PALL, or PALLIUM, a cloak or covering ; more especially used for the ornamental article of dress granted by the pope to patriarchs and archbishops : it is made of white wool, in the form of a band three fingers broad, to surround the shoulders, having pendants a span in length before and behind, the ends ornamented with red crosses. The origin of the pall is obscure ; but its use is of high antiquity. Tcrtullian, who lived at the beginning of the 3rd century, wrote a treatise' De Pallio.' Sleidan, in his commentaries' De Statu Religionis et Reipubliere; Carlo V., Cesare,' 4to, Argent, 1555, lib. ziii., p. 210, describes the ceremony of making the pall. The price at which they are purchased from the pope, he adds, is considerable ; nor is it lawful for an arch bishop to use his predecessor's pall. If by exchange, or in any other way, a patriarch or metropolitan is removed to another church, although he had purchased a pallium before, he must still be at the charge of new one. Before the receipt of his pall an archbishop cannot perform the functions of his office, even if he has been translated, nor can the archiepiscopal cross be borne before him.
The original grant of the pall from I'ope Julius II. to Archbishop Warlaam is still preserved among the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum. The following is the fonn :—" Ad honorem dei omnipotentis, et beatai Marim Virginia, et beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli ac domini nostri Julii, pp. ij. et sancta Roman:e Ecelesin,
necnon Cantuariensis Ectlesim tibi commissm, tradimus tibi Pallium de corpora beati Petri aumptum, plenitudinis videlicet pontificalis Officii, ut utaria eo infra Ecclesiam tuella certis diebus qui exprimuntur In privilegiia ei ab apostolica Sede conceaais. Aloisiva." In the east the pall is called omophorion (mµopdproe), and halt been used at least since tho time of Chrysoatom, who was charged with accusing three deacons of taking his omophorion. (Photii, Biblio• theca,' edit. Par. 1611, p. 55.) It is worn by all the Eastern bishops above the phenolion, or vestment, during the eucharist ; and, as used by them, resembles the ancient pallium much more nearly than that worn by Western metropolitans, approaching nearer to the shape of a cope.
In England the term pall is applied to the covering thrown over the coffin at a funeral; and our poets have used it as synonymous with a mantle or cloak of a stately character. Milton says, " Let gorgeous tragedy In sccpter'd pall come sweeping by." (Du Cringe, Glossar., v. ; ' Pieart's Religious Ceremonies ; Palmer, Origines Liturgics, 8vo., Oxf., 1832, pp. 317, 318.)