Clerical Haberdashery
Peter Harper, Smoke Signals #12, February 1996
I am sure that you noticed the fine outfit our Archdeacon wore when he last visited us. I learned from the Synod Report that our diocesan dignitaries got new costumes for the visit of The Archbishop of Canterbury in 1994. We have thus been privileged to admire that appointed for an archdeacon. A noble raiment indeed, though a little strange to my Roman eyes. What I found more interesting, however, was the cape and particularly the Roman hat that he wore over it all - and that Father Vincent sported at the Vestry Meeting. I had not seen such a hat in decades, except in old reruns of Don Camillo films featuring Fernandel. This type of headwear was traditionally worn by clerics in Rome, and became at one time widely used by bishops and other dignitaries.
In fact, however, the appointed head-gear for a priest is a three-cornered hat (tricorn) and for the Pope a bicorn. The last person I saw wearing a tricorn (outside the house of Commons) was an ancient Christian Brother on New Year's Day 1963 when, as a seminarian, I was invited with others to see the Hitchcock film Vertigo at the Académie de Québec in Sainte-Foy. The place was like an ant-hill, teaming with intermingled generations of Christian Brothers and was ironically known as "The Manufacture" (... of Brothers)! times have changed, haven't they? Such institutions no longer exist.
The earlier prescribed head-dress was the square cap or biretta, which survived in the Anglican tradition as the Canterbury cap of Canon 74. Its use was revived for the coronation of King Edward VII. It is in black velvet for bishops and doctors and in cloth for others. In Roman use, it has taken on a peculiar shape and is reinforced with cardboard (a contrivance which is destroyed the first time the priest sits on it, which is generally early in the life of any biretta). There were originally four corners or "horns" and it was thus used by clerical university doctors for teaching until a generation ago; for liturgical use, the horn on the left side is always clipped. The middle usually bears a small cord-loop (cardinals) or a tassel (others); Jesuits still use an earlier form without any middle appendage. The red biretta has long been one of the insignia of a cardinal; bishops have worn purple only since 1888, when the priviledge was given to them by Pope Leo XIII on his golden anniversary of ordination.
You knew clerical attire was complicated, but I am sure that you never thought it was that complex. I have come across a 19th c. treatise in the Université de Montréal Library entitled, "Le costume et les usages ecclésiastiques selon la tradition romaine" by the otherwise unknown Mgr Xavier Barbier de Montault, a prelate of the Pontifical Family. But would you believe he could fill two volumes and 1016 pages? and he deals only with the secular clergy.
The priestly habit is, as you know, the cassock ("vestis talaris" = the vestment that goes down to the heels), which should reach to four fingers from the ground. It was worn by all clerics from sunrise to half an hour after sunset. The Roman cassock is wide, but not fitted at the waist and has an opening at the collar. The Gallican cassock is fitted at the waist with folds, and traditionally it is held with a sash; the collar is straight. Both are closed by a row of buttons (which are purple, violet or red for various dignitaries). It sometimes had a "tail" or train ("en cul-de-poule"), a long triangular extension which was carried by a caudatory or train-bearer. Large buttons, big pockets, insignia of fraternities, societies, family crests... are specifically forbiden. The collar is a white band of cloth (Roman, dog or jampot-collar) in Roman use, and bands in Gallican use. The collar has a black flap or bib to keep it in place and to close the gap in the cassock - in the Congregation of the Holy Ghost (to which I once belonged), the flap is blue, because it replaces a scapulary.
You might think that there is no significant difference between a Roman and a Gallican cassock; let me tell you an experience of mine to prove you wrong. I was a young and innocent scholastic in Quebec City studying philosophy. I wore the habit of the congregation, a loose cassock (of the Roman type), tied at the waist with a woolen cord. One day I inherited a cassock from a colleague "who had returned into the world". It was not the regulation garb; it had been made by a well-known clerical tailor, and was closely fitted at the waist (in Gallican style). When I wore it for the first time, I got compliments from a colleague whom I had hitherto imagined to be very saintly and unwordly on "the rotundity (sic!) of my backside..." (I had a waist in those days). So if you are "on the prowl", by all means, get yourself a Gallican cassock!
The Anglican cassock is wide, not fitted at the waist, and closed by buttons at the neck and chest; the collar opening is wide; the collar is Roman, sometimes augmented by narrow bands. Many Anglicans wear Roman cassocks, and the long row of buttons is referred to as "the 39 Articles", but it is only a pun, because those wearing such a habit are those least likely to uphold the articles. By contrast to Roman or French cassocks, the Anglican model tends to be rather short, and sometimes surprisingly so, probably to accommodate the traditional vicar's bicycle. Actually, RC priests generally wear it so long, that the legs and feet are barely visible. But why, pray, should a priest hide his feet? Any good Protestant can tell you why; it is because priests, particularly if they are Jesuits, have the hairy legs and hoofed feet of a ram. And why should they have such legs? It is because they are like the devil. And why does the devil, you ask, have hairy legs and cloven feet? Well, that is a long story. Christians have transferred to Satan the appearance and attributes of the god Pan of Antiquity. Pan was the god of fertility, of woods, and of pastoral life, and he was represented with horns, a beard, the feet of a ram, and a massive sex organ. He was both revered and feared, and from his name comes our word "panic". Pan eventually came to represent paganism as a whole (Pan = All). And when the shepherds bowed down in adoration before the Christ Child at Bethlehem (or when Christ died on the Cross in other versions), a cry spread through the Ancient World "Great Pan is Dead", heralding the end of the old religion and the coming of the new (see Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem on the topic). So identifying Satan with Pan is in fact a rejection of paganism as a whole. And by implication, Protestants were accusing priests of paganism and superstition.
Cassocks come in various colours, witness the multicolored ones of the seminarians of the various nations studying in Rome. Since the Council of Milan in 1565, black has been prescribed for the secular clergy (except for various dignitaries), though white, grey and buff have often been worn particularly in tropical climes. The Pope traditionally wore crimsom velvet (though white is customary since Pope Saint Pius V, who was a Dominican, or ironically a Black Friar, kept the costume of his order, a white robe with a black cape) and cardinals red watered silk (moire). Bishops wore silk or wool according to the solemnity of the season. Priests wore cloth in winter and merino cloth in summer.
Under a cassock, the proper attire is a pair of breeches or knickerbockers. Indeed, priests were expected to wear the "Sainte Culotte" or "Holy Breeches"; pants were associated with the revolutionaries who shunned breeches, hence their name of "Sans-Culottes". Suspenders, another invention of the French Revolution, were another no-no. In Rome after the 1870 Revolution, priests wearing pants were dubbed "i pantaloni" and rejected by the faithful. The name apparently comes from Pantalone, a lean and foolish old man in 16th c. Venetian comedy who was dressed in loose trousers and slippers. They may also come from the trews or tartan "pants" of some Scottish Regiments. Pants became popular with military men but rejected by good society, and in 1814 the Duke of Wellington was refused entrance to his club because he was wearing pantaloons. Breeches are also associated with the Bible, at least with a particular version of it; the Geneva edition of 1560 became known as the "Breeches Bible", because Gen. 3:7 read "and they sowed figge-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches".
Monks wear woollen bloomers under their habit, though, as in the case of the legendary Scotsman's kilt, one is never quite sure. These drawers are sometimes referred to as "antiphons" because they are the first article of clothes that one puts on. They are much like the large bloomers which our mothers and grandmothers used to wear under their dresses to ward off the cold as well as indiscreet glances; they used to be called in Québec "culottes à grand'manches" or "culottes catholiques" (long-sleeved or catholic drawers).
It is rumoured that some strict orders wear no underclothes at all, a fact which is discussed at length in a strange book entitled "Essai sur l'histoire naturelle de quelques espèces de moines, décrits à la manière de Linné. Ouvrage traduit du latin et orné de figures par M. Jean d'Antimoine, naturaliste du Grand Lama etc. à Monachopolis 1784 in octavo. (A. Boussonet, Éditeur). This scandalous publication (Essay on the Natural History of Some Monks, Described in the Manner of Linnaeus. Translated from the Latin and Provided with illustrations by John of Antimony, Naturalist at the Court of the Grand Lama etc., Published in 1784 at Monksville in octavo by A. Boussonet, editor) caused much furor, but its publication was encouraged by Austrian Emperor Joseph II (+1790) who hated monks, "who being useless in the world cannot be pleasing to God" and had ordered the closing of more than 750 monasteries in his realm. The book was said to contain "des planches très curieuses" - very strange illustrations.