The High Church case against the cope
In all Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, the holy Communion shall be administered upon principal Feast-days, sometimes by the Bishop if he be present, and sometimes by the Dean, and at sometimes by a Canon or Prebendary, the principal Minister using a decent Cope, and being assisted with the Gospeller and Epistler agreeably, according to the Advertisements published An. 7 Eliz. - Canon XXIV, Canons of 1604.
The provisions for the use of the cope at Holy Communion in the 1566 Advertisements and 1604 Canons might be regarded as somewhat undermining the suggestion made in last week's post that the use of the surplice was an expression of an aesthetic of dignified simplicity, used in all the offices of divine service as a sign of all these offices being an expression of the one ministry of reconciliation. What did the use of the rather more ornate cope at Holy Communion signify?
To begin with, the Advertisements and Canons obviously restrict the use of the cope to cathedral and collegiate churches. For the vast majority, receiving ministrations in the parish church, the cope was unseen and the aesthetics and the doctrinal significance of the surplice was undisturbed. As for cathedral and collegiate churches, there was a consistent recognition of the suitability of a greater ceremony in their divine service. This had been signalled by the 1559 Injunctions, protecting "the laudable science of music" in collegiate churches. Copes were another expression of this desire to sustain a level of ceremony befitting the status of cathedrals and collegiate churches.
The use of the cope was also devoid of the sacerdotal significance of the "vestment", not having been traditionally worn by the celebrant at the Eucharist. The fact that gospeller and epistler were to also wear copes emphasized this lack of sacerdotal significance. As to the ministers wearing the cope only at Holy Communion, and not (in the words of the Advertisements) "at all other prayers", this was a recognition of the particular dignity of the Sacrament, akin to the normal provision in parishes for "a fair white linen cloth" on the Holy Table and "the best and purest wheat bread".
What is, however, most striking about the 1604 Canon is not what it says but, rather, the fact that in the post-Restoration Church it quickly fell into disuse and that High Church commentators made no attempt to restore its usages. Charles Wheatly's 1710 commentary on the BCP merely notes that the provision for the cope had "now grown obsolete and out of use". Thomas Sharpe in 1753 stated that the "disuse of copes" was "so universally allowed of by the ordinaries ... we are not bound, at this time, to make any alteration in our practice":
For whatever our governors in the church do openly and constantly permit, and consequently by a fair construction approve of, whether it will be admitted as a good interpretation of ecclesiastical laws or not, yet there is no doubt it is a sufficient dispensation for the continuance of the usage, till further order be taken therein.
This (rather Hooker-like) appeal to what Sharpe describes as "custom" is also indicative of how for long the cope had been out of use. Mant's 1820 Notes on the BCP, a collection of extracts from High Church commentaries - and a typical expression of the emphasis on rubrical conformity identified by Nockles as characteristic of the High Church tradition in the 1810s and 1820s - quoted Sharpe's words in a manner clearly indicating that the matter was closed.
In 1843, amidst the first signs of growing tension regarding ritual, High Churchman John Jebb in his The Choral Service of the United Church of England and Ireland: Being an Enquiry into the Liturgical System of the Cathedral and Collegiate Foundations of the Anglican Communion likewise noted that, apart from its use at the Coronation, "the cope has now fallen into almost total disuse". Jebb admitted that "I can find no argument to justify the disuse of these ancient vestments, so expressly enjoined" by Canon, "except that rule of charity ... that loving regard for the edification of the people, to which every rite and ceremony should tend". Settled custom, in other words, should not be unsettled:
But as to the resumption of an outward decoration, long lost sight of, unheard of by the multitude, and mentioned, though decidedly, yet only by implication in the Prayer Book; there would surely be good reason to complain of that indiscretion which should adopt it unexplained. It would then have infallibly the appearance of unauthorized, and perhaps superstitious innovation; and a just dread might be entertained of an approximation to the usages on to the usages of a Church whose corruptions we have, in the most express and solemn manner, renounced for ever.
There was, then, for over a century, a consistent and sustained High Church recognition that a restoration of the use of the cope was not desirable. This was a thoroughly High Church conviction: it was not a symptom of supposed High Church decline in the 18th century. It was an application of the High Church commitment to conformity and the Church's peace.
A restoration of the cope would have been, in Jebb's words, based on "private and individual notions of propriety", the very form of reasoning which was hostile to conformity and uniformity, disturbing the Church's peace in a manner not dissimilar to those 'enthusiasts' who exalted private experience over common prayer. The 18th century High Church case against restoring the cope was an echo of Hooker's wisdom:
that which hath been received long since and is by custom now established, we keep as a law which we may not transgress - LEP I.10.8.
This is certainly not to argue against contemporary use of the cope. Indeed, its customary use over the past century within Anglicanism would be an important part of a High Church case for the continuation of a settled ceremonial use. It is, however, to challenge narratives of 18th century High Church decline. Mindful of the ecclesial disorders which arose in later 19th century Anglicanism through the invocation of "private and individual notions of propriety" by the Ritualists, the 18th century High Church refusal to pursue a restoration of the cope was indeed an exercise in the rule of charity, cherishing the conformity and uniformity in common prayer which served ecclesial peace and unity.
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