At the consecration of Louis IX., in 1226, the nobles wore the cap (mortier) trimmed with fur; the bishops wore the cope and the mitre, and carried the crosier.

One morning, while contemplating his orange and blue walls, considering some ideal tapestries worked with stoles of the Greek Church, dreaming of Russian orphrey dalmaticas and brocaded copes flowered with Slavonic letters done in Ural stones and rows of pearls, the physician entered and, noticing the patient's eyes, questioned him.

His ambrosial curls fall over this cope in "hyacinthine flow."

He, from the brink, Looks far along the breadth of slope, And sees two miles of dark dots creep, And knows they mean the cope.

For this hath Science searched on weary wing, By shore and sea, each mute and living thing? Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep, To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep? Or round the cope her living chariot driven, And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven?