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, which is the current design, displayed in the museum of the Archdiocese of Gniezno]] depicted wearing the pallium around the breast in a fresco at the Sacro Speco Cloister]]The pallium (derived from the Roman pallium or palla, a woolen cloak; : pallia) is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the pope, but for many centuries bestowed by the Holy See upon metropolitans and primates as a symbol of their conferred jurisdictional authorities; it remains a papal emblem. It is symbolic of the lamb which Jesus carries on his shoulders in artwork portraying him as the Good Shepherd.
In its present (western) form, the pallium is a long and "three fingers broad" (narrow) white band adornment, woven from the wool of lambs raised by Trappist monks. It is donned by looping its middle around one's neck, resting upon the chasuble and two dependent lappets over one's shoulders with tail-ends (doubled) on the left with the front end crossing over the rear. When observed from the front or rear the pallium sports a stylistic letter 'y' (contrasting against an unpatterned chasuble). It is decorated with six black crosses, one near each end and four spaced out around the neck loop. At times the pallium is embellished fore, aft, and at the left shoulder with three gold gem-headed (dull) stickpins. The doubling and pinning on the left shoulder likely survive from the (simple scarf) Roman pallium.
The pallium and the omophorion originate from the same vestment, the latter a much larger and wider version worn by Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic of the Byzantine Rite. A theory relates origination to the paradigm of the Good Shepherd shouldering a lamb, a common early Christian art image (if not icon); the ritual preparation of the pallium and its subsequent bestowal upon a pope at coronation suggests the shepherd symbolism. However, this may be an explanation a posteriori. The lambs whose fleeces are destined for pallia are solemnly presented at altar by the nuns of the convent of Saint Agnes outside the walls and ultimately the Benedictine nuns of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere weave their wool into pallia.
The use of the pallium among metropolitans did not become general until the eighth century, when a synod convened by St Boniface laid an obligation upon Western metropolitans of receiving their pallium only from the pope in Rome. This was accomplished by journeying there or by forwarding a petition for the pallium accompanied by a solemn profession of faith, all consecrations being forbidden them before the reception of the pallium. The oath of allegiance which the recipient of the pallium takes today apparently originated in the eleventh century, during the reign of Paschal II (1099–1118), and replaced the profession of faith.
The awarding of the pallium became controversial in the Middle Ages, because popes charged a fee to those receiving them, acquiring hundreds of millions of gold florins for the papacy and bringing the award of the pallium into disrepute. It is certain that a tribute was paid for the reception of the pallium as early as the sixth century. This was abrogated by Pope Gregory I in the Roman Synod of 595, but was reintroduced later as partial maintenance of the Holy See. This process was condemned by the Council of Basel in 1432, which referred to it as "the most usurious contrivance ever invented by the papacy".
Although the pallium is now reserved by law and liturgical norms to metropolitans, a single standing exception has seemed to become customary: Pope John Paul II conferred a pallium on then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when Ratzinger became dean of the College of Cardinals and therefore also cardinal bishop of Ostia, a purely honorary title and one without an archbishopric or metropolitanate attached. When Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI, he continued that exception without comment by conferring the pallium on Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the new dean. The same was done by Pope Francis for Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re on 29 June 2020, when Cardinal Re became dean in January 2020.
Worn by the pope, the pallium symbolizes the plenitudo pontificalis officii (i.e., the "plenitude of pontifical office"); worn by archbishops, it typifies their participation in the supreme pastoral power of the pope, who concedes it to them for their proper church provinces. Similarly, after an archbishop's resignation, he may not use the pallium; should he be transferred to another archdiocese, he must petition the pope for a new pallium. The new pallia are solemnly blessed after the First Vespers on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and are then kept in a special silver-gilt casket near the Confessio Petri (tomb of St. Peter) until required. The pallium was formerly conferred in Rome by a cardinal deacon, and outside of Rome by a bishop; in both cases the ceremony took place after the celebration of Mass and the administration of an oath.
For his formal inauguration, Pope Benedict XVI adopted an earlier form of the pallium, from a period when it and the omophor were virtually identical. It is wider than the modern pallium although not as wide as the modern omophor, made of wool with black silk ends, and decorated with five red crosses, three of which are pierced with pins, symbolic of Christ's five wounds and the three nails, and it was worn crossed over the left shoulder. Only the Papal pallium was to take this distinctive form. Beginning with the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, 2008, Benedict XVI reverted to a form similar to that worn by his recent predecessors, albeit in a larger and longer cut and with red crosses, therefore remaining distinct from pallia worn by metropolitans. This change, explained the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations Guido Marini, came about after recent studies on the history of the pallium had shown that the oldest depiction of a pope wearing that type of pallium, that of Pope Innocent III at the Sacro Speco Cloister, seemed to be a deliberate archaism. Marini also stated that Pope Benedict had had a series of annoying problems keeping it in place during liturgical celebrations. This pallium would later be disposed of by Benedict when, while inspecting the damages caused by the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake, he visited the badly stricken church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio. Here Pope Celestine V's remains had survived the earthquake, and after praying for a few minutes by his tomb, Benedict left the pallium on Celestine's glass casket. The last pope to abdicate willingly before Benedict XVI was Celestine V in 1294.
Although Pope Benedict XVI's second pallium was not actually made until 2008, the model for it already existed on his coat of arms. A precedent for Pope Benedict XVI's variations of the pallium was set in 1999 when Pope John Paul II wore a long Y-shaped pallium with red crosses for that year's Easter and Christmas Retrieved 27 September 2019. celebrations. It was only used on those occasions and was created by Piero Marini, the then-master of pontifical liturgical celebrations, who would also create Pope Benedict's first pallium.
On June 29, 2014, after using Benedict XVI's second pallium for more than a year, Pope Francis restored the traditional pallium worn by popes prior to Benedict. Pope Leo XIV also used the present-day pallium for his inauguration in 2025, the first since Pope John Paul II's inauguration in 1978 (Pope Benedict XVI wore the large pallium as his first pallium during his inauguration in 2005, and Pope Francis used Benedict's second pallium on his inauguration in 2013.)
Pope Francis modified the ritual of conferring the pallium in January 2015: the pallia will be blessed on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Saint Peter's Basilica; the metropolitan archbishops, however, will receive those pallia in a separate ceremony within their home dioceses from the hands of the Apostolic Nuncio, who is the personal representative of the pope in their respective countries. Pope Leo XIV ended this practice in 2025, reverting to the traditional custom of the pope himself imposing the pallia on new archbishops.
The present circular form originated in the tenth or eleventh century. Two excellent early examples of this form, belonging respectively to Archbishop St. Heribert (1021) and Archbishop St. Anno (d. 1075), are preserved in Siegburg, Archdiocese of Cologne.
At first the only decorations on the pallium were two crosses near the extremities. This is proved by the mosaics at Ravenna and Rome. It appears that the ornamentation of the pallium with a greater number of crosses did not become customary until the ninth century, when small crosses were sewn on the pallium, especially over the shoulders. However, during the Middle Ages there was no definite rule regulating the number of crosses, nor was there any precept determining their colour. They were generally dark, but sometimes red. The pins, which at first served to keep the pallium in place, were retained as ornaments even after the pallium was sewn in the proper shape, although they no longer had any practical object. That the insertion of small leaden weights in the vertical ends of the pallium was usual as early as the thirteenth century is proved by the discovery in 1605 of the pallium enveloping the body of Boniface VIII, and by the fragments of the pallium found in the tomb of Clement IV.
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