Liturgical vestment

“ The Origin and Idea of Ecclesiastical Vestments.—The liturgical vestments of the Catholic Church, East and West, are not, as was at one time commonly supposed, borrowed from the sacerdotal ornaments of the Jewish ritual, although the obvious analogies of this ritual doubtless to a certain extent determined their sacral character; they were developed independently out of the various articles of everyday dress worn by citizens of the Graeco-Roman world under the Empire. ”

“ The period between the 9th and the 13th centuries is that of the final development of the liturgical vestments in the West. In the 9th century appeared the pontifical gloves; in the 10th, the mitre; in the 11th, the use of liturgical shoes and stockings was reserved for cardinals and bishops. By the 12th century, mitre and gloves were worn by all bishops, and in many cases they had assumed a new ornament, the rationale, a merely honorific decoration (supposed to symbolize doctrine and wisdom) , sometimes of the nature of a highly ornamental broad shoulder collar with dependent lappets ”

“ Besides the strictly liturgical vestments there are also numerous articles of costume worn at choir services, in processions, or on ceremonial occasions in everyday life, which have no sacral character; such are the almuce (q.v.) , the cappa and mozzetta (see Cope) , the rochet (q.v.) , the pileolus, a skullcap, worn also sometimes under mitre and tiara. These are generally ensigns of dignity; their form and use varies in different Churches, and they often represent special privileges conferred by the popes, e.g. ”

“ For arrangement, &c., see Morning Prayer, but the various parts of the Service are given each under its own heading.
VESTMENTS. Generally, the garments worn by the clergy in the public services of the Church, but more particularly the special robes worn by some clergymen during the celebration of the Holy Communion.
Alb. A linen vestment longer than the surplice, and with tight sleeves. It is confined at the waist by a girdle, and, when employed in the Eucharist, it is often, though not necessarily, ornamented with patches of embroidery called apparels. ”

“ Sunday clothes are a time-honoured institution, though it is a sign of the times that many now make no difference between their weekday costume and that which they wear on the day of rest, or if they do, they only put on garments which are appropriate to the relaxations in which they are accustomed to indulge. St. Jerome and St. Clement both exhorted the early Christian worshippers to wear a special dress for worship, and the Jews in their synagogues put on a vestment called a talith, which is used by the whole of the congregation as well as by the officiating minister. ”

“ In the spare form, clad in thread-bare garments, there must have been crushed down a gorgeously artistic nature which found visible expression in the beautifully adorned chasubles of the priests and altar cloths, which are solid masses of delicate silken work on a ground of fine silver threads, the colours and lustre of which seem unimpaired by time. ”

“ If "Black-letter" days are observed, the red-coloured vestments should be used on festivals of Martyrs, and white on festivals of Confessors and Virgins.
Reverence for our Lord demands reverential care of the things used in his service. In any case waste is sinful, so that proper economy is called for in the manner of wearing and of keeping the sacred vestments. The priest should exercise due care in handling the vestments when putting them on and in taking them off; also that he does not, when vested, press or rub them against the vesting table and the edge of the altar-mensa. ”

“ The sacristy contains some handsome priestly robes, especially the velvet vestment sent by Pope Julius II. to the last Catholic bishop and martyr (?) , Jón Arason, in the early sixteenth century, and still worn by the chief Protestant dignitary at ordinations. All have been carefully described: they reminded me much of the splendid vestments displayed in the Armenian convent at Jerusalem during Holy Week, and of the specimens of old embroidery, of rich stuffs, rare and interesting, that are worn at certain parts of the Protestant service by the officiating clergyman of Transylvanian Kronstadt. ”

“ Would it, however, be too much to hope that the ladies of England may see fit to adopt the beautiful custom of wearing a special garment for church services? It would be in itself so seemly; it would add so much to the grace and dignity of our worship ”

“ But it is not necessary for beautiful effects that there should be any coloured vestments. When the clergy are duly robed in the orthodox surplice and scarves, there is, perhaps, something funereal in the white linens and black Geneva silk, but yet the traditional white and black have their own value against a background of altar-cloth and reredos splendidly coloured. ”

“ It has come down to us with the Church itself. It is, in fact, simply the dignified dress of primitive days, enriched and ornamented. Times and customs have changed, but the dress of the Priest, made sacred by association with his holy work, has remained unaltered.
In churches where the Holy Eucharist is celebrated with very full ceremonial, the two clergy-men who assist the celebrant, called the "deacon" and "subdeacon," sometimes on festival occasions wear respectively a Dalmatic and a Tunicle. ”

“ Since the inventories ordered by the government in all the churches, most of the people have taken away their gifts in the way of vestments, soutanes, vases, etc., and the red soutanes, shoes and caps, with a handsome white satin embroidered vestment that C. gave the church when she was married, are carefully folded and put away in a safe place out of the church until better times should come. ”

“ Vestments.—Much may be said for the use of a distinctive dress in the holy offices of the Church. It is in accordance with ancient usage; it marks the action of the Minister as not personal, but official; it secures dignity and uniformity, and it is also, like the dress of the priests in the old Jewish Church, "for glory and for beauty."
The American Church has no law upon the subject of vestments. Their use is simply a matter of traditional custom. Those here described have come down to us from our mother Church of England. ”

“ The dress at the ordinary offices (mattins, lauds, etc.) is amice, alb, stole, and cope; a brass at Horsham represents a priest so vested, and has the merit of showing the exact manner in which the stole should be crossed. This combination of vestments was also worn at benedictions, at absolution after a mass for the dead, and, as just remarked, by the assistant at mass if a priest, and by the celebrant at the mass of the pre-sanctified. ”

“ The Gregorian tones are used to a great extent. The officiating clergyman wears a cope on festival days, and it has been the custom until lately to incense the altar during the chanting of the Magnificat. The most complete return, however, to the practice of the ancient church is seen in the celebration of the Eucharist. All the Catholic vestments—the amice, alb, cincture, maniple, stole, and chasuble—have been restored. The regulations of the rubrics respecting different colors for different days and seasons are followed. ”

“ Skinner, "were the ordinary vestments in daily common use in East and West." [34] These would be, naturally, the garments in which, like our Lord himself, the Apostles and others would officiate at the Holy Eucharist, and then reverence would preserve them in subsequent ages. No other supposition can account for their universality, as ministering garments, throughout the world. ”

“ Originally only a choir vestment and peculiar to lower clergy, it gradually—certainly no later than the 13th century—replaced the alb as the vestment proper to the administering of the sacraments and other sacerdotal functions. ”

“ The Liturgical Colours.—In another respect the vestments of the Eastern differ from those of the Western Church. In the East there is no sequence of liturgical colours, nor, indeed, any definite sense of liturgical colour at all; the vestments are usually white or red, and stiff with gold embroidery. ”

“ If it could be settled that certain forms of worship should be permitted at certain hours, no one could complain of being taken by surprise.
As to the distinctive dress at the Holy Communion, the question has really been brought within a very narrow compass. A prescription of such dresses applying to all churches is unquestionably found in a rubric of the Prayer Book of 1549, and is, as many contend, re-enacted in the existing ornaments rubric. ”

“ In front was often a hanging panel of embroidered cloth (the frontal; but frontals of wood, ornamented with carving or enamel, &c.; are also to be found) . These embroidered frontals are changeable, so that the principal colour in the pattern can accord with the liturgical colour of the day. Speaking broadly, red is the colour for feasts of martyrs, white for virgins, violet for penitential seasons, &c.; no less than sixty-three different uses differing in details have been enumerated. A similar panel of needlework (the dossal) is suspended behind the altar. ”

“ The dress of monks usually consists of a tunic or closed gown and scapular, while there may be one or more open gowns with a hood at the back.
Nuns or Sisters of Mercy are so commonly seen in our streets, and they do so much for the benefit of the poor, and take such a part in educational matters, that their dress is very familiar to us. ”

“ The accounts of the rich embroidered ecclesiastical vestments—robes, sandals, girdles, tunics, vests, palls, cloaks, altar-cloths, and veils or hangings of various descriptions, common in churches in the dark ages—would almost surpass belief, if the minuteness with which they are enumerated in some few ancient authors did not attest the fact. ”

“ The form is, as it should seem, the great matter, both as regards symbolism, and as making a distinct difference between the ordinary and the eucharistic dress: the material and colour are secondary. Hence arises a simple and unobtrusive mode of resuming the old distinction, without risk of provoking serious objection: eucharistic vestments of fine linen being not very strikingly different in appearance from the surplice; more especially if, as some hold, surplices in place of tunics be allowable for the assistant clergy. ”

“ A clergyman desirous of being present might appear as a French abbé, or as a monk, in a long brown ample robe with wide sleeves, and a cord round the waist; or a Sacconi or Italian mute, in a monk's long white calico dress, with cord about the waist, and a pointed cap over the head and face, having holes for the eyes and mouth. The tall gamekeeper in Pickwick requires only a brown velveteen coat and gilt buttons, corduroy trousers, stout gaiters, and a game-bag slung on the shoulders. ”

“ He regarded many ecclesiastical ceremonies of his time as modern inventions, and viewed the ancient church vestments as simply the ordinary dresses of the period. These opinions he fully stated in 'Vestiarium Christianum: the Origin and Gradual Development of the Dress of Holy Ministry in the Church,' 1868, 'The Vestments of the Church, an illustrated Lecture,' 1869, and 'The Testimony of the Catacombs and of the Monuments of Christian Art from the Second to the Eighteenth Century, concerning Questions of Doctrine now disputed in the Church,' 1870. ”

“ As at the left hand, so here, quite outside the sacred history on the cope, we have the figure of an individual probably living at the time the vestment was wrought. The dress of the other shows him to be a layman; by the shaven crown upon his head, this person must have been a cleric of some sort: but whether monk, friar, or secular we cannot tell, as his gown has become quite bare, so that we see nothing now but the lower canvas with the lines drawn in black for the shading of the folds. ”

“ The term "vestment" was often used to include not merely the chasuble, but also the other vestments of the celebrant and his assistant ministers; sometimes it also included the vestments of the altar, the frontal and upper frontal; it nearly always included the apparels, sometimes also the albe and amice, but at other times these were reckoned separately among the linen. ”

“ In the Armenian and Coptic rites the vestment is often elaborately embroidered; in the other rites the only ornament is a cross high in the middle of the back, save in the case of bishops of the Orthodox Church, whose sticharia are ornamented with two vertical red stripes (ποταμοί, “rivers”) . In the East as in the West the vestment is specially associated with the ritual of the Eucharist. ”

“ The regular clergy, especially those whose dress is becoming, have great advantage in society; their costume is a mark of humility and renunciation of self, while, at the same time it lends to its wearers a decidedly dignified appearance. ”

“ To celebrate without necessity on two altar-cloths, or on one folded in such manner that it covers the altar twice, would probably constitute a venial sin (St. Lig., bk. VI, n. 375) since the rubric is prescriptive. Formerly the altar-cloths were made of gold and silver cloth inlaid with precious stones, silk, and other material, but at present they must be made of either linen or hemp. No other material may be used, even if it be equivalent to, or better than, linen or hemp for cleanliness, whiteness, or firmness (Cong. Sac. Rit., 15 May, 1819) . ”