Dear Listmembers, I’ve been looking at a late 11th c.
Parisian MS which in one folio seems to depict St. Benedict as a priest: he is receiving
a new novice while wearing a cope (actually it looks more like an Orthodox chasuble
(phelonion), an alb and most important, a clerical stole down his front.
I’m assuming that Benedict was not considered a priest in the
early medieval tradition; I’m also assuming that tradition changed by the
time of this ms. when most Benedictine abbots were ordained; so Benedict as the
Founder and Model would also have been ordained. Or is it the case that by the
11 or early 12th c. abbots had priestly functions and so could wear
priestly garments, including the definitively sacerdotal stole?
Image (a bit tough to see)
http://www.kzoo.edu/history/Wickstrom/benedict.jpg
John B. Wickstrom
