Sucinctory

SUCINCTORY (Subcinctorium, Subcingulum, Perizoma; Balteus, Praecinctorium, Semicinctium). - An ornament of the Pope at solemn Mass. It is a strip of cloth similar to the maniple, folded in the middle, of the color of the chasuble, adorned on one side with a golden lamb, on the other with a golden cross; it is attached to the left side of the cincture.

In Rome the s. was not used before the 11th century. Bruno of Segni (d. 1123) and Sicard of Cremona (d. 1215) are among the first to name it. It is not mentioned in the early Ordines Romani nor by the writers of the 8th-10th centuries (Amalarius, Rabanus, Strabo, Pseudo-Alcuin). In Ravenna, however, it was already in use in the 7th-8th century: it was later called: balteus (in the Sacramentary of Ratoldus of Corbie), praecinctorium (in the so-called Illyrican Mass), semicinctorium (in southern Italy). It is proper to bishops (Ordo XIV, 48, 53), granted as a privilege also to other prelates; in Milan it was worn also by the priest-cardinals of the metropolitan Chapter. The caeremoniale Episcoporum Romanum no longer names it.

It originally served to secure the stole, as Durandus says ("quo stola pontificis cum ipso cingulo colligatur", Rat., III, 1, 3) and as Charles Borromeo says ("subcinctorium, quo stola cum cingulo connectitur", Braun, op. cit. in bibl., p. 120, n. 5), because the stole was still quite long. The stole was later shortened and secured with the cincture itself; the s. became a simple ornament. According to Durandus it symbolizes the chastity of the body as the cincture does that of the soul. The s. never had any relation to nor drew its origin from the Greek epigonation, which was always worn on the right and was originally an enchirion, a sudarium.

Pietro Siffrin