PASTORAL STAFF, sometimes also, although properly, called crosier (q.v.) (T at. Moline paqoratis), one of the insignia of the episcopal office, sometimes also borne IT an abbot, It is a tall staff of metal, or of wood ornamented with metal, having, at Bust in the western church, the head curved in the form of is shepherd's crook, as a synth()) of the pastoral office. The head of the pastoral staff of an archbishop, instead of the crook, has a double cross, from which its name of crosier is derived. In tire Greek church the staff is much shorter, and the head is either a plain Greek cross or the form• of the letter Tan, or it is a double-headed crook, which sometimes appears in the shape of tire upsilon, T. It is difficult to determine the time at which the pastoral staff first came into use. The first distinct allusion to it is in St. Augustine's commentary on the 124th psalm. Gregory of Tours, in his life of St. Martin, mentions the pastoral staff of St. Severinus, who was bishop of Cologne in the end of the 4th century. From an early time the pastoral staff was connected with the =Clint possession of the jurisdiction which it symbolizes. The giving of it was one of the ceremonies of investiture; its withdrawal was part of the form of deprivation: its voluntary abandonment accompanied tire act of resignation; its being brOken was tire most solemn form of degradation. So also tha
veiling of the crook of an abbot's pastoral staff, during tire episcopal visitation, signified the temporary subjection of his authority to that of the bishop. An abbot being required to carry iris pastoral staff with the crook turned inwards, showed that his authority was purely domestic. The pope alone does not use a pastoral staff. In the later medimval period the material was often extremely costly, and, referring to the relaxation of the times, it was said "that formerly the church had wooden pastoral staves and golden bishops, but that now the staves are of gold and the bishops of wood." • The workman ship was sometimes extremely beautiful. The Irish pastoral staff is of a type quite peculiar, and some of the sculptured specimens preserved in the British museum, at the royal Irish academy, and elsewhere, are very interesting as illustrating the ecclesiastical costume of the period.