VESTMENTS, ceremonial garments worn by priests and others in performing the offices of religion. Ecclesiastical vest ments, to which this article is confined, are the special articles of costume worn by the officers of the Christian Church "at all times of their ministration," as distinct from the "clerical costume" worn in everyday life. Ecclesiastical vestments may be divided into two categories: (I) liturgical, (2) non-liturgical. Liturgical vestments are again divided, under the completed rules of the Catholic Church, into three classes: (I) Those worn only at the celebration of mass—chasuble, maniple, pontifical shoes and gloves, pallium; (2) those never worn at mass, but at other litur gical functions—surplice and cope; (3) those used at both—alb, amice, stole, dalmatic, tunicle. Non-liturgical vestments are those —e.g., cappa magna, rochet—which have no sacred character, have come into use from motives of convenience or as ensigns of dig nity, and are worn at secular as well as ecclesiastical functions. Origin of Ecclesiastical Vestments.—The liturgical vest ments of the church are not, as was once supposed, borrowed from the sacerdotal ornaments of the Jewish ritual, but were developed out of the articles of dress worn by all and sundry under the Roman empire.
Thus in the 37th of the so-called "canons of Hippolytus" we read : "As often as the bishops would partake of the Mysteries, the presbyters and deacons shall gather round him clad in white, quite particularly clean clothes, more beautiful than those of the rest of the people." When, in the year 258, St. Cyprian was led to martyrdom, he wore (see Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung, 1907, p. 65) an under tunic (linea), an upper tunic (tunica dalmatica) and mantle (lacerna, byrrus). This was the ordinary type of the civil costume of the time. The tunica, a loose sack-like tunic with a hole for the head, was the innermost garment worn by all classes of Roman citizens under the republic and empire. The tunica was originally of white wool, but in the 3rd century it began to be made of linen, and from the 4th century was always of linen. About the 6th century the long tunica alba (white tunic) went out of fashion in civil life, but it was retained in the services of the Church and developed into the various forms of the liturgical alb (q.v.) and surplice (q.v.). The tunica dalmatica was a long, sleeved upper tunic, originating, as its name implies, in Dalmatia, and first becoming fashionable at Rome in the and century ; it is the origin of the liturgical dalmatic and tunicle (see DALMATIC). Another
over-dress of the Romans was the paenula, a cloak akin to the poncho of the modern Spaniards and Spanish Americans, i.e., a large piece of stuff with a hole for the head to go through, hanging in ample folds round the body. This was originally worn only by slaves, soldiers and other people of low degree ; in the 3rd century, however, it was adopted by fash ionable people as a convenient riding or travelling cloak; and finally, by the sumptuary law de creed by the emperor Theodosius in 382, it was prescribed as the proper everyday dress of sena tors, instead of the military chlamys, the toga being reserved for state occasions. This was the origin of the principal liturgical vestment, the chasuble (q.v.).
As late as the 6th century these garments were common both to the clergy and laity, and, so far as their character was concerned, were used both in the liturgy and in everyday life. Meanwhile, however, a certain development had taken place. By the 4th cen tury the garments worn at litur gical functions had been sepa rated from those in ordinary use, though still identical in form.
It is in the 4th century, too, that the first distinctive vest ment makes its appearance, the omophorion worn by all bishops in the East ; in the 5th century we find this in use at Rome under the name of palliurn (q.v.), as the distinctive ornament of the pope (see fig. 1). About the same time the orarium, or stole (q.v.), becomes fixed in liturgical use. The main development and definition of the ecclesiastical vestments, however, took place between the 6th and 9th centuries. The secular fashions altered with changes of taste ; but the Church retained the dress with the other traditions of the Roman empire. At Rome, especially, where the popes had succeeded to a share of the power and pretensions of the Caesars of the West, the accumulation of ecclesiastical vestments symbolized a very special dignity : in the second quar ter of the 9th century the pope, when fully vested, wore a camisia girdled (see ROCHET), an alb (linea) girdled, an amice (anago laium), a tunicle (dalmatica minor), a dalmatic (dalmatica ma jor), stole (orarium), chasuble (planeta) and pallium. With the exception of the pallium, this was also the costume of the Roman deacons. By this time, moreover, the liturgical character of the vestments was so completely established that they were no longer worn instead of, but over, the ordinary dress.