Forms: 4–6 chesible; also 4 -eble, cheisible, 4–5 chesyble, 5 -sibil, -ciple, -siple, -sypyl, -ylle, 5–6 chesybyll, 6 chisible; 5 chesabyll, -pyll, 6 chesable, -sabell; 5 chesuble, chezuble, 6 cheasuble, 7– chasuble. [ME. chesible was a. OF. chesible (cf. med.L. cassibula); the current form, which has taken its place since 1700, corresponds to mod.F. chasuble (casuble 13th c. in Littré), and to the med.L. casubula (cassubula, casubla, etc.); these go back respectively to late L. types *casipula, *casupula (in It. casipola and casupola little house, poor cottage, cot, hut), popular forms used instead of the literary L. casula, dim. of casa ‘cottage, house’; meaning originally ‘little house, cot,’ but also, already in Augustine (c. 400), the ordinary name of an outer garment, a large round sleeveless cloak with a hood, according to Isidore (XIX. xxi. 17) ‘vestis cucullata, dicta per diminutionem a casa, quod totum hominem tegat, quasi minor casa.’
(Casipula from casa has been compared to manipulus ‘little band’ from manus. The literary ca·sula appears to have left no representative in mod. Romanic langs.; the OF. chasule, casule (casure), Sp. casulla, point to the secondary diminutive casulula (see Du Cange).
As an article of dress, casula appears to have been a popular or provincial name for the pænula of classical Latin, a garment consisting of a circular piece of cloth with a hole in the center for the head, worn in cold or rainy weather, by peasants in the fields, travellers, etc.; as the most ordinary of garments, it was worn by the monks, and by the Council of Ratisbon, 742, was decreed to be the proper dress of the clergy out of doors. For the supervestment worn in sacerdotal offices, the ordinary name from 5th to 8th c. was planeta; ‘the earliest undoubted instance of casula so used (in Sacramentary of St. Gregory) dates from the 9th c., or possibly the 8th’ (Dict. Chr. Ant.). But it at length supplanted the earlier names planeta, amphibolum, infula; and in English chasuble has this sense only.]
1. An ecclesiastical vestment, a kind of sleeveless mantle covering the body and shoulders, worn over the alb and stole by the celebrant at Mass or the Eucharist.
α. c. 1300. Beket, 953. Tho Seint Thomas hadde his Masse ido, his Cheisible he gan of weve.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. VII. 20. And ȝe, loueli Ladies … souweþ … Chesybles for Chapeleyns and Churches to honoure.
1454. Test. Ebor. (1836), I. 172. i chesabyll of cloth of golde.
c. 1475. Pict. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 755. Hec casula, a chesypyl.
1475. Inv., in Hist. MSS. Commiss., I. 554. A chesapyll … of sylke beryng branchis of blewe purpyll.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 108/1. The whyte chesyble that saynt Thomas had said masse in. Ibid., 435/1. He reuesteth hym wyth the chezuble.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 16 b. Fyrst do on the amys, than the albe, than the gyrdell, than the manyple, than the stoole, than the chesybyll.
1552–3. Inv. Ch. Goods Staffsh., in Ann. Lichfield, IV. 55. V chesabells one of grene velvet & the other iiij of dyvars colowres.
1579. Fulke, Refut. Rastel, 739. Why doth not the priest weare his chisible & other vestments at euensong?
1839. Stonehouse, Axholme, 292. The sepulchral monument of a priest, wearing the chesible.
β. 1611. Cotgr., Chasuble, a chasuble.
1670. Lassels, Voy. Italy (1698), II. 33. The neat Chasuble of Cloth of Tissue.
1860. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., III. cxx. 63. Copes and chasubles are finding their way back into the Establishment.
1868. W. B. Marriott, Vestiar. Christ., Introd. 67. Till about the close of the 8th century, ‘Planeta’ was the name given to the supervestment … at a later time … known as the Chasuble.
1884. Times, 11 Feb., 7/5. The Rev. A. H. Machonochie, putting on a finely-embroidered red chasuble.
1884. Max Müller, in 19th Cent., June, 1018. The cassock and chasuble turned out to be great-coats, worn originally by laity and clergy alike.
† 2. Used to designate other sacerdotal garments, e.g., the Jewish ephod. Obs.
c. 1430–40. Wyclif’s Bible, Ex. xxv. 7 (MSS. I. S.). With ephod, that is, a chesiple.
Hence Chasubled ppl. a., clad in a chasuble.
1885. Ch. Times, 1 May, 349/3. He received the Holy Communion at Powderham Castle from a chasubled priest.
