The Lenten Veil

The website of the Liturgical Arts Journal has an article about the use of the Lenten Veil in churches. It argues the custom of concealing the reredos and other features with hangings decorated with Passiontide and Holy Week symbols is Gallican in origin, and where it is attested from at least the seventh century.

Medieval England appears to have adopted it enthusiastically and major churches such as Westminster Abbey and Wakefield Cathedral restored the practice in the wake of the Oxford Movement and its consequent impact on liturgy in the early twentieth century. Some Anglo-Catholic clergy also wore matching unbleached linen vestments, but that I think is a modern idea, and I have never seen it referred to in the 1552 Church Goods inventories, which do sometimes refer to a Lenten Veil. Nineteenth century Anglican pioneers of liturgical restoration in books such as Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial collected references from late medieval sources such as inventories and parish accounts to veils.

It survives in Sicily as can be seen in the striking photographs which accompany the article, and they can be seen and the piece read at More Examples of Lenten Veils -- the "Velum Quadrigesimale"