Pall, in heraldry, the upper part of a saltire conjoined to the lower part of a pale. It appears much in the arms of ecclesiastical sees.
Pall is the name given in English to different portions of ecclesiastical '^ • vesture, employed by the Komish and
other churches.
1. It is applied (Lat, pallium ; Gr. tiXrjTov) to a part of the pontifical dress worn only by the pope, archbish- ops, and patriarchs, and is a scarf of honor symbolic of "the plenitude of the pontifical office." It is a white woollen band of about three fingers' breatlth, made round, and worn over the shoulders, crossed in front with one end hanging down over the breast ; the other behind it is ornamented with purple crosses, and fast- ened by three golden needles or pins, the number sig- nifying charity, or the nails of the cross. It is made of the wool of perfectly white sheep, which are yearly, on the festival of St. Agnes, offered and blessed at the cel- ebration of the holy eucharist, in the church dedicated to her in the Nomentan Way in Kome. The sheep are received by two canons of the church of St. John Lat- eran, who deliver them into the charge of the subdeacons of the apostolic college, and by them they are kept and fed until the time for sheep-shearing arrives. The pal- liums are always made of this wool, and when completed they are brought to the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and are placed upon the altar over those saints' tomb on the eve of their festival, and are left there the whole night, and on the following day are delivered to the subdeacons whose office it is to take charge of them. The pope alone always wears the pallium, wherever he officiates, to signify his assumed authority over all other particular churches.
Archbishops and patriarchs receive the pall from the pope, and cannot wear it except on certain occasions, such as councils, ordinations, and on great festivals in the celebration of the mass. The Council of Macon (A. D. 581) forbade archbishops saying mass without the pall. An archbishop in the Komish Church, al- though he be consecrated as bishop, and have taken possession, cannot before he has petitioned for, and re- ceived and paid for the pallium, either call himself arch- bishop or perform such acts as belong to the "greater jurisdiction" — those, namely, which he exercises not as a bishop, but as archbishop, such as to summon a coun- cil or to visit his province, etc. He can, however, when his election has been coi'.firmed, and before he receives the pallium, depute his functions, in the matter of or- daining bishops, to his suffragans, who may lawfuUy
exercise them by his command. If, however, any arch- bishop in the Romish Church, before he receives the pallium, perform those offices which result immediately from the possession of it, such as, for instance, those re- lating to orders and to the chrism, etc., the acts them- selves are valid, but the archbishop offends against the canons and laws of the Church.
The pall was part of the imperial habit, and was orig- inally granted by the emperors to the patriarchs. Thus Constantine gave the use of the pall to the bishop of Rome, probably Linus or Sylvester ; and Anthimus, patri- arch of Constantinople, when expelled from his see, is said to have returned the pall to the emperor Justinian, In 336 it was for the first time given to a bishop of the see of Ostia, who was then ofliciating at the consecra- tion of the pope, because the pontiff was not a bishop at the time of his election. The bishopric of Aries had the pall from a very early period. The bishopric of Autun was given it about A. D. 000. Isidore of Se- ville says that it was once common to all bishops, but in time it certainly was given to bishops only as an ex- ceptional honor, as when St. Boniface received it from pope Gregory II, the bishop of Bamberg in 104G. and the bishop of Lucca from Alexander II in 1057. Pelagius or Damasus required all metropolitans to fetch their pall within three months after consecration ; pope Greg- ory I forbade the reception of money by any official at its delivery, but the journey and fees in time became a sore tax, which cost the archbishop of Mayence 30.000 gold pieces. Pope Gregory sent a pall to St. Augustine of Canterbur)', and in 734 Egbright of York, after great difficulty, procured the same distinc- tion, which had been withheld since G44. In 1472 the archbishops of St. Andrew's became independent of York and metropolitans of Scotland in right of the pall. Four palls were given for the first time at the Council of Kells, 1152, to the Irish archbishops bj' the papal legate, this being their earliest acknowledgment of the pope's supremacy. When the see of Rome had carried its authority to the highest pitch, under Imiocent III, that pontiff decreed the pall to be a mark of such dis- tinction as is attached to it to this day. Neither the functions or title of archbishop, as we have seen above, can be assumed without it ; and in order to make it a source of profit to the papal exchequer, every arch- bishop is buried in his pall, so that his successor may be obliged to apply to the pope for another and pay for the privilege.