Rochet
A rochet (
The word stems from the Latin rochettum (from the late Latin roccus, connected with the Old High German roch, roc and the A.S. rocc; Dutch koorhemd, rochet, French rochet, German Rochett, Chorkleid, Italian rocchetto, Spanish roquete), means an ecclesiastical vestment.[2]
Catholic use
In the
The Catholic rochet is a tunic of white, usually fine
The rochet is proper to, and distinctive of,
The earliest notice of the use of the rochet is found in an inventory of the vestments of the Roman clergy, dating from the 9th century. In this it is called camisia, a name which it retained at Rome until the 14th century, and it seems to have been already at that time proper to particular members of the clergy. Other Roman names for the vestment were succa, sucta; it was not till the 14th century that the name rochettum appeared at Rome, but it was not long before it had superseded all the native designations.[2]
Outside Rome, too, the vestment is early met with, e.g. in the Frankish empire (9th century) as alba clericalis, in contrast to the liturgical
Outside Rome the rochet was, until well into the 14th century, a vestment common to all the clergy, and especially to those of the lower orders; and so it remained, in general, until the 16th century, and even, here and there, so late as the 19th. Moreover, in further contrast to the Roman use, it had, especially in the German dioceses, a liturgical character, being used instead of the surplice.[2]
The rochet was originally a robe-like tunic, and was therefore girdled, like the liturgical alb. So as late as 1260 the provincial synod of Cologne decreed that the vestis camisialis must be long enough entirely to cover the everyday dress. A good example of the camisia of the 12th century is the rochet of Thomas Becket, preserved at Dammartin in the Pas de Calais, the only surviving medieval example remarkable for the pleating which, as was the case with albs also, gave greater breadth and more elaborate folds. In the 15th century the rochet only reached halfway down the shin; in the 16th and 17th to the knee; in the 18th and 19th often only to the middle of the thigh.[2]
In the Middle Ages it was always plain.[2]
Anglican use
In the
In general it has retained the medieval form more closely than the Roman rochet and more resembles the
The rochet is worn without the chimere under the cope by those bishops who use this vestment. At his
One exception to the normal Anglican-style is the rochet worn by the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams which has open-ended narrow sleeves in the manner of the Roman rochet.
References
- ^ "rochet". Oxford English Dictionary third edition. Oxford University Press. June 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l public domain: Braun, Joseph; Phillips, Walter Alison (1911). "Rochet". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 431–432. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the