VESTMENTS, in ecclesiastical law, are the garments worn during the church service by the officiating clergy. In England and Scotland before the Reformation the vestments in use were similar to those still worn by the Roman Catholic clergy,—probably modifications of the dress of Roman citizens in their origin (see Costume)— and were either sacrificial, as the chasuble, or non-sacrificial, as the surplice. After the Reformation the question of vestments became of comparatively small importance in the Church of Scotland; but in the Church of England it has in recent years been the cause of much controversy and litigation.
The “ornaments rubric” at the beginning of the Book of Common Prayer, dating from 1662, provides “that such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof at all times of their ministration shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by the authority of parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI.” The reference in this rubric is to the vestments enjoined by the first prayer book of Edward VI. (1549). The surplice (with the addition of the hood in cathedrals and colleges, and for preaching)· was the priest’s dress for the service other than the communion. In the communion the bishop was to wear, besides a rochet, a surplice or alb. with a cone or vestment...
(also called a chasuble), and to have a pastoral staff borne by himself or his chaplain. The officiating priest was to wear a white alb, plain, with a vestment or cope, the assisting ministers albs with tunicles. The second prayer book of Edward VI. (1552) enjoined the use of the surplice only. The Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth (1 Eliz. c. 2) provided for the use of the 1549 vestments, “until other order shall be therein taken by the authority of the queen’s Majesty, &c.” In 1564 the Advertisements of Elizabeth were issued, under which the legal vestments were fixed to be the cope worn by the principal minister, with gospeller and epistoler agreeably, in the ministration of the communion, but at ordinary services and at prayers (other than those during the ministration of the communion) said at the communion table the surplice only. Deans and prebendaries were to wear hoods. The point which the judicial committee of the privy council has been called upon more than once to decide is whether the Advertisements of Elizabeth— coupled with the Injunctions of 1559 and subsequent visitations— were such taking of “other order” as to supersede the ornaments rubric. It has been held that they were, and the effect of the decisions has been to reduce the legal vestments to the surplice and hood for all ordinary purposes, with the addition of the cope for the administration of the communion on high feast days in cathedral and collegiate churches. The cope was also allowed by the canons of 1603-4. A bishop wears in addition a rochet. The chasuble, alb, and tunicle had, as has been said, post-Reformation authority, but the girdle, amice, stole, maniple, dalmatic, and biretta were never legally recognized since that time. The stole, however, is frequently worn, by deacons generally arranged as a scarf over the left shoulder. Much information on the subject will be found in the first Report of the Royal Commission on Ritual, issued in 1867.
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