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Do Liturgical Vestments Have Gender?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2020
Abstract
This article questions whether traditional Christian liturgical vesture has any intrinsic gendered identity. Vestments are worn by the clergy of various denominations, including in traditions where women are ordained into all orders. For some early female clergy, there was a discomfort about wearing garments traditionally associated solely with male figures, and even today certain vestment manufacturers distinguish between the type of products available for female clergy and for male clergy, or target select gendered clientele. This brief cross-disciplinary examination, of some scriptural, historic and socio-cultural understandings of vesture, concludes that, despite some seeming modern misconceptions to the contrary, vestments are inherently non-gendered, and that they appear predominantly to have been regarded as such at various stages of history. This is consistent with the liturgical understanding that vesture is not meant to be a statement of personal identity, but a symbol of ritual function and office within the gathered assembly.
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright
- © The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2020
Footnotes
1
The Reverend Canon Thomas M. Leslie is a Turner Research Fellow at Trinity College Theological School Melbourne, a Canon of Wangaratta Cathedral, and Parish Priest and Prison Chaplain in Beechworth, Australia.
References
2 C. Noren, ‘Theology, Vestments, and Women’s Nonverbal Communication’, Homiletic 15.1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5-8.
3 G. Cope, ‘Vestments’, in J.G. Davis (ed.), A New Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (London: SCM Press, 1986), pp. 521-40 (537). P. Malloy, Celebrating the Eucharist: A Practical Ceremonial Guide for Clergy and Other Liturgical Ministers (New York: Church Publishing, 2007), pp. 52-53.
4 D. Brown, God and Mystery in Words: Experience through Metaphor and Drama (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 243.
5 R. Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, Worship 54.2 (March 1980), pp. 98-117 (105-106).
6 For studies of Orthodox liturgical attire, see especially K.M. West, The Garments of Salvation: Orthodox Christian Liturgical Vesture (New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013).
7 M.C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe c.800–1200 (London: Cornell University Press, 2014), pp. 53-58.
8 The revealing of the genitals of the High Priest is understood to be a revealing of the genitals of the one who stands in place of the Divine, therefore the revealing of the Divine’s genitals. F.C. Senn, Embodied Liturgy, Lessons in Christian Ritual (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016), p. 82.
9 P. Johnstone, High Fashion in the Church: The Place of Church Vestments in the History of Art, from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (Leeds: Maney Publishing, 2002), p. 5. See also H. Norris, Church Vestments: Their Origin and Development (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1949), pp. 8-9, and G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Westminster: Dacre Press, 1952), pp. 398-410.
10 A.B. McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical and Theological Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Press, 2016), pp. 40-41, 62.
11 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, p. 19.
12 For an analysis of the symbolism in Medieval vesting prayers, see Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 77-87.
13 R. Giles, Creating Uncommon Worship: Transforming the Liturgy of the Eucharist (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2004), p. 73. Schnackenburg argues against the interpretation of the wedding garment in Mt. 22.11 as a baptismal robe: see R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew (trans. R. Barr; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 25. See also McGowan’s examination of the role of white robes in early baptismal rites (Ancient Christian Worship, pp. 172-74). P. Dearmer (The Ornaments of the Ministers [London: A.R. Mowbray & Co, 1920], pp. 11-14) also examines the historic association between Christian worship and white garments.
14 McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, pp. 152-53.
15 Norris (Church Vestments, pp. 8-9) provides an excellent brief summary of the traditional understanding of the historic development of Christian liturgical attire. A more expansive analysis of the historic development of vesture is found in West’s work on Orthodox vesture, including a brief examination of Mesopotamian and Egyptian garments influencing the development of Classical Greco-Roman attire (West, The Garments of Salvation, pp. 41-59).
16 E.A. Roulin, Vestments and Vesture: A Manual of Liturgical Art (trans. J. McCann; Westminster: Newman Press, 1950), pp. 4-5. McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, p. 62.
17 McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, p. 62. See also Dearmer, The Ornaments of the Ministers, pp. 10-11.
18 C. Pocknee, Liturgical Vesture: Its Origins and Development (Westminster: Mowbray Press, 1961) p. 13.
19 Norris (Church Vestments, pp. 21-37) discusses the role of the pallium as a Classical symbol of a teacher or prophet, and its development into the garment specific of episcopal authority.
20 Senn, Embodied Liturgy, p. 84, Johnstone, High Fashion in the Church, p. 7, Dearmer, The Ornaments of the Ministers, pp. 11-14. See also McGowan’s examination of the role of white robes in early baptismal rites in Ancient Christian Worship, pp. 172-74.
21 Senn, Embodied Liturgy, p. 83. McGowan (Ancient Christian Worship, pp. 40-41) also suggests that early Christian leadership was also potentially fluid, based upon location and hospitality roles as much as charismatic leadership or civil authority.
22 McGowan, Ancient Christian Worship, pp. 41, 149-50, 160.
23 Brown, God and Mystery in Words, p. 244.
24 Dearmer, The Ornaments of the Ministers, p. 53.
25 Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, pp. 111-12.
26 Pocknee, Liturgical Vesture, p. 14, and Plate I.
27 Pocknee, Liturgical Vesture, p. 14, and Plate II.
28 Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, p. 110.
29 Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, p. 105.
30 Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, pp. 101, 115–16.
31 Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, pp. 106-107. See also K. Rumens, ‘Sumptuous Harmonies: A Glimpse of Vestments’, The Way 39.3 (July 1999), pp. 266–67.
32 P. Zagano, ‘Women in the Diaconate’, Worship 88.1 (January 2014), pp. 73–77. See also P. Zagano, ‘Phyllis Zagano on the Case for Catholic Women Deacons’, https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/422/article/catholic-women-deacons (accessed 25 March 2019).
33 J. Tibbetts Schulenberg, ‘Holy Women and the Needle Arts’, in K.A. Smith and S. Wells (eds.), Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 83–110.
34 Tibbets Schulenberg, ‘Holy Women and the Needle Arts’, pp. 94, 102–103.
35 For example, the depiction of King Edgar as donor presenting the charter to Christ on the frontispiece of the New Minster Reformation Charter (MS Cotton Vespasian A. viii, fol 2v); see Plate 1 in L. Roach, Æthelred the Unready (London: Yale University Press, 2016), facing p. 174.
36 Tibbets Schulenberg, ‘Holy Women and the Needle Arts’, p. 104.
37 It is acknowledged that, given the existence of female religious throughout the Medieval period, there were a variety of liturgical settings in which it would be commonplace for female figures to be liturgically attired. The particularly notable aspect of this historic record is, in part, Edith’s lay status. While it could be argued that female religious were possibly perceived as genderless within medieval cultural understanding, a royal laywoman most certainly was not.
38 Tibbets Schulenberg, ‘Holy Women and the Needle Arts’, p. 91.
39 Tibbets Schulenberg, ‘Holy Women and the Needle Arts’, p. 102.
40 E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (London: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 33, 551-53.
41 Tibbets Schulenberg, ‘Holy Women and the Needle Arts’, p. 99.
42 A.G. Miller, ‘To “Frock” a Cleric: The Gendered Implications of Mutilating Ecclesiastical Vestments in Medieval England’, Gender and History 24.2 (August 2012), pp. 271–91 (271–72, 275).
43 Miller, ‘To “Frock” a Cleric’, pp. 279, 283–84.
44 Miller, ‘To “Frock” a Cleric’, p. 274.
45 An image is available at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/science/ghent-altarpiece-restoration.html (accessed 18 June 2019). See also L. Monnas, ‘Silk Textiles in the Paintings of Jan van Eyck’, in S. Foster, S. Jones and D. Cool (eds.), Investigating Jan van Eyck (Turnhout: Brepols Publishing, 2000), pp. 147–62.
46 An image is available at https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/470304 (accessed 18 June 2019).
47 M. McDonagh, ‘Bartolomé Bermejo Review: Rare Sighting of a Master of the Spanish Renaissance’, Evening Standard, 12 June 2019, https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/bartolome-bermejo-exhibition-review-national-gallery-a4164266.html. See image 4/6 (accessed 18 June 2019).
48 C. Jacobi and L. Ward (eds.), Love and Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, NGA Publishing, 2018), p. 172.
49 Jacobi and Ward, Love and Desire, p. 132.
50 Jacobi and Ward, Love and Desire, p. 133.
51 Jacobi and Ward, Love and Desire, pp. 124-25, 204–205.
52 M. Schoeser, English Church Embroidery 1833–1953: The Watts Book of Embroidery (London: Jenner City Print, 1998), p. 136.
53 Schoeser, English Church Embroidery, p. 109.
54 M. Crampin, ‘Two Windows in Arthog’, Stained Glass in Wales weblog, 9 April 2019, https://stainedglasswales.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/two-windows-at-arthog/ (accessed 3 June 2019).
55 M. Crampin, ‘Stained Glass Museum Study weekend 2017’, Stained Glass in Wales weblog, 28 April 2017, https://stainedglasswales.wordpress.com/2017/04/28/stained-glass-museum-study-weekend/ (accessed 3 June 2019).
56 Schoeser, English Church Embroidery, pp. 73–74.
57 Schoeser, English Church Embroidery, p. 41.
58 A. Bolton (ed.), Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Press, 2018). See especially the introduction by Bolton, p. 95. Also of note in this text is the article by B. Drake Boehm, ‘Habit Forming: Costume in Medieval Monastic Community’ in Bolton (ed.), Heavenly Bodies, pp. 218–19.
59 L. Borrelli-Persson, ‘Met Gala 2018 Theme: Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’, Vogue, 4 May 2018, https://www.vogue.com/article/met-gala-2018-theme-heavenly-bodies-fashion-and-the-catholic-imagination (accessed 18 June 2019).
60 For example, the Dolce & Gabbana 2016–17 Evening Ensemble based upon cope and mitre: Bolton, Heavenly Bodies, pp. 154-55. Couture and designs displayed came from various fashion houses and designers, including Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Schiaparelli, Fontana, The House of Lanvin, Yves Saint Laurent, and John Galliano for Dior. Bolton, Heavenly Bodies, pp. 108–215.
61 Bolton, Heavenly Bodies, pp. 25–87.
62 Noren, ‘Theology, Vestments, and Women’s Nonverbal Communication’, p. 5.
63 Noren, ‘Theology, Vestments, and Women’s Nonverbal Communication’, pp. 6–7.
64 Rumens, ‘Sumptuous Harmonies’, p. 263.
65 Giles, Creating Uncommon Worship, p. 78. Hovda, ‘The Vesting of Liturgical Ministers’, pp. 106 and 112.
66 The Anglican Diocese of Brisbane journeyed with one of their priests in transitioning from a male to a female identity in 2017–18, demonstrating that the narrative of clerical gendered-ness must be acknowledged to be a little broader than the traditional assumption of male/female binary. J. Baird, ‘Meet Australia’s First Transgender Priest’, ABC NEWS, 23 February 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-23/australias-first-transgender-priest/9477100 (accessed 25 March 2019).
67 S. Coakley, ‘The Woman at the Altar: Cosmological Disturbance or Gender Subversion?’ Anglican Theological Review 86.1 (Winter 2004), pp. 75–93 (91).
68 Coakley, ‘The Woman at the Altar’, p. 88.
69 Notably C M Almy, www.almy.com; Hayes & Finch, http://www.hfltd.com/category/ladies-vestments/; and Mercy Robes https://www.mercyrobes.com/shop/category/ladies-clergy-collection/ (accessed 25 March 2019).
70 http://www.hfltd.com/category/copes/ and http://www.hfltd.com/category/chasubles/ (accessed 25 March 2019).
71 While my female colleagues advise that some chasuble designs may be inappropriate for a female to wear, lest they draw unwanted visual attention to the wrong part of the chest, this does not appear to be the consideration at work in this instance. Chasubles with modern or centralized images are available in both gender categories, while it is many of the more traditional designs of chasuble and cope which are not available as ‘ladies vestments’.
72 For example, the women’s vestment company WomenSpirit, ‘a twenty-five year old company that was first to the marketplace with robes and clerical clothing tailored to fit the spirit and bodies of women’. Since March 2019, when this article was first researched, the company has diversified, now also producing male clerical attire and vestments, under the brand labels Abiding Spirit and Spiritus. The diversified company has rebranded as Sacred Stitches, with WomenSpirit retained as a brand division within the larger entity. https://sacredstitches.com/about-sacred-stitches/ (accessed 14 May 2020).
73 Norwich Cathedral UK, Christ Church South Yarra, Australia, St George’s Cathedral, Perth Australia, or St Mark’s Philadelphia USA, are all examples of parishes with senior female clergy on staff who regularly preside at the Eucharist in the same parish vestments as those worn by male clergy.
74 Thomas Merton argues strongly against personalization or the influence of popular trends in liturgical design. T. Merton, ‘Absurdity in Sacred Decoration’, Worship 34.5 (1960), pp. 248–55. See also G. Kitto Lewis, ‘Sacred Arts Study: Thomas Merton’s Guides for Art and Worship’, http://merton.org/ITMS/Annual/4/Lewis155-171.pdf (accessed 25 March 2019).
75 It is here suggested that the length and width of chasuble, cope or dalmatic, which may well influence whether some women are able to wear a church’s particular vestments, is arguably not a gendered issue. This difficulty pertains to the height of the cleric regardless of gender. It is just as likely that amply-cut chasubles will be problematic for slightly built male clergy as for female clergy, and likewise that a fiddle-back chasuble, or vestment with centralized ornamentation, will often hang badly on a full-figured cleric regardless of their gender.