A cope is a liturgical vestment of the Western Church. The vestment is no more than a glorified survival of an article of clothing worn by all and sundry in ordinary life. This origin is clearly traceable in the shape and details of the cope. When spread out this forms an almost complete semicircle. Along the straight edge there is usually a broad band, and at the neck is attached the hood, i.e.. a shield-shaped piece of stuff which hangs down over the back. The vestment is secured in front by a broad tab sewn on to one side and fastening to the other with hooks, sometimes also by a brooch.  The evolution of this latter into its present form was gradual; first the hood became too small for use, then it was transformed into a small triangular piece of stuff (13th century), which in its turn grew (14th and 15th centuries) into the shape of a shield (see Plate II., fig. 4), and this again, losing its pointed tip in the 17th century, expanded in the 18th into a flap

The use of the cope as a liturgical vestment can be traced to the end of the 8th century. By the beginning of the 13th century the liturgical use of the cope had become finally fixed.

The cope was not rejected with the “Mass vestments” by the English Church at the Reformation. By the First Prayer-book of Edward VI., which represented a compromise, it was directed to be worn as an alternative to the “vestment” (i.e. chasuble) at the celebration of the Communion; this at least seems the plain meaning of the words “vestment or cope,” though they have been otherwise interpreted. In the Second Prayer-book vestment and cope alike disappear; but a cope was worn by the prelate who consecrated Archbishop Parker, and by the “gentlemen” as well as the priests of Queen Elizabeth’s chapel; and, finally, by the 24th canon (of 1603) a “decent cope” was prescribed for the “principal minister” at the celebration of Holy Communion in cathedral churches as well as for the “gospeller and epistler.” Except at royal coronations, however, the use of the cope, even in cathedrals, had practically ceased in England before the ritual revival of the 19th century restored its popularity. The disuse implied no doctrinal change; the main motive was that the stiff vestment, high in the neck, was incompatible with a full-bottomed wig.