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Overview
Vestments—the robes, stoles or other items worn by clergy, or cloths used at the altar—not only add beauty to a worship service, but are visual clues to the liturgical season and to the tone of a particular service. The most beautiful and meaningful vestments are often those made for a particular priest, serving in a specific sanctuary. But many shy away from trying to sew vestments, which seem too complicated and difficult to make.
In Vestments for All Seasons, Barbara Baumgarten demystifies the making of vestments—from designing and fitting patterns, to fabric and color selection, to putting on the finishing touches. She provides patterns and directions for producing special vestments for Advent and Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, and general instructions for designing and making vestments completely from scratch. A history of the development of vestments from Roman times to the present is included, as well as a full glossary describing the various vestments worn by clergy, bishops, deacons, and choir.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819218667 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Church Publishing, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2002 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 828,951 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
VESTMENTS FOR ALL SEASONS
By Barbara Dee Baumgarten
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2002 Barbara Dee BaumgartenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-1866-7
CHAPTER 1
Seeking Uniformity and Distinction: A Historical Overview
The necessities of life are water, bread and clothing, and also a house to assure privacy.
—Sirach 29:21
Shelter, food, and clothing are the necessities of human life. The Christian Eucharistic celebration incorporates and sanctifies these essentials as a sign to us that life in Christ is not peripheral to daily life but basic to it. Christians gather in a shelter designated sacred to share a simple meal of bread and wine. The ministers of the meal don particular garments, special to the occasion. While Jesus himself determined the food for the liturgical rite—and the shelter or church was instituted quickly thereafter—the idea of special liturgical clothing came much later. The garments designated for the ceremonies of the church are called "vestments." Ministers wear them to celebrate the Eucharist and other sacramental rites, for the Offices of prayer, and for other public services.
Even in the earliest books of the Bible, God directed that his ministers wear specific apparel. God commanded Moses to remove his shoes while on the mountain (Exodus 3:5) and directed that Moses' brother Aaron wear special clothing to set him apart as a priest: "You shall make sacred vestments for the glorious adornment of your brother Aaron. And you shall speak to all who have ability, whom I have endowed with skill, that they make Aaron's vestments to consecrate him for my priesthood" (Exodus 28:2–4; compare Exodus 20:26; 29:4–9; 28:42; 39:27–28, and Leviticus 16:3–4).
While the Hebrew Scriptures show concern for the dress of their ministers, the New Testament is quiet on the subject. The few references to clothing relate to garments worn by people other than ministers. In one account, Paul instructs women to wear a head covering while praying or prophesying (1 Corinthians 11:5); John of Patmos describes the white garments of the saints (Revelation 19:6–9); and Paul asks Timothy to bring him his cloak when they meet (2 Timothy 4:13). If Paul's cloak had any liturgical significance, it would have been a garment to remove for prayer (a heathen custom), not one to put on. The New Testament's silence makes it hardly surprising that the Jesus movement and the early church did not use prescribed garb for ministers at the Eucharist.
The ancient church had little fear of adapting and adopting common practices. In his life and preaching, Jesus turned ideas of purity and separation upside down. Therefore, his earliest followers found insufficient cause to be different or separate from the common folk. They aspired to be in the world without being of the world. Wearing the common dress displayed solidarity with the people (in the world) while distinctive dress would have emphasized separation or fashion-consciousness (of the world).
Jesus, the new king, advocated affiliation with the poor and resisted separation from people with different beliefs and lifestyles. After Jesus' death, when the church was new, floundering, and under persecution, the ministers were more than affiliated with the poor: they were poor themselves. They could hardly afford extra or special clothing for their Eucharistic gatherings. Moreover, wearing the common dress of the Roman peasant avoided distinguishing trappings that may have triggered persecution. Out of a need for protective homogeneity, poor status, and a reconciling adaptability, the roots of the new Christian church—its liturgy, holy days, buildings, and vestments—were rooted in the domestic and civil realm of ancient Rome.
The Levitical or Jewish temple priests' dress code is the first one we know of describing prescribed dress for a particular group. They wore white/natural linen breeches, a tunic, girdle, and bonnet. For sanctuary service they added "golden vestments" woven with threads of gold, purple, blue, and scarlet, including a dark blue robe (meïl); a breastplate, (choshen); a frontlet (ephod); and a gold head-plate (tzitz). Perhaps some of the apostles adopted components of the Jewish priestly dress as a way to designate their corresponding role in the new Jesus sect. By tradition, James wore linen and a golden plate upon his head and John wore the golden breastplate. Yet no correlation exists between the Levitical vestments and the ensuing Christian vestments.
Wearing uniforms is a basic human tendency. Besides identifying a person's function and office, they also herald ceremonial occasions. They are usually worn within a particular domain (a church or hospital, for example) and often signify that domain's hierarchy (priest, deacon, acolyte, or doctor, nurse, volunteer). They may also demonstrate a complexity of interrelations by using color, shape, design, and insignia that provide clues to rank and relationship to others, as we see in military uniforms.
Because those who wear them are not expressing their own style, uniforms signify more about the group or organization to which those persons belong than the personality of the wearers. When ministers don their clerical garb, the worshiping community is not distracted by the poverty or wealth, the trendy or conventional dress of a particular minister. Rather, the attention of the congregation is diverted away from the wearer—and away from any fashionable affiliations his or her street clothing may represent—to the collective authority and meaning of the church that the vestments represent.
Normally, clothes provide information about the wearer and elicit a response from those who see them. We pay close attention to what we wear to a job interview or on a first date, because we know that our clothing makes an immediate and influential impression. We wear particular clothes for specific activities: a swimsuit at the pool; a business suit at the office; a new outfit for a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. In each case, the clothing signals something about the activity taking place and why folks have gathered. A member of the clergy, for instance, is often referred to as "a person of the cloth." (This phrase may refer to the medieval practice of the clergy to wrap their necks with cloth to protect their throats and voices from the cold.) Vestments, which are essentially in-house uniforms worn over public uniforms, remind congregations why they are gathered. Ultimately, vestments silently point the congregation's attention to God, the reason for worship and the heart of it.
The vestments of the Christian church derive from both the common and imperial attire of ancient Rome, and have been regulated over the years by custom and rule. The use of distinctive clothing first began around the time of Constantine (circa 274–337) when the ministers of the church began to adopt the respectable clothes specific to state and solemn occasions. And it is these clothes, the fashions of imperial Rome, that provide the basic template of the vestments we know and use today. Over the years these fashions have not changed, largely because of the clergy's conservative attitude toward the fickle fashions of the world. The church continues to cherish tradition in order to maintain continuity with Jesus and the ancient church. Yet periods of modification have alternated with periods of consistent style. There are three distinctive periods in the development of vestments: the first through eighth centuries—the period of origin and definition; the ninth through eighteenth centuries—the era of change and opulence; the nineteenth century through modern times—the time of simplification and revival.
Vestments began as the ordinary clothing of ordinary folk. As secular styles changed, the clergy resisted worldly influences, and eventually these older styles were retained only by the church, which determined uses and wearers. At first vestments were utilitarian, completely lacking in symbolism. The clothing and vessels of the first-century church were the everyday wares of domestic life. The ordinary drinking cup and plate served as the chalice and paten, and the longer common tunic served as a sign of civility, because barbarians wore short garments. Even the partially shaved head, called a "tonsure" in later centuries, began as a common Roman hairstyle, which differentiated them from barbarians, who wore their hair long.
The ordinary dress of a first-century priest was the dress of the poor. It consisted of a simple tunic of varying length that was sometimes sleeved. As the role of the bishop began to take on definition, the bishop's hemline lengthened to signal authority. Since persecution prevented early Christian leaders from wearing overtly prescribed dress, length served as a subtle clue to clerical authority. Another garment that could be worn safely was the pallium, a large, rectangular, outdoor garment that when worn alone designated a "man of thought"—a philosopher or a student (Figure 1-1). Later, the pallium was deemed the traditional mantle of Christ. Possible upper-body garments included a cowled, woolen cape called a byrrus or birrus (Figure 1-2) or a rough, hooded cloak called a paenula (Figure 1-3). For the most part, however, the early church resisted uniformed clerics. Early writings and mandates from the councils consistently encouraged the clergy to dress with commonality and moderation, not for show, "as if there were some holiness in that" (Council of Gangra, circa 345).
As the church and its hierarchy became more established, the tendency to make distinct garments for the ministers grew. With support from the local congregation, the once too-poor presbyter could afford proper "Sunday" clothing, usually the clothing of the Roman gentry, which was preferred for special occasions.
A Roman citizen wore a tunic, a wide, shirt-like undergarment, girded to a length denoting rank and gender. Originally sleeveless and later sleeved and light-colored, it was adorned with two purple vertical running stripes (clavi), which varied in width according to the status of the wearer. A lesser person wore narrow stripes; a person of greater eminence wore wide stripes. Senators wore a single wide stripe, or clavus. The early Christians favored a white linen tunic with two ordinary clavi (Figure 1-4).
The Roman citizen's toga, a single broad, semicircular piece of cloth worn loosely over the tunic, began as a garment of the Roman lower classes. They eventually abandoned it, because it was too cumbersome for daily toil and travel. Rome's male citizens adopted the impractical toga as their garment of peace, wearing it over the tunica for solemn occasions or for public appearances as a symbol of status (Figure 1-5). The early Christians followed suit and adopted the toga over the tunic for worship. The clothing choice served to highlight the importance of worship and the presbyter's prominence within the Christian movement, while simultaneously avoiding a distinctive dress that might arouse suspicion leading to persecution.
The paenula or casula (Figure 1-6), another garment of the poor, eventually replaced the toga. The paenula may be the most common and universal of human protective attire worn throughout the ages. In modern America we call it a poncho. It consists of a large piece of cloth with a hole cut in the middle for the head to pass through. Usually a hood is attached to the cloth. In ancient Rome, the poor regularly wore a dark coarse fabric or leather paenula, while the upper classes assumed it solely for travel in foul weather. However, during the fourth century, the paenula gained a place of dignity among the Roman upper classes, and those made from fine cloth became favored garments.
Concurrent with the paenula's growth in popularity among the wealthy, the Edict of Milan, instituted by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 C.E., ended the persecution of the church. Civil toleration and status prompted Christians to continue wearing the paenula, now a label of distinction. Christianity's legalization freed Christian leaders to wear garments and accessories that openly reflected their positions within the church and simultaneously displayed their newfound status within Roman society. This, in turn, spurred Christian leaders to issue mandates to the clergy to avoid distinctive clothing. Except for the bishop, they were advised to dress the same way as the people. When Constantine united the Christian church to the civil order, the bishops acquired a status that warranted official dress; they wore the clothing of civil authority to signify their episcopal dignity. The clergy in general, however, dressed as they always had, in the garments of the common folk.
In 330, another hallmark of Constantine's rule was the relocation of the empire's capital to Byzantium, renamed Constantinople. A Christian city from its inception, Constantinople and its bishop of the "New Rome" struggled with Rome and her bishop for preeminence within Christendom. Gradually, the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Catholic churches became estranged, resulting in a schism around 1054. The empire's shift to Constantinople and the progressive separation between the more Greek and Oriental East and the classical and Roman West accounts for the distinctive vestments found within the two strains of the Christian church. Our focus is on the development of vestments in the Western church.
Around 400 C.E., the Teutons of Northern Europe began to push their way into Rome; then, in 476, the Vandals from Africa conquered Rome, bringing antiquity to a close. These uneducated warriors, commonly called barbarians by the educated and cultured Romans, thoroughly revolutionized Roman culture and brought with them a change in fashion. The barbarians brought into high fashion their short garments designed for the active life, the cottus and the sagum, a scant tunic and a rectangular cloak. Gone were the long, flowing civil garments of repose, except in the Christian church. Conservatives within the church resisted the fashion changes and for the first time the clergy became distinguished by their dress during worship. The flowing attire of the Roman gentleman became specifically liturgical, though their precisely sacerdotal and Eucharistic associations remained unapparent.
Change for the sake of change was not characteristic of the church; liturgical vestments continued to reflect their apostolic roots. During the fourth and fifth centuries, Christianity established itself as an institution distinct from the secular realm and maintained a style of dress similar to what Jesus and his followers wore. Church vestments now served as an outward expression of Christian identity, continuity, and endurance. Writings of the early church councils consistently opposed the new, short military sagum in favor of the conservative, long, and modest paenula or casula.
The fall of Rome and the ensuing Middle Ages (476–1500) gave impetus to a fomenting movement within the church: monasticism. The monks adopted a homogeneous habit that consisted of a simple sleeveless tunic of rough linen, fashioned after the Roman colobium (Figure 1-7) a goatskin habit with a cowl derived from the byrrus, and a long black cloak adapted from the Roman hooded overgarment, the cuculla (Figure 1-8). In accordance with monastic vows of poverty and humility, the monk's habit mimicked the attire of the poor, whose clothing did not change with the caprice of fashion. The monk's habit, in turn, influenced the general dress of the clergy, particularly when a monk, Gregory the Great (590–604) was called to the chair of St. Peter. As Pope, Gregory organized many areas in the church, including the liturgy, the calendar, and clerical dress. Gregory opposed the new secular fashions and expected his clergy to follow suit with a version of the monk's long dark tunic and cowled cloak. His influence, like the council's, was not heeded in the secular realm. Clergy insisted on following the caprices of fashion, causing St. Boniface (675–754) a Benedictine monk, to decree a century later: "priests and deacons are not to use saga (short cloaks) like the laity, but casulae, like servants of God."
Such disagreements have faced the church since the beginning. From the earliest days of the church, bishops and others met regularly to decide matters of the new faith. Their councils sought to codify essential doctrines, the orders of ministry, the calendar, the liturgy, and the vestments. But in spite of such efforts, vestments never achieved uniformity. Individual tastes as well as difference in the availability of materials and craftspeople accounted for variances, then as now. War, too, had an effect. Vestments were destroyed and were too costly to replace. A lack of uniformity has characterized vestment style and use throughout history.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from VESTMENTS FOR ALL SEASONS by Barbara Dee Baumgarten. Copyright © 2002 Barbara Dee Baumgarten. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Part I: Preparation
1. Seeking Uniformity and Distinction: A Historical Overview
2. Identifying the Particulars: A Glossary
3. Elements of Unity: On Matters of Design
4. Stitching in the Spirit
5. General Instructions
Part II: The Patterns
6. Advent: Beginnings in Raw Silk
7. The Rose Set: 3 Advent and 4 Lent
8. A Traditional Christmas
9. Lent: An Early Church Basic for a High Mass Set
10. A Child's Easter
11. Cool Cotton for a Fiery Pentecost
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Patterns
What People are Saying About This
"Dee Baumgarten articulates the mystique surrounding these garments, while demystifying the process for sewing them. Those creating vestments will find direction from start to finish, as well as inspiration for creating original designs."
—Susan Voigt-Reising, Sew News