Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
I am intrigued by the mini Cardinals to the left. Any history there?
Little zuchettos too!
These vestments seem to me to be typical of l'art de S. Sulpice, a c19 French venture that in many ways led to the debasement of Catholic Liturgical art and which also injected a virus into an understanding of what traditional liturgical art should be. Nevertheless, the dalmatic and tunicle are fairly inoffensive examples of the genre. L'art de S. Sulpice invariably tried to interpret Baroque liturgical forms into a Gothic Revival style, rarely with success.
PS The mini-cardinals are purely Sulpicean.
What does "Sulpicean" mean? The reason the boys are dressed as they are is still not explained.
Please do not assume that everyone who reads these posts understands what is meant.
I come to this site to get an education and, at times, are left more confused and uninformed as I was before I came.
I am not alone in feeling this way....
bjr
B. Rickman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soc...f_Saint-
Sulpice
Fr. Symondson,
I cannot comment upon the other aspects you speak of more generally without a further example, but I can only say that I do find the particular dalmatics and tunics rather pleasing in form, colour and general design, particularly the orphreys.
The 'mini-College of Cardinals' caught my eye also. I had to look a few times to make sure I was seeing right.
I suspect they are the choirboys. In several french cathedrals, it is the custom that the singers dress like little Cardinals - for whatever reason...
B. Rickman
The term 'Sulpicean' derives from S. Sulpice. L'Art de S. Sulpice is so called because it typified the taste and wares of church furnishing and piety shops that clustered round the noble church of S. Sulpice in Paris in the mid-c19. To this day such shops still exist in that district, reflecting the worst aspect of contemporary Catholic commercial art. Upon the whole, they represented one of the lowest points of Catholic taste yet gained wide popularity. It can also be summed up in the old phrase 'paper-lace piety', derived from French c19 engraved holy pictures with paper-lace borders.
For many this style still constitutes a drug and has been wrongly confused with traditional Catholic art. One aspect of the wide discarding of old vestments in France after the Council was that many of them represented the worst work of that period. Made in vast quantities in sweat shops they can still be found, second hand, today. The picturesque mini-cardinals robes typify Sulpicean taste. Praise God, Rome avoided the contagion like a plague.
Fr BJ's link is to a much nobler and more serious venture that has nothing to do with commercial enterprise.
It was common to dress altar boys as "little clerics" in some places even though this was frowned upon officially.
http://rubricsandritual.blogspot...ar-
servers.html
I don't know...most of the choir's in today's Catholic churches dress like Methodists, Baptists, AMEs, or other such faiths. Having said that, little choir boys dressed like mini-cardinals doesn't look too bad to me.
Maybe not in the best taste of traditional Catholic wear, but certainly better than what you'll find 95% of altar servers and choir members wearing in American parishes.
R,
They say you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have.
If that's true, then maybe we should encourage this tradition of dressing young boys like clerics. God knows the Church needs more of them.
Shawn
I agree that the dalmatic and tunicle are innocuous and far better examples of French, mid-c19 ecclesiastical taste than many others. And I also agreed that the cut and colour are good and they are dignified. But I cannot help questioning the application of broad, Gothic orphreys to vestments of this style. It comes off here because the scale is right but the cut of these vestments represents a Classical development and to apply Gothic patterns, however attractive, seems anachronistic to me.
R
Fr Forse's 'Ceremonial Curiosities or Queer Sights in Foreign Churches' should be required reading for anybody interested in ceremonial. It really should be brought back into print. I discovered it when I was sixteen and it changed my life. Thanks for the link. His own splendid vestments were left to York Minster.
"Little Cardinals" are a common sight in Germany too - here the come from http://www.institut-philipp-neri...k_08/
ck_15.html in Berlin.
Fr. Symondson,
It sounds like we are in specific agreement, though perhaps with a slightly different consideration of the wider orphreys -- something that I have often found more appealing on both forms, though I also quite like the more typically Roman style as well.
Did you have some links to some examples you would see as particularly ideal? I think it would be interesting to consider as the question of the forms and styles we might push forward as part of a new liturgical movement is important I think.
For the record, the "little cardinals" is not something I would see as terribly desireable, but I say that without intent to malign the IBP I would want to make clear.
Fr. Forse's book used to be posted on the Project Canterbury/Anglican History website, but it has since been removed. Copyright issues, perhaps? It really is required reading for people who want to re-enchant the liturgy and undo much of the damage done by contemporary liturgy practice, but too often simplistically and uncritically want to "turn the clock back" to a golden age at point X. The book shows, among other things, that throughout Europe in the early 20th century, the edicts of the Sacred Congregation of Rites were widely ignored and astonishing bad taste abounded - bad taste that would be unthinkable even to today's most philistine felt-banner waving/guitar strumming "liturgical facilitator." However, some of the "ceremonial curiosities," even if technically illegal and not necessarily based on "immemorial custom" were quite charming in their own right. Some of the greatest losses were in extra-liturgical and/or paraliturgical devotions that were misguidely discarded after the Council.
As for the little Cardinals, I'm sure they were quite charming to their mothers, but the outfits are much too precious for words - and this is coming from someone who has fond memories of the time when he dressed in red cassock and surplice at a similar age.
For some reason, I like the little cardinals. On Christmas Eve at the Carmelite Monastery in Mobile, Alabama, we had a Novus Ordo, ad orientem, complete with the little Cardinals in a beautifully over-the-top-decorated Chapel. They fit in perfectly. (The nuns have the altar boy vestments in every conceivable size, including shoes!)
Forse's "Curiosities" (or perhaps only an excerpt of it?) is posted here:
http://et-clamor-meus-ad-te-veni...n-
churches.html
Sorry but I don't care for the dalmatic or tunical at all.Whether in Roman or Gothic form I strongly prefer the sleeves to be closed otherwise they look like flaps.
I'm sometimes fascinated by how certain things in Forse resemble the modern day:
-------------------------
On Friday, March 20th, 1908, I was walking from Forges to S. Chamant when I was overtaken by a vulgar countrywoman, about forty years old, whom I could not shake off. She persisted in accompanying me and talking all the while: Was I not afraid to travel alone, especially after the assassination of the King of Portugal. Had I heard of the schismatic cure who was lurking near Lubersac. Did I believe in Confession, for she certainly did not. Did I believe in Hell. Their own cure told them not to do so, and preached fine sermons to show that there was no such place. She was an intelligent peasant and would not believe that I was English, "for no Englishman ever speaks couramment, but always one word at a time, separately," and she gave me some amusing specimens of the way the English speak French! I told her she had better advise the cure to wait till he got to Hell before being too certain it did not exist: he would assuredly get there if he kept on preaching such sermons. I went on my way less discontented with my lot, realizing that the Church of France is not after all vastly more peaceful or united than the Church of England; nor are our doctrinal differences and parochial squabbles any worse than those of our neighbours across the Channel
Timothy wrote: "If that's true, then maybe we should encourage this tradition of dressing young boys like clerics."
It is largely forgotten that the cassock and surplice -- the latter being a shortened version of the alb -- are originally clerical garments, having traditionally been worn during liturgical services by clerics in minor orders. The use of lay altar servers (men or boys, exclusively) arose out of practical necessity, when ordained acolytes were not on hand. Servers dressed to resemble the clerics in whose stead they assisted at the altar.
Yes, and the Roman collar has been worn by non-clerics for years. To this day, the organist of St. Peter's and the men of the Cappella Guilia wear Roman collars. Cassocks look terrible with nothing at the neck.
I guess I've never understood what was so horrid about the "L'Art de S. Sulpice". Overly sappy and sugary sometimes, sure, but I don't know if I'd say it was the absolute low point in Catholic artistic taste.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but just because an altar server wears something more than alb doesn't make him a little cardinal. Granted, wearing a zuchetto is a little over the top, but a simple red surplice at Christmastime...c'mon.
The use of lay altar servers (men or boys, exclusively) arose out of practical necessity, when ordained acolytes were not on hand. Servers dressed to resemble the clerics in whose stead they assisted at the altar.
Fr Kocik,
That's pretty much my point. Every priest that I have ever known was once an altar boy.
I have nothing against altar girls per se, but if there is no chance of girls becoming priests, and there isn't, then having half to two thirds of a parish altar servers being comprised of girls is negative predicter of priestly vocations.
While there are a great many things that girls can participate in for parish ministries, altar server shouldn't be one (I realize that you haven't suggested girls serve at the altar).
If the importance of altar server is elevated again, as it once was, replete with actual duties and reverent vestments, more boys will grow up to see the priesthood as a noble vocation - a necessary vocation.
Timothy,
A priest I know banned altar girls because in fact boys were too nervous about becoming altar servers by their presence. His parish when he arrived was comprised of basically 2/3 girls and boys taking little interest. As soon as he stopped the girls the number of boys shot up!
One of the problems that has arisen since the introduction of altar girls is that boys are put off from serving. You see this reflected in co-educational schools where classes are divided by boys and girls sitting separately in classrooms at their own choice, clustered together like budgerigars. This is strongly evident in the age group from which servers are usually drawn.
Another thing I have noticed is that when boys serve they apply their minds to getting it right and take a close interest in what they do, frequently, if well taught, with noticeable efficiency; they usually have stronger powers of concentration. Girls tend to spend more time looking round the congregation and often miss cues.
When girl servers were permitted in the Nineties many older priests were concerned that this would affect the sanctuary's traditional place as the harbinger of vocations. I think they were right.
But at least in the Catholic Church we are spared the sight of middle-aged matrons lumbering about in tunicles (or even dalmatics where High Church female deacons are concerned) at simulated High Masses. The female anatomy, dalmatics and tunicles ill accord. If you want to see what I mean Google St Mary's, Primrose Hill, and the church of the Advent, Boston, and look at the photographs.
Are these old vestments, or are the reproductions by Tridentinum? That firm seems to produce vestments in many different styles.
Fr Symondson;
may I second all you say about Revd Mr Forse ? A splendid book, which ought to be required reading for all NLM-ers.
That said, it does prove - as Patrick Rothwell points out above - that despite all the insistence of certain people (much of it in posts on this site !)on the ideal of rigid rubrical uniformity, the reality, certainly pre WWII, was very different - there was much variation, a lot of it both charming and edifying; although his recollection of Reservation in the Sacristy cupboard is, I think, neither !
Apropos the dalmatics which started the discussion off, I suspect that the orphreys are needlepoint, in common with many of the more definitely 'gothic' designs of the time. As you say, the scale here is actually satisfactory; but I think that the combination of baroque and gothic is rarely better than inoffensive, and is best avoided.
Shawn
Alas, my computer skills are negligible and I can think of no Internet links to photographs of good dalmatics in either the Gothic or Classical forms. Perhaps others might put some up for comment?
Cassocks look terrible with nothing at the neck? That's how cassocks were originally worn, and how they remain today in the Eastern Churches.
Those cassocks also don't have the square notch at the neck like a more modern Roman cassock.
Dominic1962,
Actually, they probably do, but you can't see the "notches" because of the shoulder-capes...
Father Cuchet who is celebrating this solemn mass at Saint-Eloi is not a member of the Good Shepherd but has been recently ordained for the FSSP. This illustrates the fact that there are many friendly contacts between the different institutes celebrating the TLM.
There has never been anything wrong in lay people having roman collars when they have a liturgical function at mass such as serving or singing. Lay cantors always had the cope and the biretta. Copes were a contra legem custom approved by most of the French bishops.
Cantors with copes at mass are still kept in somes parishes or French monasteries. The usage is not monastic, as some could think, but gallican.
The funny camails and skull caps are (were) also very common in France. Albs for servers (with large cinctures) are also very common. Some choir boys had the privilege of the folded cappa in cathedrals. Of course these excentric attires were condemned by roman liturgists with little success...
For boys, the ruff is a great alternative to the roman collar, and looks far nicer.
http://picasaweb.google.com/
coll...208202785275522
here is a picture of one of my brothers at my recent wedding
Thanks for that correction Philippe, regarding the FSSP vs. IBP matter.
Not the cassocks in the pictures, but the Eastern cassock and the older Roman cassock Mr. Yong was referencing. Those do not have a square notch at the neck.
"Those cassocks also don't have the square notch at the neck like a more modern Roman cassock."
Dear Dominic,
I'm afraid in the past, at least before 1850s, most roman cassocks didn't have a "Square Notch". Those have it, are a rather modern innovation, due to the invention of Roman Collar.
Photos of Great saints in the past, their cassocks all don't consist of a notch.
Dear Daniel,
This kind of Ruff collar is with a medieval origin and famous of Anglican Sarum rite highchurchmen.
And As for the Mozzetta wrote by the altar boys, they look more for Canon mozzetta than Cardinal.
Yes I am aware of its late medieval origin. In my opinion, it adds a bit more dignity than the modern 'Roman Collar' and goes well on younger servers and boys (looks a bit off on men, generally).
Anthony Symondson SJ is wrong. There is a very upper middle class Catholic parish not far from George's cathedral in Sydney where middle aged woman swan about in dalmatics and tunicals. I'm quite sure they don't even know what vestments they have been dolled up in by an overly zealous bit misguided modernist that wants them "included". It is embarrasing.
Eualalia
What depressing news. This would not happen in England beyond an Anglican setting.
Would an amice underneath a cassock be an acceptable alternative to Roman collar in order to cover up shirt/tie underneath?
mmmmm....Bordeaux.....Saint Emilion, Pomerol, Margaux....
Sorry, what were you saying about vestments?
Peter;
a neckcloth of white linen/cotton, tied like a cravat (I think it's called an 'Ascot' in the US), can even cover up the collar of an ordinary shirt under a cassock, providing the cassock collar is not too tight. I know a number of places where that is 'normal wear' for servers.
Can women not be altar servers, but rather only boys, girls, and men? If there is no impediment to a woman being an altar server, then I don't know why one wouldn't expect to see it occasionally (as depressing a site as it may be).
Thank you, Quentin. That seems like a very sensible solution.
Why the different colors for the three clerics? Are you allowed to mix red with violet?
Fr Kevin;
allowing for the variations in colour consequent upon the variable quality of photos, photos, what we actually have is a mixture of shades of 'purple' - everything from near-violet (the cope) to looks-like-red (the dalmatics).
It's by no means uncommon when one is trying to use antique vestments, if only because many purple High Mass sets in the old days didn't have dalmatics.
There have been various other even more dramatic photos showing this phenomenon; there were two posts on 1st and 7th December 2008 relating to masses celebrated by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos with splendid photos of such variegated vestments.
Well Fr Symondson, I can tell you now it is happening every Sunday here in Sydney not far from Cardinal George Pell's watch at a Franciscan parish in Paddington.
Eulalia
My advice is steer clear and pay no attention. This seems a silly situation to me and benefits nobody. If any action needs to be taken this is Cardinal Pell's responsibility. Perhaps he is biding his time?
As regards the use of cassocks for servers and questions of collar, a plain white dress shirt, buttoned up to the top, without tie, also works as a suitable supplement for the Roman collar.
In one orthodox seminary due to the social perception of seminarians wearing Roman collars, that was the way we did it, and though it's not perfect, it's far, far better than nothing. From a distance you can hardly tell, and the back side of the collar even shows a little like a real full collar would.
Roger;
actually, that is probably the best solution for servers; a white shirt with a conventional collar, and then put a 'pettina' (little stock) in black to fill in the gap where the tie would usually be.
That is, in effect, the normal 'Roman collar' in reverse, so is clearly distinguished from the clergy, yet still neat and appropriate.
So think the Pernicketines.
Anon, go Troll some where else.
You are so nit-picky that you can't handle an online conversation that nobody is asking you to read.
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