  We present the first large-scale effort of creating composite spectra of
high-redshift type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and comparing them to low-redshift
counterparts. Through the ESSENCE project, we have obtained 107 spectra of 88
high-redshift SNe Ia with excellent light-curve information. In addition, we
have obtained 397 spectra of low-redshift SNe through a multiple-decade effort
at Lick and Keck Observatories, and we have used 45 UV spectra obtained by
HST/IUE. The low-redshift spectra act as a control sample when comparing to the
ESSENCE spectra. In all instances, the ESSENCE and Lick composite spectra
appear very similar. The addition of galaxy light to the Lick composite spectra
allows a nearly perfect match of the overall spectral-energy distribution with
the ESSENCE composite spectra, indicating that the high-redshift SNe are more
contaminated with host-galaxy light than their low-redshift counterparts. This
is caused by observing objects at all redshifts with the same slit width, which
corresponds to different projected distances. After correcting for the
galaxy-light contamination, subtle differences in the spectra remain. We have
estimated the systematic errors when using current spectral templates for
K-corrections to be ~0.02 mag. The variance in the composite spectra give an
estimate of the intrinsic variance in low-redshift maximum-light SN spectra of
~3% in the optical and growing toward the UV. The difference between the
maximum light low and high-redshift spectra constrain SN evolution between our
samples to be < 10% in the rest-frame optical.
