CAPPA. – Originally it was a broad sleeveless cloak, often provided with a hood, and covered the entire person; from antiquity through the whole Middle Ages it was used as protection against bad weather and for travel, both by laymen and by ecclesiastics.
For laymen, in fact, it became almost a mark of serious persons, when young men began to wear short garments, particularly in wartime.
When the Mendicant Orders arose, they wore it open at the front, with a broad hood that fell all around the shoulders, eventually forming a kind of shoulder cape. Laymen and ecclesiastics wore it trimmed with fur around the head and shoulders. While monks used the cowl as choir dress, the other religious used either the surplice, or the c., or simply the habit of their Order.
The popes, before the use of the mozzetta with a hood over the rochet was introduced at Avignon, wore in the Middle Ages a red c. of silk trimmed with ermine, which ultimately, until Pius VI, was worn only at the Offices of Matins during the Triduum of Holy Week and on Good Friday; on solemn occasions, however, they wore the great mantle, broader and more precious than the simple cope.
The cardinals wear the ceremonial c., entirely identical to that of the bishops: it consists of a long train-bearing mantle with a broad hood falling around the shoulders in the form of a shoulder cape closed at the front; in winter, another shoulder cape of white fur, which also trims the hood, is worn over II.
The mantle is completely closed, with a single longitudinal opening at the front of the chest through which the hands pass; therefore, in order to use the arms more freely, the c. is turned back over the forearms. To distinguish cardinals from other prelates, they were granted the use of red-purple c.; this occurred under Paul II (or, according to others, as early as the time of Boniface VIII); during Advent, Lent, and vigils, however, the colour of the c. is violet. The fabric is always watered silk (amoeero); on Good Friday and on days of strict penance it is likewise made of violet wool. Cardinals elected from among the monastic or Mendicant Orders wear c. of wool in the colour of their order; those coming from the regular clerics wear purple and violet c., like their colleagues, but always made of wool.
The bishops in their dioceses wear the violet c., of the same form, as stated, as that of the cardinals, in wool or silk, while the upper part, when not covered by fur, is always of crimson silk; in the Curia they wear either the c. in the manner of prelates or the mantelletta. Religious wear the c., like the cassock, mantelletta, and mozzetta, in the colour of their Order; until not long ago they used the rochet only by special concession, but that concession is now widely granted.
The prelates likewise wear the c. over the violet cassock and the rochet; but it is never worn spread out, rather being gathered in such a way as to pass beneath the left arm, where it is held close to the body by a ribbon hanging from the shoulders beneath the shoulder cape. This is how the court and Curia prelates wear it: the vice-camerlengo, auditor, and treasurer of the Apostolic Camera (prelates di fiocchetto), the supernumerary and titular protonotaries, the clerics of the Camera, the domestic prelates, the canons of the patriarchal basilicas, the voting members and referendaries of the Segnatura, and the bishops themselves when present in the Curia. By papal concession, the canons of certain metropolitan or cathedral churches also wear this c. in their dioceses, particularly those who are assimilated to the protonotaries, as well as the canons of some of the minor Roman basilicas. The chamberlains and secret chaplains, for whom the formal ceremonial garment is the croccia, do not, however, have this right.