STOLBERG, a town in the Prussian Rhine province. Pop. (1933) 17,371. Its prosperity was founded in the 17th century by French refugees, who introduced brass-founding. A castle is on the site of a church said to have been used by Charlemagne. The leading industry is metal-working in zinc, brass and iron. STOLE, a liturgical vestment of the Catholic Church, peculiar to the higher orders, i.e., deacons, priests and bishops. It is a strip of stuff, usually silk, some 22yds. long by 4in. broad ; in the middle and at the ends, which are commonly broadened out, it is orna mented with a cross. Its colour varies with the liturgical colour of the day, or of the function at which it is worn.
The stole is worn immediately over the alb or surplice ; by dea cons, scarfwise over the left shoulder, across the breast and back to the right side ; by priests and bishops, dependent from the neck, the two ends falling over the breast. In the case of bishops the stole always hangs straight down ; while priests wear it crossed over the breast when vested in the alb. According to the Roman usage the stole is now only worn at Mass.
The origin of the stole is very obscure. It has been variously derived from the ancient stola, which was, however, a tunic, from the Jewish prayer-blanket (tallith), from the ancient orarion (neck-cloth) and, as regards the diaconal stole, from a napkin used in the liturgy. Father Braun, however, in his Liturgische Gewand
ung, gives good reasons for rejecting all these derivations and sug gests that the stole was originally introduced as that which first appears in the 22nd canon of Laodicea, viz., a special mark of distinction for deacons, which was later extended to higher orders.
The stole was not one of the vestments prescribed by the rubrics of the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. (see VESTMENTS). It was replaced in the Church of England from the Reformation onwards by the scarf, a broad band of black silk, formerly part of the out door dress of the dignified clergy and without liturgical signifi cance. This vestment has some resemblance to the stole, in that it is worn round the neck, hanging straight down in front over each shoulder. This resemblance facilitated the reintroduction of the stole by the "Ritualists" during the 19th century. The revised Prayer-book, adopted by Convocation and the Church Assembly in 1927, authorizes the use of the "stole or scarf."