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Cowl (2)

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Cowle, John

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Benedict ordered the "cuculla," or hood, to be shaggy for winter, and for summer of lighter texture; and a "scapulare " to be worn instead out of doors, as more suitable for field-work, being open at the sides. The "cuculla" protected the head and shoulders, and, as being worn by infants and peasants, was said to symbolize humility; or, by another account, it was to keep the eyes from glancing right or left. It was part of the dress of nuns, as well as of monks, and was worn by the monks of Tabenna at the mass. It seems in their case to have been longer than a hood or cape. Indeed, "cuculla" is often taken as equivalent to "casula," a covering of the whole person; in later writers it means, not the hood only, but the monastic robe, hood and all. These same Pachomiani, or monks of Tabenna, like the Carthusians, drew their hoods forward at meal-times, so as to hide their faces from one another. The "cappa " (probably akin to our "cape") in Italy seems to correspond with the Gallic "cuculla," and both were nearly identical, it is thought, with the "melotes," or sheepskin of the earliest, ascetics.