PALLIUM. - It is a band of white wool, 4-6 cm. wide, marked with 6 crosses of black silk, wrapped around the shoulders, with the two ends hanging, one over the chest, the other over the back; adorned with 3 jeweled pins (aciculae) on the chest, on the back and on the left shoulder.
It is a liturgical insignia of honor and jurisdiction, reserved to the pope and to metropolitan archbishops. Within 3 months of his consecration or confirmation, the metropolitan must ask the pope for the pallium; this obligation dates from the second half of the 9th century. The delivery or imposition of the pallium takes place in Rome by the first cardinal deacon; outside Rome, in the metropolitan see, by the bishop appointed for the purpose, after the solemn Mass and after the metropolitan archbishop has taken the oath of fidelity (from the 11th century onward, however, after the profession of faith). The metropolitan wears the pallium only at pontifical Masses in his church and in those of his province on the days fixed by the Pontificale Romanum (I, I, tit. XIV, n. 10), on the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of St. Joseph, added by Leo XIII, and at ordinations, consecrations, etc. It is a personal insignia, and it cannot be lent to another; if an archbishop is transferred to another metropolitan see he must ask for a new one. The pope, vested with supreme power and full jurisdiction, wears it always at solemn Masses and everywhere.
It is made from the wool of 2 white lambs blessed on Jan. 21 in the basilica of St. Agnes (v. AGNELLI, BENEDIZIONE degli). At the first Vespers of Sts. Peter and Paul the new pallia are blessed by the pope and are kept in a gilded silver casket near the Confession and tomb of St. Peter, in order to deliver them to the metropolitans.
Already the most ancient representations of the pallium, in the famous
PALLIUM - 1. Manner of wearing the pallium in antiquity. Mosaic from the era of Honorius I (625-38) - Rome, basilica of St. Agnes (photo Anderson). - 2. Manner of wearing the pallium in the late Middle Ages. Miniature from the codex commissioned by the archbishop of Trier, Cuno von Falkenstein (March 8, 1380) - Trier, Cathedral Treasury, cod. no. 66 (from P. Weber, Der Domschatz zu Trier, Augsburg-Cologne 1928, pl. 16). - 3. Present manner of wearing the pallium (photo Felici).
ivory of Trier, in a procession with relics (mid-5th century) and more clearly in the figure of Bishop Maximian in the mosaic of St. Vitalis in Ravenna (first half of the 6th century) show it in the form of a scarf around the shoulders, with the two parts hanging from the left shoulder. From the middle of the 9th century the two ends begin to hang, fastened with two pins, exactly in the middle of the chest and of the back; a third pin fixes it on the left shoulder. Later, instead of the pins there is a fixed seam; the 3 pins remained decorative. The two ends, at first of considerable length, down to the knee, were shortened after the 15th century to the present form (that of the 17th century). The ornamentation of the pallium with the cross, already begun in the Ravenna mosaic, increases in the Carolingian era; in the Middle Ages (Innocent III) it is red in color. The pallium of the archbishop of Cologne Clement Augustus (d. 1761) had 2 black crosses and 6 red ones. At first the pallium was considered proper to the pope; bishops and archbishops wore it only by his concession. This concession dates from the 6th century; Pope Symmachus granted the privilege to St. Caesarius of Arles in 513.
On the origin of the pallium, T. Klauser recently follows the thesis of Duchesne, namely that it is a matter of an imperial indult; others derive it from the ancient cloak of the philosophers similar to the folded contabulata toga (lorum). Braun, on the other hand, sees in it an imitation of the Greek omophorion (ὠμορφόριον), which became in the West the insignia proper to the pope alone, while for all the bishops of the East it is a liturgical insignia.
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