Papal fanon

The manner of putting on the fanon recalled the method of assuming the amice universal in the Middle Ages and that continued to be observed by some of the older religious orders.

[citation needed] The fanon was regularly used until the Second Vatican Council but then fell into disuse, with Pope John Paul II wearing it once in the early 1980s during a visit to a Roman convent.

This limitation of its use did not appear until the other ecclesiastics at Rome began to put the vestment on under the alb instead of over it, that is, when it became customary among the clergy to use the fanon as an ordinary amice.

But it is certain that as early as the end of the twelfth century the fanon was worn solely by the pope, as is evident from the express statement of Innocent III (1198–1216).

The vestment was then called an orale; the name of fanon, from the late Latin fano, derived from pannus (penos), cloth, woven fabric, was not used until a subsequent age.