Surplice

SURPLICE (Lat. super, over, and pellicia, furs), a liturgical vestment of the Christian Church. It is a tunic of white linen or cotton material, with wide or moderately wide sleeves, and vary ing in length. Originally it reached to the feet, but as early as the 13th century it began to be shortened. This process was carried furthest in the Roman use, according to which the surplice (the Italian cotta) hardly reaches to the hips. In other churches of the Roman communion it does not come below the knees.

The older history of the surplice is obscure. Its name is derived from the fact that it was formerly put on over the fur garments which used to be worn in church as a protection against the cold. In all probability the surplice is no more than an expansion of the ordinary liturgical alb, due to the necessity for wearing it over thick furs. It is first mentioned in the 11th century, in a canon of the synod of Coyaca in Spain (io5o) and in an ordinance of King Edward the Confessor. In Italy it was known at least as early as the I2th century. It probably originated outside Rome, and was imported thence into the Roman use.

Originally only a choir vestment and peculiar to lower clergy, it gradually (certainly no later than the 13th century) replaced the alb as the vestment proper to the administering of the sac raments and other sacerdotal functions.

In the Oriental rites there is no surplice, nor any analogous vest ment. Of the non-Roman Catholic churches in the West the surplice has continued in regular use only in the Lutheran churches of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and in the Church of England.

Church of England.

The surplice was prescribed by the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI. as, with the tippet or the academical hood, the sole vestment of the ministers of the church at "all times of their ministration," the rochet (q.v.) being prac tically regarded as the episcopal surplice. Its use was furiously assailed by the extremer Reformers but, in spite of their efforts, was retained by Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, and enforced by the advertisements and injunctions issued under her authority, which ordered the "massing vestments" (chasubles, albs, stoles, and the like) to be destroyed (see VESTMENTS). Its use has never been confined to clerks in holy orders, and it has been worn since the Reformation by all the "ministers" (including vicars-choral and choristers) of cathedral and collegiate churches, as well as by the fellows and scholars of colleges in chapel.

The traditional form of the surplice in the Church of England is that which survived from pre-Reformation times ; viz., a wide sleeved, very full, plain, white linen tunic, pleated from the yoke, and reaching almost, or quite, to the feet. Towards the end of the 17th century, when large wigs came into fashion, it began for convenience to be constructed gown-wise, open down the front and buttoned at the neck, a fashion which still partially survives, notably at the universities.