PALLIUM, a word often mentioned in our old historians. Durandus tells us that it is a garment made of white wool, after the following manner, viz. The nuns of
St Agnes offer every year, on the feast day of their saint, two white lambs on the altar of their church, during the time of singing the Agnus Dei, in a solemn mass; and these lambs are afterwards taken by two of the canons of the Lateran church, and by them given to the pope's subdeacons, who send them to pasture till shearing time, when they are shorn, and the pall is made of their wool mixed with other white wool. The pall being thus made, is carried to the Lateran church, and there placed on the high altar, by the deacons of that church; and after the usual watching, it is carried away in the night, and delivered to the subdeacons, who lay it up safe. The pallium signifies the plenitude of ecclesiastical power; and therefore it was the prerogative of the popes, as the successors of St Peter, to invest other prelates with it. At first this was done nowhere but at Rome; though afterwards the ceremony was performed at other places.