Pallium

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) A large, square, woolen cloak which enveloped the whole person, worn by the Greeks and by certain Romans. It is the Roman name of a Greek garment.

(2): ( n.) A band of white wool, worn on the shoulders, with four purple crosses worked on it; a pall.

(3): ( n.) The mantle of a bivalve. See Mantle.

(4): ( n.) The mantle of a bird.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

a piece of pontifical dress. It is the peculiar mark of primates, metropolitans, and archbishops, and a few privileged bishops, to be worn by them at councils, ordinations, and on certain occasions in church. Its other names were anophorion, superhumerale, and, in the writings of Theodoret and St. Gregory Nazianzen, hiera stole. It is a circular scarf of plain lambs' wool, worn like a collar about the neck, and having two falling ends fastened over the chasuble by three gold pins fixed on the left shoulder, the breast, and back, the number three signifying charity, or the nails of the cross. Before the 8th century it was ornamented with two or four red or purple, but now with six black, crosses, fastened with gold pins, which superseded an earlier ornament, the Good Shepherd, or one cross, in the 4th century. It has been supposed to be the last relic of an abbreviated toga, reduced to its laticlave by degrees. In the time of Gregory the Great it was made of white linen cloth, without seam or needlework, hanging down from the shoulders. (See Pall).