Tunicle

For a description of the tunicle, see dalmatic, the vestment with which it became identical in form, although earlier editions of the Caeremoniale Episcoporum indicated that it should have narrower sleeves.

In Rome, subdeacons had begun to wear the tunicle by the sixth century, but Pope Gregory I made them return to the use of the chasuble.

In some places outside Rome, subdeacons continued to wear the tunicle even from the sixth to the ninth centuries.

The ceremony by which the bishop put a tunicle on a subdeacon whom he ordained began in the twelfth century, but did not become common until the fourteenth.

In the twelfth century it became customary for bishops to wear both a tunicle and a dalmatic as part of their pontifical vestments.