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In an age when, with the evolution of the feudal organization of society, even everyday costume was becoming a uniform, symbolizing in material and colour the exact status of the wearer, it was natural that in the parallel organization of the Church the official vestments should undergo a similar process of differentiation and definition. With this process, which in all its essential features was completed in the 11th century, doctrinal developments had little or nothing to do, though from the 9th century onwards liturgiologists were busy expounding the mystic symbolism of garments which, until
From Braun’s Liturgische Gewandung, by permission of B. Herder.

Fig. 3.—Monumental Figure of Bishop Johannes of Lübeck (d. 1350) in Lübeck Cathedral their imagination set to work, had for the most part no symbolism whatever (see below). Yet in view of later controversies, the changes made during this period, notably in the vestments connected with the mass, are not without significance. Hitherto the chasuble had been worn indifferently by all ministers at the eucharist, even by the acolytes; it had been worn also at processions and other non-liturgical functions; it was now exalted into the mass vestment par excellence, worn by the celebrant only, or by his immediate assistants (deacon and subdeacon) only on very special occasions. New vestments were devised to take the place, on less solemn occasions, of those hallowed by association with the holy sacrifice; thus the processional cope (q.v.) appeared in the 11th century and the surplice (q.v.) in the 12th. A change, too, came over the general character of vestments. Up to the 9th century these had been very plain, without ornament save such traditional decorations as the clavi of the dalmatic; what splendour they had was due to their material and the ample folds of their draperies. But from this time onwards they tend to become more and more elaborately decorated with embroidery and jeweller’s work (see, e.g. the articles Chasuble and Cope).

Very significant, too, is the parting of the ways in the development of liturgical vestments in the East and West.