Chasuble

Origin and history

The word comes from the Latin casula , which means “small Maison”. It is also called pænula in Latin (as the coat which the apostle Paul had forgotten with Troas at the time of one of his voyages). It was indeed, at the origin, vast a Rotonde which wrapped the priest completely, called Romance chasuble or chasuble bell . In the center, there was a hole to pass the head and one raised it on the arms to say the Messe.

By enrich it by facings, of embroideries, invaluable wire (gold, money), the fabric thickened is the folding became impossible, inconvenient clothing: one needed two assistants for each prelate at the time of the royal sacring in Rheims to support the sides of clothing.

One thus indented the sides, outcome with Rome with 18th and 18th centuries with a form moving away clearly from the antique planeta , the Roman chasuble, sometimes called “baroque”, often very thick and trimmed. This type of chasuble is still usually used nowadays in Italy. The form varied slightly according to the countries. In France, one could see some in the major churches for the great ceremonies, the small parishes, often poor, adopting a still more reduced form, as that which one can see on the representations of the Curé of Ars. Called familiarly “limps with violin” or chasuble “violin” because of the form of its part former, very narrow to the level of the chest, which was suspended only by two small fabric bands, its posterior part hardly exceeded the width of the shoulders. In Spain, the posterior part of the chasuble, like its former face, narrowed slightly with the lower part of the shoulders to widen and swell in its bas.

The Diocèse of Mills, which was among the first Diocèse S French has to adopt the Roman Rite during the 19th century, had chosen, with a special permit of the the Holy See, the shape inspired of old Roman chasubles which existed before the chasuble “baroque”, such as one can see some on the illustrations of the liturgist Batholomée Gavantus at the 16th century. Finding the oval shape, often decorated of a Latin cross in the back and of a simple band to front, it was a little less full than that which will succeed to him later in France a few decades. This return to an older form marks the first steps of a liturgical revival which, at the beginning of the 20th century, will lead to the use of flexible fabric and the shapes inspired of the medieval illustrations, giving rise to the chasuble known as “Gothic. ” It is it which was mainly used in France before the liturgical reform of the Vatican II, sometimes in competition with the chasubles baroques of the great festivals or the black Roman chasuble of the funeral.

Since the liturgical reform, the Roman chasubles disappeared and the chasubles baroques are used any more in France only very seldom. The fabric used currently for the clothes industry of the chasubles became very flexible, often without lining, the light ornaments, and the form approached (flat) the oval, without seam on the handles, like the Romance chasubles.

In the Eastern rites, the chasuble almost always preserved the form old, but split ahead, which gives him the aspect of a Pluvial.

Liturgical use

The chasuble symbolizes the Charité, the Amour of the Seigneur, which must wrap the priest, at the time of the ordination, new the priest receives initially the chasuble folded in the back. It is only then, when it makes promise of Obéissance to the bishop that this one is unfolded: it is the sign which the capacities subjected to jurisdiction to him are granted - Confession and Prédication.

At times of Penitence, in large the churches, the Dalmatique of the Deacon and the Tunique of the Sous-diacre were replaced, until the reform of the Rubrique S Romans by the Pape Jean XXIII, in 1960, by chasubles violets (or black the Good Friday), folded ahead or cut about the middle of the former part.

Appendices

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