Cowl (2)
cowl
Hood covering the head, worn by the monastic orders. In the Middle Ages the cloak had a cowl attached which could be drawn over the head, and the cowl became a great cloak with a hood. The cowl of the Benedictines , Cistercians , etc. is a great mantle with a hood which may be thrown back over the shoulders; the Franciscans have a smaller hood attached to their habit. Canons wear it on their mozzetta and bishops and cardinals on the cappa; the cowl of the Augustinians and Servites is a separate hood. The color of the cowl is that of the habit.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Cowl
(koukoulion, cucullus, cuculla, cucullio. — Ducange, “Gloss.”, s.v.).
A hood worn in many religious orders. The name was originally used for a kind of bag in which grocers sold their wares (ibid.), then for an article of dress that was like it in shape. The lacerna or byrrhus (our cope), the usual cloak for outdoor wear until far into the Middle Ages, had a cowl fixed behind, that could be drawn over the head. So also had the poenula (chasuble — Wilpert, “Gewandung der Christen”, pp. 13, 45, etc.; Braun, “Liturg. Gewandung”, pp. 240, 348). Juvenal (VI, 118) and Martial (XI, 98) refer to the cucullus of the lacerna. Sozomen says that monks covered their heads with a hood called cucullus (H.E., III, xiii), and Palladius disciples of Pachomius (Hist. Laus., XIII). Both St. Jerome (Ep. xxii, ad Eustochium) and Cassian (De habitu mon., I, iv) refer to it as part of a monk’s dress. St. Benedict ordered two kinds of cowls for his monks, a warm one for winter and a light one for summer (Regula S. Ben., lv). The cowl became a great cloak with a hood. Benedict of Anagni forbade his monks to wear one that came below the knees (Ardo, Vita Ben. Anian., xl). The Benedictines, Cistercians, and all the old monastic orders now use the cowl, a great mantle with a good that can be thrown back over the shoulders, as a ceremonial dress for choir; the Franciscans have a smaller hood fixed to their habit; canons wear it on their mozzetta, and bishops and cardinals on the cappa. With the Augustinians and Servites it is still a separate hood not attached to anything. Ducange (s.v.) says the name is a diminutive of casula — “quasi minor cella”. A cowl fixed to a cloak is still commonly worn in Tyrol, parts of Austria and Hungary, etc. Cucullata congregatio occurs occasionally as a general name for monastic orders (Ducange). The colour of the cowl is that of the habit, black among Benedictines, white with the Cistercians, etc.
———————————–
ADRIAN FORTESCUE Transcribed by Marcia L. Bellafiore
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Cowl
(cucullus), a sort of hood worn by certain classes of monks. Those worn by the Bernardines and Benedictines are of two kinds: the one white; very large, worn in ceremony, and when they assist at the office; the other black, worn on ordinary occasions and in the streets. Mabillon maintains that the cowl is the same in its origin as the scapular (q.v.): Others distinguish two sorts of cowls; the one a gown, reaching to the feet, having sleeves, and a capuchin, used in ceremonies; the other a kind of hood to work in, called also a scapular, because it covers only the head and shoulders. Farrar, Eccl. Dict. s.v.; Bingham, Orig. Ecc 7:3; Ecc 7:6.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Cowl (2)
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.