or CROZIER (from croix, a cross, of which it has an image on the top), the pastoral staff of a bishop, symbolic of his dignity and office. This staff is of gold or silver, with an ornamented head, which is curved to resemble a shepherd's crook. The custom of bearing a pastoral staff before bishops is very ancient, as appears from the life of St Cesareo, bishop of Arles, who lived about the year 500. In the Greek Church, the patriarch alone had a right to the crozier. The prototype of this instrument appears to have been nothing more than a simple wooden staff or baton. Afterwards, it came to be highly ornamented; and artists, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Giovanni da Bologna, were employed to design it. The excess of splendour lavished upon crosiers in later times gave occasion to the following satirical lines:

Au temps passé du siècle d'or, Crosse de bois, évêque d'or; Et maintenant changent les lois, Crosse d'or, évêque de bois.—COQUILLE.

It is carried in procession before bishops, abbots, and abbesses. Some writers have asserted that the crosier is derived from the litus or augural staff of the ancient Romans.