The Vestments of Adrian Fortescue, DD - Part III

Only one green vestment survives. During Dr. Fortesuce's, sadly short, life the major reform of 1911-13 took place with the noticeable result of 'green' Sundays being celebrated in the period after the Octave of the Epiphany to Septuagesima and from the Octave of Corpus Christi to Advent. Prior to the reform, with a heavily congested calendar, the vast majority of these Sundays would have been double feasts of Saints and celebrated in white or red vestments. We will probably never know how many green sets of vestments Dr. Fortescue had.

The surviving green vestment has been designed in a similar style to that of one of the violet sets with a 'Tau' cross orfrey. As in that violet set, one of the white and the rose vestment the orfrey is of velvet in a matching colour to the ground fabric. The silk of the green vestment contains a pattern with small birds (see the last photograph for detail). The woven braid of the violet and green sets consists of alternating black and white small panels. The violet sets have these panels in both rectangular and parallelogram shapes. The braid on the green set is composed of parallelograms of alternating black and white panels.

Detail of the stole (above and below photographs).