Rochet

ROCHET (Camisia, Alba Romana, Succa, Saroth, Sarcotium, Sarcos, Rocchettum, Diminutive of Late Latin Roccus "Garment"). - It is a vestment of white linen worn by the pope, by cardinals, by bishops and by prelates as a distinctive mark of their dignity.

It is a reduced form of the alb with long, narrow sleeves adorned with lace worn over white, red or violet silk, unlike the cotta, which has wide, short sleeves. The rocchetto is not worn by itself, but with the mozzetta, the mantelletta or the cappa in choir, in processions, in sermons, etc. For the celebration of Mass and for the administration of the Sacraments it is necessary to wear the alb or the cotta over the rocchetto.

The first mention of a "camice et cingulum," before putting on the alb properly so called, is found in the Ordo Romanus VIII, I, 1 and II, 2, 4 of the 9th century (M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani, II, Louvain 1948, pp. 310-17, 321). It was the custom among the Franks to wear between profane and sacred garments an intermediate vestment ("une sorte d'écran"), a sleeve, to cover profane clothing; already in the 7th century, even pseudo-Germanus (Ep., II) alludes to the "manicae" of the Gallican liturgy "ne appareat vile vestimentum" (M. Andrieu, loc. cit., 313 n. 1). The Gallican or Frankish use spread everywhere; in England (can. 46), under Edgar (d. 975), it was sanctioned in the Synods of Trier of 1238 and of Cologne of 1260 (can. 7). This camisia was worn by all clerics, even by bell-ringers. In Rome the rocchetto came into use with the reception of the Germanic Missal and Pontifical, but there it soon became a prerogative of the higher clergy; already the Fourth Lateran Council (of 1215) recommended that secular bishops wear "superindumenta linea" even outside church; the newly elected pope (cf. Ordo Gregorii X [1271-76]: M. Andrieu, Le Pontifical, II, Vatican City 1940, p. 527; Ordo Romanus XIII, 3 and XIV, 10: PL 78, 1106 and 1127) wore this garment. The rocchetto is delivered to the newly consecrated bishop, if he is present in Rome, by the pope himself (Caerem. episc., I, I, chap. 1, n. 2.). In the Middle Ages, until the 13th century, the rocchetto was a tunic without ornament reaching down to the heels and tied at the waist; from the 14th and 15th centuries it began to be shortened, arriving in the 16th-17th centuries to just above the knees with the omission of the cincture, and in the 18th century it came to cover barely the hips but was richly trimmed with lace or pleated. The name "rocchetto" occurs already in Rome in the 14th century.

Pietro Siffino