Maniple

MANIPLE, a liturgical vestment of the Catholic Church, proper to all orders from the subdeacon upwards. It is a narrow strip of material, silk or half-silk, about a yard long, worn on the left fore-arm in such a way that the ends hang down to an equal length on either side. In order to secure it, it is sometimes tied on with strings attached underneath, sometimes provided with a hole in the lining through which the arm is passed. It is orna mented with three crosses, one in the centre and one at each end, that in the centre being obligatory, and is often elaborately em broidered. It is the special ensign of the office of subdeacon and at the ordination is placed on the arm of the new subdeacon by the bishop with the words : "Take the maniple, the symbol of the fruit of good works." It is strictly a "mass vestment," being worn, with certain exceptions (e.g., by a deacon singing the Gospel at the service of blessing the palms), only at Mass, by the cele brant and the ministers assisting.

The earliest extant specimen of the band-like maniple is that found in the grave of St. Cuthbert (early loth century) ; by the century (except in the case of subdeacons, whose maniples would seem to have continued for a while to be cloths in practical use) the maniple had universally assumed its present general form and purely ceremonial character.

The maniple was originally carried in the left hand. In pictures of the 9th, loth and 11th centuries it is represented as either so carried or as hung over the left fore-arm. By the 12th century the rule according to which it is worn over the left arm had been universally accepted. According to present usage the maniple is put on by priests after the alb and girdle; by deacons and sub deacons after the dalmatic or tunicle; by bishops at the altar after the Confiteor, except at masses for the dead, when it is assumed before the stole.

In

the East the maniple in its Western form is known only to the Armenians, where it is peculiar to subdeacons. This vest ment is not derived from the Roman rite, but is properly a stole, which the subdeacons used to carry in the left hand. It is now laid over the subdeacon's left arm at ordination. The true equiva lent of the maniple (in the Greek and Armenian rites only) is not, as has been assumed, the epimanikion, a sort of loose, embroidered cuff (see VESTMENTS), but the epigonation.

See J. Braun, S. J., Die liturgische Gewandung (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1907), pp. 515-561, and the bibliography to VESTMENTS.