an ecclesiastical ornament, usually worn by chanters and subchanters, when they officiate in solemnity. It reaches from the shoulders to the feet. The ancients called it Phialus.—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:

Egrets and regrets to the king's highway, The miners have; and lot and cope they pay; The thirteenth dish 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 burgomaster's hands.

This word by doomsday-book, as Mr Hagar hath interpreted it, signifies a hill: and cope is taken for the supreme cover, as the cope of heaven.

COPEL. See CUPEL.