Chapter IV: Clerical Costume

We proceed to give some notes on the costume of the secular clergy; first the official costume which they wore when performing the public functions of their order, and next the ordinary costume in which they walked about their parishes and took part in the daily affairs of the mediæval society of which they formed so large and important a part. The first branch of this subject is one of considerable magnitude; it can hardly be altogether omitted in such a series of papers as this, but our limited space requires that we should deal with it as briefly as may be.

Representations of the pope occur not infrequently in ancient paintings. His costume is that of an archbishop, only that instead of the usual mitre he wears a conical tiara. In later times a cross with three crossbars has been used by artists as a symbol of the pope, with two crossbars of a patriarch, and with one crossbar of an archbishop; but Dr. Rock assures us that the pope never had a pastoral staff of this shape, but of one crossbar only; that patriarchs of the Eastern Church used the cross of two bars, but never those of the Western Church; and that the example of Thomas-à-Becket with a cross of two bars, in Queen Mary's Psalter (Royal, 2 B. vii.) is a unique example (and possibly an error of the artist's). A representation of Pope Leo III. from a contemporary picture is engraved in the "Annales Archæologique," vol. viii. p. 257; another very complete and clear representation of the pontifical costume of the time of Innocent III. is engraved by Dr. Rock ("Church of our Fathers," p. 467) from a fresco painting at Subiaco, near Rome. Another representation, of late thirteenth-century date, is given in the famous MS. called the "Psalter of Queen Mary," in the British Museum (Royal, 2 B. vii.); there the pope is in nothing more than ordinary episcopal costume--alb, tunic, chasuble, without the pall--and holds his cross-staff of only one bar in his right hand, and his canonical tiara has one crown round the base. Beside him stands a bishop in the same costume, except that he wears the mitre and holds a crook. A good fourteenth-century representation of a pope and cardinals is in the MS. August. V. f. 459. We give a woodcut of the fifteenth century, from a MS. life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in the British Museum (Julius E. iv. f. 207); the subject is the presentation of the pilgrim earl to the pope, and it enables us to bring into one view the costumes of pope, cardinal, and bishop. A later picture of considerable artistic merit may be found in Hans Burgmair's "Der Weise König," where the pope, officiating at a royal marriage, is habited in a chasuble, and has the three crowns on his tiara.

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.

The bishop wore the same habit as the priest, with the addition of sandals, gloves, a ring, the pastoral staff with a curved head, and the mitre. The chasuble was only worn when celebrating the Holy Communion; on any other ceremonial occasion the cope was worn, _e.g._, when in choir, as in the woodcut on p. 197: or when preaching, as in a picture in the Harl. MS. 1319, engraved in the "Pictorial History of England," vol. i. 806; or when attending parliament. In illuminated MSS. bishops are very commonly represented dressed in alb and cope only, and this seems to have been their most usual habit. If the bishop were a monk or friar he wore the cope over the robe proper to his order. We might multiply indefinitely references to representations of bishops and other ecclesiastics in the illuminated MS. We will content ourselves with one reference to a beautifully drawn figure in the psalter of the close of the 14th century (Harl. 2,897, f. 380). In the early fourteenth-century MS. (Royal, 14 E. iii. at ff. 16 and 25), we find two representations of a bishop in what we may suppose was his ordinary unofficial costume; he wears a blue-grey robe and hood with empty falling sleeves, through which appear the blue sleeves of his under robe; it is the ordinary civil and clerical costume of the period, but he is marked out as a bishop by a white mitre. In the Pontifical of the middle of the fifteenth century, already referred to (Egerton, 1067) at f. 186 in the representation of the ceremony of the feet-washing, the bishop in a long black sleeveless robe[294] over a white alb, and a biretta.

The earliest form of the mitre was that of a simple cap, like a skull-cap, of which there is a representation, giving in many respects a clear and elaborate picture of the episcopal robes, in a woodcut of St. Dunstan in the MS. Cotton, Claudius A. iii.[295] In this early shape it has already the infulæ--two narrow bands hanging down behind. In the twelfth century it is in the form of a large cap, with a depression in the middle, which produces two blunt horns at the sides. There is a good representation of this in the MS. Cotton, Nero C. iv. f. 34, which has been engraved by Strutt, Shaw, and Dr. Rock.

In the Harl. MS. 5,102, f. 17, is a picture of the entombment of an archbishop, in which is well shown the transition shape of the mitre from the twelfth century, already described, to the cleft and pointed shape which was used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The depression is here deepened into a partial cleft, and the mitre is put on so that the horns come before and behind, instead of at the sides, but the horns are still blunt and rounded. The archbishop's gloves in this picture are white, like the mitre, and in shape are like mittens, _i.e._, not divided into fingers.

The shape in the thirteenth and fourteenth century presented a stiff low triangle in front and behind, with a gap between them. It is well shown in a MS. of the close of the twelfth century, Harl. 2,800, f. 6, and, in a shape a little further developed, in the pictures in the Royal MS., 2 B. vii., already noticed. In the fifteenth century the mitre began to be made taller, and with curved sides, as seen in the beautiful woodcut of a bishop and his canons in choir given in our last chapter, p. 197. The latest example in the English Church is in the brass of Archbishop Harsnett, in Chigwell Church, in which also occur the latest examples of the alb, stole, dalmatic, and cope.

The pastoral staff also varied in shape at different times. The earliest examples of it are in the representations of St. Mark and St. Luke,[296] in the "Gospels of MacDurnan," in the Lambeth Library, a work of the middle of the ninth century. St. Luke's staff is short, St. Mark's longer than himself; in both cases the staff terminates with a plain, slightly reflexed curve of about three-fourths of a circle. Some actual examples of the metal heads of these Celtic pastoral staves remain; one is engraved in the "Archæologia Scotica," vol. ii., another is in the British Museum; that of the abbots of Clonmacnoise, and that of the ancient bishops of Waterford, are in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. They were all brought together in 1863 in the Loan Exhibition at South Kensington. One of the earliest English representations of the staff is in the picture of the consecration of a church, in a MS. of the ninth century, in the Rouen Library, engraved in the "Archæologia," vol xxv. p. 17, in the "Pictorial History of England," and by Dr. Rock, ii. p. 24. Here the staff is about the length of an ordinary walking-stick, and is terminated by a round knob.

Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, is represented on his great seal with a short staff, with a tau-cross or crutch head. An actually existing staff of this shape, which belonged to Gerard, Bishop of Limoges, who died in 1022, is engraved in the "Annales Archæologique," vol. x. p. 176. The staves represented in illuminations of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries have usually a plain spiral curve of rather more than a circle;[297] in later times they were ornamented with foliage, and sometimes with statuettes, and were enamelled and jewelled. Numerous representations and actual examples exist; some may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. From early in the fourteenth century downward, a napkin of linen or silk is often found attached by one corner to the head of the staff, whose origin and meaning seem to be undetermined.

The official costume of the remaining orders, together with the symbols significant of their several offices, are well brought out in the degradation of W. Sawtre, already given at p. 214.

Some of the vestments there mentioned may need a few words of explanation. The alb was a kind of long coat with close fitting sleeves made of white[298] linen, and usually, at least during the celebration of divine service, ornamented with four to six square pieces of cloth of gold, or other rich stuff, or of goldsmith's work, which were placed on the skirt before and behind, on the wrist of each sleeve, and on the back and breast. The dalmatic of the deacon was a kind of tunic, reaching generally a little below the knees, and slit some way up the sides, and with short, broad sleeves; it was usually ornamented with a broad hem, which passed round the side slits. The sub-deacon's tunicle was like the dalmatic, but rather shorter, and less ornamented. The cope was a kind of cloak, usually of rich material, fastened across the chest by a large brooch; it was worn by priests in choir and in processions, and on other occasions of state and ceremony. The chasuble was the Eucharistic vestment; originally it was a circle of rich cloth with a slit in the middle, through which the head was passed, and then it fell in ample folds all round the figure. Gradually it was made oval in shape, continually decreasing in width, so as to leave less of the garment to encumber the arms. In its modern shape it consists of two stiff rectangular pieces of cloth, one piece falling before, the other behind, and fastened together at the shoulders of the wearer. The ancient inventories of cathedrals, abbeys, and churches show us that the cope and chasuble were made in every colour, of every rich material, and sometimes embroidered and jewelled. Indeed, all the official robes of the clergy were of the costliest material and most beautiful workmanship which could be obtained. England was celebrated for its skill in the arts employed in their production, and an anecdote of the time of Henry III. shows us that the English ecclesiastical vestments excited admiration and cupidity even at Rome. Their richness had nothing to do with personal pride or luxury on the part of the priests. They were not the property of the clergy, but were generally presented to the churches, to which they belonged in perpetuity; and they were made thus costly on the principle of honouring the divine worship. As men gave their costliest material and noblest Art for the erection of the place in which it was offered, so also for the appliances used in its ministration, and the robes of the ministrants.

In full sacerdotal habit the priests wore the apparelled alb, and stole, and over that the dalmatic, and either the cope or the chasuble over all, with the amys thrown back like a hood over the cope or chasuble. Representations of priests _in pontificalibus_ abound in illuminated MSS., and in their monumental effigies, to such an extent that we need hardly quote any particular examples. Representations of the inferior orders are comparatively rare. Examples of deacons may be found engraved in Dr. Rock's "Church of our Fathers," i. 376, 378, 379, 443, and 444. Two others of early fourteenth-century date may be found in the Add. MS. 10,294, f. 72, one wearing a dalmatic of cloth of gold, the other of scarlet, over the alb. Two others of the latter part of the fourteenth century are seen in King Richard II.'s Book of Hours (Dom. A. xvii. f. 176), one in blue dalmatic embroidered with gold, the other red embroidered with gold. A monumental effigy of a deacon under a mural arch at Avon Dassett, Warwickshire, was referred to by Mr. M. H. Bloxam, in a recent lecture at the Architectural Museum, South Kensington. The effigy, which is of the thirteenth century, is in alb, stole, and dalmatic. We are indebted to Mr. Bloxam for a note of another mutilated effigy of a deacon of the fourteenth century among the ruins of Furness Abbey; he is habited in the alb only, with a girdle round the middle, whose tasselled knobs hang down in front. The stole is passed across the body from the left shoulder, and is fastened together at the right hip.

Dr. Rock, vol. i. p. 384, engraves a very good representation of a ninth-century sub-deacon in his tunicle, holding a pitcher in one hand and an empty chalice in the other; and in vol. ii. p. 89, an acolyte, in what seems to be a surplice, with a scarlet hood--part of his ordinary costume--over it, the date of the drawing being _cir._ 1395 A.D. We have already noted the costume of an ostiary at p. 215. In the illuminations we frequently find an inferior minister attending upon a priest when engaged in his office, but in many cases it is difficult to determine whether he is deacon, sub-deacon, or acolyte, _e.g._--in the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,294, at f. 72, is a priest officiating at a funeral, attended by a minister, who is habited in a pink under robe--his ordinary dress--and over it a short white garment with wide loose sleeves, which may be either a deacon's dalmatic, or a sub-deacon's tunic, or an acolyte's surplice. In the Add. MS. 10,293, at f. 154, is a representation of a priest celebrating mass in a hermitage, with a minister kneeling behind him, habited in a white alb only, holding a lighted taper. Again, in the MS. Royal, 14 E. iii. f. 86, is a picture of a prior dressed like some of the canons in our woodcut from Richard II.'s Book of Hours, in a blue under robe, white surplice, and red stole crossed over the breast, and his furred hood on his head; he is baptizing a heathen king, and an attendant minister, who is dressed in the ordinary secular habit of the time, stands beside, holding the chrismatory. In the same history of Richard Earl of Warwick which we have already quoted, there is at f. 213 v., a boy in a short surplice with a censer. In the early fourteenth-century MS., Royal, 14 E. iii. at f. 84 v., is a picture of a bishop anointing a king; an attendant minister, who carries a holy water vessel and aspersoir, is dressed in a surplice over a pink tunic. The surplice is found in almost as many and as different shapes in the Middle Ages as now; sometimes with narrow sleeves and tight up to the neck; sometimes with shorter and wider sleeves and falling low at the neck; sometimes longer and sometimes shorter in the skirt; never, however, so long as altogether to hide the cassock beneath. In addition to the references already given, it may be sufficient to name as further authorities for ecclesiastical costumes generally:--for Saxon times, the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, engraved in the Archæologia; for the thirteenth century, Queen Mary's Psalter, Royal, 2 B. vii.; for the fourteenth, Royal, 20, c. vii.; for the fifteenth century, Lydgate's "Life of St. Edmund;" for the sixteenth century, Hans Burgmaier's "Der Weise König," and the various works on sepulchral monuments and monumental brasses.

The accompanying woodcut from Col. Johnes's Froissart, vol. i. p. 635, representing the coronation procession of Charles V. of France, will help us to exhibit some of the orders of the clergy with their proper costume and symbols. First goes the aquabajalus, in alb, sprinkling holy water; then a cross-bearer in cassock and surplice; then two priests, in cassock, surplice, and cope; then follows a canon in his cap (biretta), with his furred amys over his arm.[299]

* * * * *

But the clergy wore these robes only when actually engaged in some official act. What was their ordinary costume is generally little known, and it is a part of the subject in which we are especially interested in these papers. From the earliest times of the English Church downwards it was considered by the rulers of the Church that clergymen ought to be distinguished from laymen not only by the tonsure, but also by their dress. We do not find that any uniform habit was prescribed to them, such as distinguished the regular orders of monks and friars from the laity, and from one another; but we gather from the canons of synods, and the injunctions of bishops, that the clergy were expected to wear their clothes not too gay in colour, and not too fashionably cut; that they were to abstain from wearing ornaments or carrying arms; and that their horse furniture was to be in the same severe style. We also gather from the frequent repetition of canons on the subject, and the growing earnestness of their tone, that these injunctions were very generally disregarded. We need not take the reader through the whole series of authorities which may be found in the various collections of councils; a single quotation from the injunctions of John (Stratford) Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1342, will suffice to give us a comprehensive sketch of the general contents of the whole series.

"The external costume often shows the internal character and condition of persons; and though the behaviour of clerks ought to be an example and pattern of the laity, yet the abuse of clerks, which has gained ground more than usually in these days in tonsures, in garments, in horse trappings, and other things, has now generated an abominable scandal among the people, while persons holding ecclesiastical dignities, rectories, honourable prebends, and benefices with cure of souls, even when ordained to holy orders, scorn to wear the crown (which is the token of the heavenly kingdom and of perfection), and, using the distinction of hair extended almost to the shoulders like effeminate persons, walk about clothed in a military rather than a clerical outer habit, viz., short, or notably scant, and with excessively wide sleeves, which do not cover the elbows, but hang down, lined, or, as they say, turned up with fur or silk, and hoods with tippets of wonderful length, and with long beards; and rashly dare, contrary to the canonical sanctions, to use rings indifferently on their fingers; and to be girt with zones, studded with precious stones of wonderful size, with purses engraved with various figures, enamelled and gilt, and attached to them (_i.e._ to the girdle), with knives, hanging after the fashion of swords, also with buskins red and even checked, green shoes and peaked and cut[300] in many ways, with cruppers (_croperiis_) to their saddles, and horns hanging to their necks, capes and cloaks furred openly at the edges to such an extent, that little or no distinction appears of clerks from laymen, whereby they render themselves, through their demerits, unworthy of the privilege of their order and profession.

"We therefore, wishing henceforward to prevent such errors, &c., command and ordain, that whoever obtain ecclesiastical benefices in our province, especially if ordained to holy orders, wear clerical garments and tonsure suitable to their status; but if any clerks of our province go publicly in an outer garment short, or notably scant, or in one with long or excessively wide sleeves, not touching the elbow round about, but hanging, with untonsured hair and long beard, or publicly wear their rings on their fingers, &c., if, on admonition, they do not reform within six months, they shall be suspended, and shall only be absolved by their diocesan, and then only on condition that they pay one-fifth of a year's income to the poor of the place through the diocesan," &c., &c.

The authorities tried to get these canons observed. Grostête sent back a curate who came to him for ordination "dressed in rings and scarlet like a courtier."[301] Some of the vicars of York Cathedral[302] were presented in 1362 A.D. for being in the habit of going through the city in short tunics, ornamentally trimmed, with knives and baselards[303] hanging at their girdles. But the evidence before us seems to prove that it was not only the acolyte-rectors, and worldly-minded clerics, who indulged in such fashions, but that the secular clergy generally resisted these endeavours to impose upon them anything approaching to a regular habit like those worn by the monks and friars, and persisted in refusing to wear sad colours, or to cut their coats differently from other people, or to abstain from wearing a gold ring or an ornamented girdle. In the drawings of the secular clergy in the illuminated MSS., we constantly find them in the ordinary civil costume. Even in representations of the different orders and ranks of the secular clergy drawn by friendly hands, and intended to represent them _comme il faut_, we find them dressed in violation of the canons.

We have already had occasion to notice a bishop in a blue-grey gown and hood, over a blue under-robe; and a prior performing a royal baptism, and canons performing service under the presidency of their bishop, with the blue and red robes of every-day life under their ritual surplices. The MSS. furnish us with an abundance of other examples, _e.g._--In the early fourteenth-century MS., Add. 10,293, at f. 131 v., is a picture showing "how the priests read before the barony the letter which the false queen sent to Arthur." One of the persons thus described as priests has a blue gown and hood and black shoes, the other a claret-coloured gown and hood and red shoes.

But our best examples are those in the book (Cott. Nero D. vii.) before quoted, in which the grateful monks of St. Alban's have recorded the names and good deeds of those who had presented gifts or done services to the convent. In many cases the scribe has given us a portrait of the benefactor in the margin of the record; and these portraits supply us with an authentic gallery of typical portraits of the various orders of society of the time at which they were executed. From these we have taken the three examples we here present to the reader. On f. 100 v. is a portrait of one Lawrence, a clerk, who is dressed in a brown robe; another clerk, William by name, is in a scarlet robe and hood; on f. 93 v., Leofric, a deacon, is in a blue robe and hood. The accompanying woodcut, from folio 105, is Dns. Ricardus de Threton, sacerdos,--Sir Richard de Threton, priest,--who was executor of Sir Robert de Thorp, knight, formerly chancellor of the king, and who gave twenty marks to the convent. Our woodcut gives only the outlines of the full-length portrait. In the original the robe and hood are of full bright blue, lined with white; the under sleeves, which appear at the wrists, are of the same colour; and the shoes are red. At f. 106 v. is Dns. Bartholomeus de Wendone, rector of the church of Thakreston, and the character of the face leads us to think that it may have been intended for a portrait. His robe and hood and sleeves are scarlet, with black shoes. Another rector, Dns. Johannes Rodland (at f. 105), rector of the church of Todyngton, has a green robe and scarlet hood. Still another rector, of the church of Little Waltham, is represented half-length in pink gown and purple hood. On f. 108 v. is the full-length portrait which is here represented. It is of Dns. Rogerus, chaplain of the chapel of the Earl of Warwick, at Flamsted. Over a scarlet gown, of the same fashion as those in the preceding pictures, is a pink cloak lined with blue; the hood is scarlet, of the same suit as the gown; the buttons at the shoulder of the cloak are white, the shoes red. It will be seen also that all three of these clergymen wear the moustache and beard.

Dominus Robertus de Walsham, precentor of Sarum (f. 100 v.), is in his choir habit, a white surplice, and over it a fur amys fastened at the throat with a brooch. Dns. Robertus de Hereforde, Dean of Sarum (f. 101), has a lilac robe and hood fastened by a gold brooch. There is another dean, Magister Johnnes Appleby, Dean of St. Paul's, at f. 105, whose costume is not very distinctly drawn. It may be necessary to assure some of our readers, that the colours here described were not given at the caprice of a limner wishing to make his page look gay. The portraits were perhaps imaginary, but the personages are habited in the costume proper to their rank and order. The series of Benedictine abbots and monks in the same book are in black robes; other monks introduced are in the proper habit of their order; a king in his royal robes; a knight sometimes in armour, sometimes in the civil costume of his rank, with a sword by his side, and a chaplet round his flowing hair; a lady in the fashionable dress of the time; a burgher in his proper habit, with his hair cut short. And so the clergy are represented in the dress which they usually wore; and, for our purpose, the pictures are more valuable than if they were actual portraits of individual peculiarities of costume, because we are the more sure that they give us the usual and recognised costume of the several characters. Indeed, it is a rule, which has very rare exceptions, that the mediæval illuminators represented contemporary subjects with scrupulous accuracy. We give another representation from the picture of John Ball, the priest who was concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion, taken from a MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, in the Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris. The whole picture is interesting; the background is a church, in whose churchyard are three tall crosses. Ball is preaching from the pulpit of his saddle to the crowd of insurgents who occupy the left side of the picture. In the Froissart MS. Harl. 4,380, at f. 20, is a picture of _un vaillant homme et clerque nommé Maistre Johan Warennes_, preaching against Pope Boniface; he is in a pulpit panelled in green and gold, with a pall hung over the front, and the people sit on benches before him; he is habited in a blue robe and hood lined with white.

The author of Piers Ploughman, carping at the clergy in the latter half of the fourteenth century, says it would be better

"If many a priest bare for their baselards and their brooches,
A pair of beads in their hand, and a book under their arm.
Sire[304] John and Sire Geffrey hath a girdle of silver,
A baselard and a knife, with botons overgilt."

A little later, he speaks of proud priests habited in patlocks,--a short jacket worn by laymen,--with peaked shoes and large knives or daggers. And in the poems of John Audelay, in the fifteenth century, a parish priest is described in

"His girdle harnesched with silver, his baselard hangs by."

In the wills of the clergy they themselves describe their "togas" of gay colours, trimmed with various furs, and their ornamented girdles and purses, and make no secret of the objectionable knives and baselards. In the Bury St. Edmunds Wills, Adam de Stanton, a chaplain, A.D. 1370, bequeaths one girdle, with purse and knife, valued at 5_s._--a rather large sum of money in those days. In the York wills, John Wynd-hill, Rector of Arnecliffe, A.D. 1431, bequeaths a pair of amber beads, such as Piers Ploughman says a priest ought "to bear in his hand, and a book under his arm;" and, curiously enough, in the next sentence he leaves "an English book of Piers Ploughman;" but he does not seem to have been much influenced by the popular poet's invectives, for he goes on to bequeath two green gowns and one of murrey and one of sanguine colour, besides two of black, all trimmed with various furs; also, one girdle of sanguine silk, ornamented with silver, and gilded, and another zone of green and white, ornamented with silver and gilded; and he also leaves behind him--_proh pudor_--his best silver girdle, and a baselard with ivory and silver handle. John Gilby, Rector of Knesale, 1434-5, leaves a red toga, furred with byce, a black zone of silk with gilt bars, and a zone ornamented with silver. J. Bagule, Rector of All Saints, York, A.D. 1438, leaves a little baselard, with a zone harnessed with silver, to Sir T. Astell, a chaplain. W. Duffield, a chantry priest at York, A.D. 1443, leaves a black zone silvered, a purse called a "gypsire," and a white purse of "Burdeux." W. Siverd, chaplain, leaves to H. Hobshot a hawk-bag; and to W. Day, parochial chaplain of Calton, a pair of hawk-bag rings; and to J. Sarle, chaplain, "my ruby zone, silvered, and my toga, furred with 'bevers;'" and to the wife of J. Bridlington, "a ruby purse of satin." R. Rolleston, provost of the church of Beverley, A.D. 1450, leaves a "toga lunata" with a red hood, a toga and hood of violet, a long toga and hood of black, trimmed with martrons, and a toga and hood of violet. J. Clyft, chaplain, A.D. 1455, leaves a zone of silk, ornamented with silver. J. Tidman, chaplain, A.D. 1458, a toga of violet and one of meld. C. Lassels, chaplain, A.D. 1461, a green toga and a white zone, silvered. T. Horneby, rector of Stokesley, A.D. 1464, a red toga and hood; and, among the Richmondshire Wills, we find that of Sir Henry Halled, Lady-priest of the parish of Kirby-in-Kendal, in 1542 A.D. (four years before the suppression of the chantries), who leaves a short gown and a long gown, whose colour is not specified, but was probably black, which seems by this time to have been the most usual clerical wear.

The accompanying woodcut will admirably illustrate the ornamented girdle, purse, and knife, of which we have been reading. It is from a MS. of Chaucer's poem of the Romaunt of the Rose (Harl. 4,425, f. 143), and represents a priest confessing a lady in a church. The characters in the scene are, like the poem, allegorical; the priest is Genius, and the lady is Dame Nature; but it is not the less an accurate picture of a confessional scene of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The priest is habited in a robe of purple, with a black cap and a black liripipe attached to it, brought over the shoulder to the front, and falling over the arm. The tab, peeping from beneath the cap above the ear, is red; the girdle, purse, and knife, are, in the original illumination, very clearly represented. In another picture of the same person, at f. 106, the black girdle is represented as ornamented with little circles of gold.

Many of these clergymen had one black toga with hood _en suite_--not for constant use in divine service, for, as we have already seen, they are generally represented in the illuminations with coloured "togas" under their surplices,--but perhaps, for wear on mourning occasions. Thus, in the presentations of York Cathedral, A.D. 1519, "We thynke it were convenient that whene we fetche a corse to the churche, that we shulde be in our blak abbettes [habits] mornyngly, w{t} our hodes of the same of our hedes, as is used in many other places."[305]

At the time of the Reformation, when the English clergy abandoned the mediæval official robes, they also desisted from wearing the tonsure, which had for many centuries been the distinguishing mark of a cleric, and they seem generally to have adopted the academical dress, for the model both of their official and their ordinary dress. The Puritan clergy adopted a costume which differed little, if at all, from that of the laity of the same school. But it is curious that this question of clerical dress continued to be one of complaint on one side, and resistance on the other, down to the end of our ecclesiastical legislation. The 74th canon of 1603 is as rhetorical in form, and as querulous in tone, and as minute in its description of the way in which ecclesiastical persons should, and the way in which they should not, dress, as is the Injunction of 1342, which we have already quoted. "The true, ancient, and flourishing churches of Christ, being ever desirous that their prelacy and clergy might be had as well in outward reverence, as otherwise regarded for the worthiness of their ministry, did think it fit, by a prescript form of decent and comely apparel, to have them known to the people, and thereby to receive the honour and estimation due to the special messengers and ministers of Almighty God: we, therefore, following their grave judgment and the ancient custom of the Church of England, and hoping that in time new fangleness of apparel in some factious persons will die of itself, do constitute and appoint, that the archbishops and bishops shall not intermit to use the accustomed apparel of their degree. Likewise, all deans, masters of colleges, archdeacons, and prebendaries, in cathedrals and collegiate churches (being priests or deacons), doctors in divinity, law, and physic, bachelors in divinity, masters of arts, and bachelors of law, having any ecclesiastical living, shall wear gowns with standing collars, and sleeves straight at the hands, or wide sleeves, as is used in the universities, with hoods or tippets of silk or sarcenet, and square caps; and that all other ministers admitted, or to be admitted, into that function, shall also usually wear the like apparel as is aforesaid, except tippets only. We do further in like manner ordain, that all the said ecclesiastical persons above mentioned shall usually wear on their journeys cloaks with sleeves, commonly called Priests' Cloaks, without guards, welts, long buttons, or cuts. And no ecclesiastical person shall wear any coif, or wrought night-cap, but only plain night caps of black silk, satin, or velvet. In all which particulars concerning the apparel here prescribed, our meaning is not to attribute any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments, but for decency, gravity, and order, as is before specified. In private houses and in their studies the said persons ecclesiastical may use any comely and scholarlike apparel, provided that it be not cut or pinkt; and that in public they go not in their doublet and hose without coats or cassocks; and that they wear not any light-coloured stockings. Likewise, poor beneficed men and curates (not being able to provide themselves long gowns) may go in short gowns of the fashion aforesaid."

The portraits prefixed to the folio works of the great divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have made us familiar with the fact, that at the time of the Reformation the clergy wore the beard and moustache. They continued to wear the cassock and gown as their ordinary out-door costume until as late as the time of George II.; but in the fashion of doublet and hose, hats, shoes, and hair, they followed the custom of other gentlemen. Mr. Fairholt, in his "Costume in England," p. 327, gives us a woodcut from a print of 1680 A.D., which admirably illustrates the ordinary out-door dress of a clergyman of the time of William and Mary.