COPE, an ecclesiastical ornament, usually worn by chanters, and sub-chanters, when they officiate in solemnity. It reaches from the shoulders to the feet. The ancients called it pluviale. —The word is also used for the roof or covering of a house, &c.
COPE is also the name of an ancient custom or tribute due to the king, or lord of the soil, out of the lead-mines in some part of Derbyshire; of which Manlove faith thus:
Egrels and regrels to the king's highway,
The miners have; and lot and cope they pay:
The thirteenth distil of ore within their mine,
To the lord, for lot, they pay at measuring time;
Sixpence a load for cope the lord demands,
And that is paid to the burghmaster's hands.
This word by domesday-book, as Mr Hager hath interpreted it, signifies a hill: and cope is taken for the supreme cover, as the cope of heaven.