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CHASUBLE

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 960 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHASUBLE (Fr. chasuble, Ger. Kasel, Span. casulla; See also:

Late See also:Lat. casula, a little See also:house, hut, from casa), a liturgical vestment of the See also:Catholic See also:Church. It is the outermost garment worn by bishops and priests at the celebration of the See also:Mass, forming with the See also:alb (q.v.) the most essential See also:part of the eucharistic See also:vestments. Since it is only used at the Mass, or rarely for functions intimately connected with the See also:sacrament of the See also:altar, it may be regarded as the Mass vestment See also:par excellence. The chasuble is thus in a See also:special sense the sacerdotal vestment, and at the ordination of priests, according to the See also:Roman rite, the See also:bishop places on the See also:candidate a chasuble rolled up at the back (planeta plicata), with the words, " Take the sacerdotal robe, the See also:symbol of love," &c.; at the end of the ordination Mass the vestment is unrolled. The chasuble or planeta (as it is called in the Roman See also:missal), according to the pre- vailing See also:model in the Roman Catholic Church, is a scapular- like cloak, with a hole in the See also:middle for the See also:head, falling down over See also:breast and back, and leaving the arms uncovered at the sides. Its shape and See also:size, however, differ See also:con- siderably in various countries (see fig. 1), while some churches —e.g. those of certain monastic orders— have retained or re- verted to the earlier " See also:Gothic " forms to ~d be described later. From Braun's Liturgische Gewandung, by permission According to the de-of the publisher, B. See also:Herder. cisions of the Con-FIG. 1.-See also:Comparative shape and size of g r e g a t i o n of See also:Rites Chasubles as now in use in various countries. a, b, See also:German. c, Roman. d, See also:Spanish. chasubles must not be of See also:linen, See also:cotton or woollen stuffs, but of See also:silk; though a mixture of See also:wool (or linen and cotton) and silk is allowed if the silk completely See also:cover the other material on the See also:outer See also:side; spun See also:glass See also:thread, as a substitute for See also:gold or See also:silver thread, is also forbidden, owing to the possible danger to the See also:priest's See also:health through broken fragments falling into the See also:chalice.

The chasuble, like the kindred vestments (the q s)ovwv, &c.) in the Eastern Churches, is derived from the Roman paenula or planeta, a cloak worn by all classes and both sexes in the Graeco-Roman See also:

world (see VESTMENTS). Though See also:early used in the celebration of the See also:liturgy it had for several centuries no specifically liturgical See also:character, the first clear instances of its See also:ritual use being in a See also:letter of St Germanus of See also:Paris (d. 576), and the next in the twenty-eighth See also:canon of the See also:Council of See also:Toledo (633). Much later than this, however, it was still an See also:article of everyday clerical See also:dress, and as such was prescribed by the German council convened by See also:Carloman and presided over by St See also:Boniface in 742. Amalarius of See also:Metz, in his De ecclesiasticis officiis (ii. 19), tells us in 816 that the casula is the generale indumentum sacrorum ducum and " is proper generally to all the See also:clergy." It was not until the 1th See also:century, when the See also:cope (q.v.) had become established as a liturgical vestment, that the chasuble began to be reserved as special to the See also:sacrifice of the Mass. As illustratingthis See also:process See also:Father Braun (p. 170) cites an interesting See also:correspondence between See also:Archbishop See also:Lanfranc of See also:Canterbury and See also:John of See also:Avranches, archbishop of See also:Rouen, as to the propriety of a bishop wearing a chasuble at the See also:consecration of a church, Lanfranc maintaining as an established principle that the vestment should be reserved for the Mass. By the 13th century, with the final development of the ritual of the Mass, the chasuble became definitely fixed as the vestment of the celebrating priest; though to this See also:day in the Roman Church See also:relics of the earlier See also:general use of the chasuble survive in the planeta plicata worn by deacons and subdeacons in See also:Lent and See also:Advent, and other See also:penitential seasons. At the See also:Reformation the chasuble was rejected with the other vestments by the more extreme Protestants. Its use, however, survived in the Lutheran churches; and though in those of See also:Germany it is no longer worn, it still forms part of the liturgical See also:costume of the Scandinavian Evangelical churches. In the Church of See also:England, though it was prescribed alternatively with the cope in the First See also:Prayer-See also:Book of See also:Edward VI., it was ultimately discarded, with the other `; Mass vestments," the cope being substituted for it at the celebration of the See also:Holy Communion is See also:cathedral and collegiate churches; its use has, however, during the last fifty years been widely revived in connexion with the reactionary See also:movement in the direction of the pre-Reformation See also:doctrine of the See also:eucharist.

The difficult question of its legality is discussed in the article VESTMENTS. See also:

Form.—The chasuble was originally a See also:tent-like robe which See also:fell in loose folds below the See also:knee (see See also:Plate I. fig. 4). Its obvious inconvenience for celebrating the holy mysteries, however, caused its See also:gradual modification. The See also:object of the See also:change was primarily to leave the hands of the celebrant freer for the careful performance of the See also:manual acts, and to this end a process of cutting away at the sides of the vestment began, which continued until the tent-shaped chasuble of the 12th century had See also:developed in the 16th into the scapular-like vestment at See also:present in use. This process was, moreover, hastened by the substitution of costly and elaborately embroidered materials for the See also:simple stuffs of which the vestment had originally been composed; for, as it became heavier and stiffer, it necessarily had to be made smaller. For the extremely exiguous proportions of some chasubles actually in use, which have been robbed of all the beauty of form they ever possessed, less respectable motives have sometimes been responsible, viz. the See also:desire of their makers to See also:save on the materials. The most beautiful form of the chasuble is undoubtedly the " Gothic " (see the figure of Bishop Johannes of See also:Lubeck in the article VESTMENTS), which is the form most affected by the See also:Anglican clergy, as being that worn in the See also:English Church before the Reformation. Decoration.—Though planetae decorated with narrow orphreys are occasionally met with in the monuments of the early centuries, these vestments were until the loth century generally quite See also:plain, and even at the See also:close of this century, when the See also:custom of decorating the chasuble with orphreys had become See also:common, there was no definite See also:rule as to their disposition; sometimes they were merely embroidered See also:borders to the See also:neck-opening or hem, sometimes a See also:vertical See also:strip down the back, less often a forked See also:cross, the arms of which turned upwards over the shoulders. From this See also:time onward, however, the See also:embroidery became ever more and more elaborate, and with this tendency the orphreys were broadened to allow of their being decorated with figures. About the middle of the 13th century, the cross with See also:horizontal arms begins to appear on the back of the vestment, and by the 15th this had become the most usual form, though the forked cross also survived—e.g. in England, where it is now considered distinctive of the chasuble as worn in the Anglican Church: Where the forked cross is used it is placed both on the back and front of the vestment; the horizontal-armed cross, on the other See also:hand, is placed only on the back, the front being decorated with a vertical strip extending to the See also:lower hem (fig. 1, b,d).

Sometimes the back of the chasuble has no cross, but only a vertical See also:

orphrey, and in this See also:case the front, besides the vertical stripe, has a horizontal orphrey just below the neck opening (see Plate I. fig. 2). This latter is the type used in the See also:local Roman Church, which has been adopted in certain dioceses in See also:South Germany and See also:Switzerland, and of late years in the Roman Catholic churches in England, e.g. See also:Westminster cathedral (see Plate I. See also:figs. 3 and 5). It has been widely held that the forked cross was a conscious See also:imitation of the archiepiscopal See also:pallium (F. Bock, Gesch. der liturg. Geweinder, ii. 107), and that the chasuble so decorated is proper to archbishops. Father Braun, however, makes it quite clear that this was not the case, and gives See also:proof that this decoration was not even originally conceived as a cross at all, citing early instances of its having been worn by laymen and even by non-Christians (p. 21o) . It was not until the 13th century that the symbolical meaning of the cross began to be elaborated, and this was still further accentuated from the 14th century onward by the increasingly widespread custom of adding to it the figure of the crucified See also:Christ and other symbols of the See also:Passion.

This, however, did not represent any definite rule; and the orphreys of chasubles were decorated with a See also:

great variety of pictorial subjects, scriptural.or See also:drawn from the stories of the See also:saints, while the See also:rest of the vestment was either See also:left plain or, if embroidered, most usually decorated with See also:arabesque patterns of foliage or animals. The local Roman Church, true to its See also:ancient traditions, adhered to the simpler forms. The See also:modern Roman chasuble pictured in Plate I. fig. 5, besides the conventional arabesque See also:pattern, is decorated, according to rule, with the arms of the archbishop and his see. The Eastern Church.—The See also:original See also:equivalent of the chasuble is the phelonion (4EX6vwv, OEX6vrls, rbaw6Xiov, from paenula). It is a full vestment of the type of the Western See also:bell chasuble; but, instead of being cut away at the sides, it is for convenience' See also:sake either gathered up or cut See also:short in front. In the Armenian, Syrian, Chaldaean and Coptic rites it is cope-shaped. There is some difference of See also:opinion as to the derivation of the vestment in the latter case; the Five Bishops (See also:Report to See also:Convocation, 1908) deriving it, like the cope, from the birrus, while Father Braun considers it, as well as the cope, to be a modification of the paenula.l The phelonion (See also:Arm. shurtshar, Syr. phaina, Chald. maaphra or phaina, Copt. burnos, felonion, kuklion) is confined to the priests in the Armenian, Syrian, Chaldaean and Coptic rites; in the See also:Greek rite it is worn also by the lectors. It is not in the See also:East so specifically a eucharistic vestment as in the See also:West, but is worn at other See also:solemn functions besides the liturgy, e.g. marriages, processions, &c. Until the 11th century the phelonion is always pictured as a perfectly plain dark robe, but at this See also:period the custom arose of decorating the patriarchal phelonion with a number of crosses, whence its name of vo\txrrabpwv. By the 14th century the use of these polystauria had been extended to metropolitans and later still to all bishops. The See also:purple or See also:black phelonion, however, remained plain in all cases.

The Greeks and Greek Melchite metropolitans now See also:

wear the sakkos instead of the phelonion; and in the See also:Russian, Ruthenian, Bulgarian and Italo-Greek churches this vestment has superseded the phelonion in the case of all bishops (see See also:DALMATIC and VESTMENTS). See J. Braun, S.J., See also:Die liturgische Gewandung (See also:Freiburg See also:im See also:Breisgau, 1907), pp. 149-247, and the bibliography to the article VESTMENTS. (W. A. P.) 1 The writer is indebted to the See also:courtesy of Father Braun for the following See also:note:—" That the Syrian phaina was formerly a closed See also:mantle of the type of the bell chasuble is clearly proved by the See also:evidence of the miniatures of a Syrian pontifical (dated 1239) in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (cf. Bild 16, 112, 284, in Die liturgische Gewandung). The liturgical vestments of the Armenians are derived, like their rite, from the Greek rite; so that in this case also there can be no doubt that the shurtshar was originally closed. The Coptic rite is in the same relation to the Syrian. Moreover, it would be further necessary to prove that the birrus, in contradistinction to the paenula, was always open in front; whereas, per contra, the paenula, both as worn by soldiers and in See also:ordinary See also:life, was, like the modern Arab burnus, often slit up the front to the neck. For the rest, it is obvious that if the Syrian phaina was still quite closed in the 13th century, and was only provided with a slit since that time, the same is very probable in the case of the Armenian chasuble.

End of Article: CHASUBLE

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