (Sixth Century).

The pallium, when used by ecclesiastical writers in its proper and restricted sense, denotes an ornament specially appropriated to archbishops. Its earliest form is shown in the Ravenna mosaics—that of a narrow strip of cloth, passed over the left shoulder, looped loosely round the neck, and then passed over the left shoulder again, so that the two ends hang free, one in front, the other behind. This method of disposition seems to indicate an identity of origin with the orarium; indeed, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between these vestments in early representations. A desire for symmetry, probably, decided the next step in its evolution; this consisted in bringing the free end to the middle and knotting it into the lowest point of the loop: this we find exemplified in monuments of the eighth, ninth, or tenth century. From this the transition to the form which became universal in later times was easy, and the two are found contemporaneously. The final form—which will be more fully described in the third chapter—is that of an oval loop with a long tail pendent from its ends, so that when the ornament is in position it presents the appearance of a capital Y on the front and on the back.

The early history of this vestment is involved {48} in deep obscurity. As already hinted, it is not improbably a modification of the orarium; but there is no evidence, further than general outward resemblance, that this is actually the case; nor is there any apparent reason for its appropriation to archbishops. The question must remain open till further research either reveals the missing links in the chain of connection, or elicits some more satisfactory solution of the question.

The idea of Dr Rock, according to which the pallium is viewed as 'the true and only representation of the Roman toga,' is most unsatisfactory. He thinks that the toga, which was folded over the left shoulder, under the right arm, over the right shoulder, and again over the left shoulder, 'dwindled down to a mere broad band,' folded much the same way; and that this broad band was the early pallium. The evolution here supposed is, however, most unnatural; there is not time for it to have taken place between the institution of Christianity and the date of the Ravenna mosaics—much less between the time when ecclesiastical vestments and their development began to receive special attention and the latter date; the toga, as we have already seen, was itself practically obsolete when Christianity began to make itself felt, and still further removed from the current fashion of the time at which archbishops began to require distinguishing insignia; {49} and, lastly, the connecting links between the blanket at one end and the narrow strip of cloth at the other, which Dr Rock adduces and figures, are too few in number to be convincing, and quite explicable on other grounds, such as the unskilfulness of the ancient artist—a fruitful source of error in archæological research.
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Fig. 4.—Effigy of a Roman Citizen in Caerleon Museum.

It is not inconceivable that the origin of the honourable pallium is to be sought in the honourable orarium, distributed as 'favours' to the Roman people; in which case we must seek elsewhere for a prototype to the ecclesiastical orarium. We should then fall back on the old idea, which has by no means been disproved, that in the clavi of the tunica alba is to be found the true original. We reproduce here a figure of an effigy of a Roman citizen at Caerleon, near Newport, which certainly seems to warrant this view; here is to be seen a tunica, a clavus, and a paenula, all very suggestive {50} of the alb, stole, and chasuble of later times. Duchesne, in his 'Origines du culte chrétien,'[36] regards all the orarium-like vestments which appear in contemporary documents as in reality pallia; the orarium proper he does not consider to have been introduced till the tenth century. The orarium which appears before this date he regards as simply a napkin, or sudarium, designed to protect the alba. He further states that in the fourth century the civil law required all officials to wear some distinctive badge of office; that the Eastern Church complied with this law throughout, assigning the ὠμοφοριον, ἐπιτραχήλιον and ὠράριον respectively to bishop, priest, and deacon, while the Western Church only complied with it to the extent of assigning a pallium to the bishops. We confess that this elaborate argument does not appeal to us any more than the theory which regards the stole as the orphrey of a degenerated vestment; but while professing our own belief in Marriott's view, stated above (pp. 38-9), we have given these several theories, leaving it to the reader to make his own choice.

From the earliest references to the pallium which we can find, it is clear that it was from the first regarded as a distinctive vestment to be worn {51} by archbishops only.[37] The archbishops of this early period had not the right, any more than their mediaeval successors, of assuming the pallium on their consecration; it was necessary to apply to the Pope for a grant of the vestment, which was only bestowed on the permission of the reigning sovereign being obtained. The earliest document unquestionably relating to the bestowal of the pallium is a letter of Pope Symmachus, bestowing the pallium on Theodore, Archbishop of Laureacus, in Pannonia, 514 A.D.[38] Instances of the royal assent being considered necessary are found in the letters of Pope Vigilius, who delayed the grant of the pallium to Archbishop Auxanius of Arles for two years, pending the consent of Childebert I, King of the Franks;[39] and in the letters of Pope Gregory the Great, who at the request of Childebert II bestowed the pallium on Virgilius, a later Archbishop of the same province.[40]

In 866 Pope Nicholas I declared that no archbishop might be enthroned or might consecrate the Eucharist till he should receive the pallium at the hands of the Pope.[41]

{52} II. The Mappula.—We have seen in discussing the alba that Pope Sylvester, in the middle of the third century, decreed that the deacons of the city of Rome should substitute dalmaticae for colobia; he further charged them to wear a pallium linostimum on their hands. It is clear that this cloth, as its proper name, mappula (little napkin), demonstrates, was designed to serve the utilitarian purpose of a handkerchief, either to wipe the Communion vessels or the face of the minister—probably the latter.[42] This cloth, however, must early have become regarded as a sacred vestment by its wearers, and the exclusive privilege of the Roman priests to wear it was jealously guarded. Attempts were made by the deacons of the neighbouring churches of Ravenna to assume the vestment, and St Gregory found it necessary to interfere, which he did in {53} several letters to that somewhat recalcitrant prelate, John, the Bishop of Ravenna. For the sake of peace, Gregory admitted a compromise whereby the principal deacons of Ravenna were allowed to wear the coveted ornament; but the glamour of carrying a vestment, however inconvenient,[43] which was theoretically confined to the holy city itself, proved too strong a temptation for the deacons of other places, while the Romans (whose exclusive privilege was gone once Ravenna was admitted to a share in it) took no further steps to prevent its assumption. As a natural consequence, the use of the vestment spread over the whole of the Western Church, and by the time when the period at present engaging our attention ended, had become universal.

III. The Dalmatica.—We have already entered at length into the history of this word and of the vestment to which it was applied. It does not seem to have differed essentially from the alba; but it appears that two[44] vestments were worn at Rome, an alba and a dalmatica, though it is evident from the Toletan canons and other sources that at this early period such was not the case elsewhere. In early pictures the two vestments {54} are rarely represented side by side; it is probable that the dalmatica was so long as to conceal the alba, just as the dalmatic on mediaeval effigies of Bishops often hides the tunicle. It seems, however, to have been shown on the ancient picture of Gregory the Great, described by Joannes Diaconus; and we find that Gregory granted its use to Bishop Aregius of Gap and to his Archdeacon (Ep. ix 107: Migne, lxxvii 1033), forwarding the vestments at the same time as the letter. Clearly the Pope does not denote the alba by the word dalmatica, as we have seen St Isidore of Seville do, for Aregius would naturally wear an alba without papal interference. The vestment in question must, therefore, have been another, resembling the alb in outline, but only worn either at Rome or by those on whom the Pope saw fit to confer it.

The history of the spread of the dalmatica must have been similar to that of the mappula. By the time the third period begins we find it established as an independent vestment, differing from its parent, the alba, in one important respect, which will be detailed in the following chapter.

Although not vestments in the strictest sense of the word, we must not conclude this chapter without a brief notice of the two exclusively episcopal insignia noticed in the canons of the fourth council of Toledo, namely, the ring and staff. Rings have {55} been found in the tombs of bishops of the third century. This, however, proves nothing, as their use was universal among both Christians and heathen. Nor can anything definitely ecclesiastical be tortured out of the many descriptive notices which have come down to us of the rings in the possession of individual bishops of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Isidore of Seville (circa 600) lands us on firmer ground; he distinctly says: 'To the bishop at his consecration is given a staff ... a ring likewise is given him to signify pontifical honour, or as a seal for secret things.'[45] We need not, perhaps, discuss the esoteric meaning of the gift as here set forth; but the fact clearly remains that by Isidore's time the gift of a ring and a staff had become an essential part of the ceremony of episcopal ordination. The Toletan canon tells us the same thing. Before that time there is no clear indication of the gift; it is not mentioned in ordination services of earlier date than the sixth century, one of the oldest references to it being in the sacramentary of Gregory the Great (circa 590 A.D.); and even this passage is rejected as an interpolation by Migne.[46]

{56} The Pastoral Staff.—Isidore says, in the passage already quoted, that the staff is given 'that he may rule or correct those set under him, or support the weakness of the weak.'[47]

It is strange that even the pastoral staff has a prototype among the insignia of the heathen priesthood. One of the emblems of the Roman augurs was a lituus, or crook, resembling almost exactly the earliest pastoral staves as we find them shown in the monuments of early Christian art. It was used inter alia for dividing the sky into regions for astrological purposes. The pastoral staff, as represented in early monuments, was much shorter than the mediaeval crozier; and it seems not at all improbable that the pastoral staff was originally a 'Christianization' of this pagan implement.

Other writers have argued in favour of the pastoral staff being simply an adaptation of the common walking-sticks, which were certainly used in churches as a support before the introduction of seats. It has been pointed out, however, that the pastoral staff had become a special member of the insignia of a bishop before the general abolition of these crutches; and this, it must be confessed, is {57} an argument of considerable force against such a hypothesis.

The letter of Celestine to the Bishops of Narbonne and Vienne, part of which we quoted on pp. 26-7, is probably about the earliest available reference to the use of the pastoral staff by members of the episcopal order. This brings the history of pastoral staves back to the early part of the fifth century, and shows that this special ornament was one of the earliest of the external symbols which the church has prescribed for its officers.
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Fig. 5.—Pope Gregory the Great with Pastoral Staff.

The staff was a rod of wood with a head either crutched or crooked, usually of one of the precious metals. The name suggests that the symbolism of the shepherd had entered largely into the ideas connected with it. It was carried by abbots and abbesses, by bishops, and, till about the tenth century, by the Pope; but with the rapid growth of the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy, the emblem purely associated with the special idea of spiritual pastorate was abandoned. In the old pre-scientific days it used to be stated that the Pope at no time carried {58} a pastoral staff, though he did bear a ferula, or straight sceptre—the symbol of rule;[48] but this is at variance with the evidence of contemporary art.

We must not leave the subject of the earliest form of ecclesiastical vestments without briefly noticing the ornamentation with which they were decorated. In the oldest representations of ecclesiastics which we possess, their vestments were represented pure white, ornamented with the clavi; these were generally black, though St Isidore refers to purple clavi. But other colours appear in very early frescoes and mosaics. These, however, are apparently arbitrary, the result of the notions of the painter on the subject of the artistic combination of colours. Nothing analogous to the 'liturgical colours' of late times is traceable in the early or transitional period of the history of vestments.

Some ornamentation other than the clavi is found in vestments of late date in the present period. Leo III, the date of whose Papal rule lies just on the border-line between the transitional and the mediaeval epoch, presented to the Church of St Susanna a vestment with four gammadia—that {59} is, ornaments shaped like crosses formed by four gammas placed back to back, thus: ╬; we also hear of calliculae, metal or embroidered ornaments, for the alba. A singular method of ornamentation is exemplified by numerous frescoes and mosaics, and has been a fruitful source of perplexity to ecclesiologists. This consists in the use of letters (sometimes of monograms or letter-like arbitrary signs) on the outer hem of the garment. No connection can be traced between these letters and any circumstances known concerning the persons whose vestments they decorate; and wide differences between the times and places of individual examples of the same character preclude their explanation as the faithful copies of weavers' marks. We can only say that their use is inexplicable on such practical or esoteric grounds, and that, therefore, some simple explanation, such as the arbitrary selection of a letter as an elementary ornament, is the only satisfactory means of accounting for their presence. Even now we daily employ rows of O-shaped circles, S-shaped curves, etc., as ornaments, without the slightest reference to the sounds which those symbols denote. The tendency to exalt simple little contrivances into hidden mysteries is ever with us, especially in ecclesiology, and it should on all occasions be repressed.