ROBES, the name generally given to a class of official costume, especially as worn by certain persons or classes on occasions of particular solemnity. The word robe was earliest used, in the sense of a garment, of those given by popes and princes to the members of their household or their great officers. It would be going too far to assume that, e.g., peers' robes were originally the king's livery, but in most early cases where robes are men tioned, if not of cloth of gold, etc., they are of scarlet, furred. A robe is properly a long garment, and the term "robes" is now ap plied only in those cases where a long garment forms part of the of ficial costume, though in ordinary usage it is taken to include all the other articles of dress proper to the costume in question. The term "robes," moreover, connotes a certain degree of dignity or honour in the wearer. We speak of the king's robes of State, of peers' robes, of the robes of the clergy, of academic robes, judicial robes, municipal or civic robes ; we should not speak of the robes of a cathedral verger, though he too wears a long gown of cere mony, and it is even only by somewhat stretching the term "robes" that we can include under it the ordinary academical dress of the universities. In the case of the official costume of the clergy, too, a distinction must be drawn. The sacerdotal vestments are not spoken of as "robes"; a priest is not "robed" but "vested" for Mass ; yet the rochet and chimere of an English bishop, even in church, are more properly referred to as robes than as vest ments, and while the cope he wears in church is a vestment rather than a robe, the scarlet cope which is part of his parlia mentary full dress is a robe, not a vestment. The official, non liturgical costume of the clergy is dealt with under the general heading VESTMENTS and the subsidiary articles.
The coronation robes of emperors and kings, representing as they do the sacerdotal significance of Christian kingship, are essentially vestments rather than robes. Apart from these, how ever, are the royal robes of State ; in the case of the king of England a crimson velvet surcoat and long mantle, fastened in front of the neck, ermine lined, with a deep cape or tippet of ermine. The sovereign's coronation robes are described in "The
King's Coronation Ornaments," by W. St. John Hope, in The Ancestor, vols. i. and ii., also by L. Wickham Legg, English Coro nation Records (19oI).
All countries, East and West, which boast an ancient civilization have some sort of official robes, and the tendency in modern times has been to multiply rather than to diminish their number. In the United States few save Federal judges wear robes. The scarlet judicial robes were discarded at the Revolution. Those of black silk now worn are slightly modified academic gowns. John Jay, first chief justice of the Supreme Court (1789), set the fashion by sitting in the LL.D. gown granted him by Columbia university. The present article does not attempt to deal with any but British robes, under the headings of (1) peers' robes, (2) robes in the House of Commons, (3) robes of the Orders of Knighthood, (4) judicial and forensic robes, (5) municipal and civic robes, (6) academic costume.
Peers' Robes.—As early as the end of the 14th century peers seem to have worn at their creation some kind of robe of honour. An illumination on the foundation charter of King's college, Cambridge, represents the peers in 1446 wearing gowns, mantles and hoods of scarlet, furred with miniver, the mantle opening on the right shoulder and guarded with two, three or four bars of miniver, in the form of short stripes high up on the shoulder. The origin of these is as yet unknown, and it is not certain precisely when the peers' velvet robe of estate was first used. During the reign of Henry VIII., references are found to the "parliament robes" of peers. By the time of James IL's corona tion, the baron and viscount had the velvet robes of estate. The colour of these seems to have been crimson at first, sometimes varying to purple. They consisted of a long gown or surcoat with girdle, a mantle lined with ermine, a hood and a tippet of ermine, the rows being as follows: for a duke 4, a marquess 31, an earl 3, a viscount 21 and a baron 2.