having an Umbrella carried over his head on solemn processions. It is
not, altogether impossible that the cardinal's hat may be derived
from this Umbrella. The origin of this custom of hanging an Umbrella
in the Basilican churches is plain enough. The judge sitting in the
basilica would have it as part of his insignia of office. On the
judgment hall being turned into a church, the Umbrella remained, and
in fact occupied the place of the canopy over thrones and the like in
our own country. Beatiano, an Italian herald, says that "a vermilion
Umbrella in a field argent symbolises dominion."

References crop up now and then throughout the middle age records,
to Umbrellas; but the extreme paucity of such allusions goes to show
that they were not in common use. In an old romance, "The Blonde of
Oxford," a jester makes fun of a nobleman for being out in the rain
without his cloak. "Were I a rich man," says he, "I would bear my
house about with me." By this very valiant joke he meant, as he
afterwards explained, that the nobleman should wear a cloak, not that
he ought not to forget his Umbrella So it is clear, we find, that our
forefathers depended on their cloaks, not on their Umbrellas, for
protection against storms.

Careful research has enabled us to light on a solitary instance of
an ancient English Umbrella, for Wright, in his "Domestic Manners of
the English," gives a drawing from the Harleian MS., No. 603, which
represents an Anglo-Saxon gentleman walking out attended by his
servant, the servant carrying an Umbrella with a handle that slopes
backwards, so as to bring the Umbrella over the head of the person in
front. It probably, therefore, could not be shut up, but otherwise it
looks like an ordinary Umbrella, and the ribs are represented
distinctly.