TUNICELLA (tunica, tunica linea, tunica striscia; subtile; dalmatica minor, dalmatica subdiaconalis). - Liturgical outer garment of the subdeacon, of the same form and fabric as the deacon’dalmatic (v.).
Used in Rome in the 6th century, it was abolished by Gregorio M., but returned in the 9th century and spread outside Rome as well. In the meantime (6th–9th centuries) subdeacons wore, like the other clerics, the chasuble; today the chasuble (folded) remains only during the penitential liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent. From the time when the subdiaconate was counted among the Major Orders, subdeacons were given, to distinguish them from the other Orders, an ordinary service garment similar to that of deacons: an ungirded tunic, less ample, with narrow sleeves and without clavi. Subsequently it gradually came to resemble the dalmatic and followed its shortening and deformation. Its presentation to newly ordained subdeacons was introduced in the 13th century. From this time onward the name “t.” also occurs; at first, especially outside Rome, it was called subtile.
The t. belonged to the pontifical ornaments of the pope as early as the 8th century. Until the 12th century bishops wore beneath the chasuble either the deacon’s dalmatic with long sleeves or the subdeacon’s t. with narrow sleeves; gradually they wore both, but only at Pontifical Mass and at the Mass of Ordination. Until the 13th century abbots were rarely granted the use of the t., being ordinarily permitted only the deacon’s dalmatic. - See pl. LVIII.