Tunic, or Tunicle

Tunic, or Tunicle a term applied to several articles of clerical dress.

(1.) A dress worn by the subdeacon, made originally of linen, reaching to the feet, and then of inferior silk, and narrower than the dalmatic of the deacon, with shorter and tighter sleeves, and devoid of the stripes or embroidery of that vestment. For some centuries, however, the assimilation has grown so complete as to render the slight difference between them almost imperceptible. Bishops wore both the tunic and dalmatic at pontifical mass.

(2.) The parva tuinica, or cotta, a linen habit reaching to the knees, used at all kinds of services by simple clerks and others; it differed from the rochet, in being fuller. Amalarius speaks of a blue tunicle of jacinth color, or subucula, worn by the bishop (Rupert says under the chasuble) as emblematical of the seamless robe of Christ.

(3.) A dress worn by monks. SEE COAT.