Note 1 — VOLUME VII SLICE III Convention to Copyright (continued 5)

This derivation, suggested also by Dr Legg (Archaeol. Journal, 51, p. 39, 1894), is rejected by the five bishops in their report to Convocation (1908). Their statement, however, that it is “pretty clear” that the cope is derived from the Roman lacerna or birrus is very much open to criticism. We do not even know what the appearance and form of the birrus were; and the question of the origin of the cope is not whether it was derived from any garment of the time of the Roman Empire, and if so from which, but what garment in use in the 8th and 9th centuries it represents.