Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/116

 TUNIS

TUNIS

kingdom at the beginning of the ninth century, both from the testimony of Amalar of Metz and from va- rious inventories. About the close of the year one thousand the tunic was so universally worn by sub- deacons as a liturgical upper vestment that it was briefly called vestts siiJ'ilincdnalis or subdiaconale. As early as the first Human Ordo the tunic is found as one "of the papal pontifical vestments under the name of dalmalica minor, dalmalica linea. The Roman deacons also wore it under the dalmatic, while only the tunic and not the dalmatic was part of the liturgi- cal dress of the Roman cardinal-priests and heb- domadal bishops. Outside of Rome also the pontifical vestments frequently included only the tunic, not tunic and dalmatic together, or, as was more often the case, the dalmatic without the tunic. Not until the twelfth century did it become general for the bishop to wear both vestments at the same time, that

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is, the tunic as well as the dalmatic. The granting to abbots of the privilege of wearing the tunic as well as the dalmatic, is very seldom mentioned, and even then not until the second half of the twelfth century. Before this era abbots never received more than the privilege of wearing the dalmatic. The acolytes at Rome wore the tunic as early as the ninth century; in the Prankish kingdom it was probably customary in some places in the tenth century for acolytes to wear the tunic; it was worn by acolj-tes at Farfa towards the close of the tenth century. In the late Middle Ages the wearing of the tunic by acolytes was a widespread custom. In the medieval period the tunic was called by various names. Besides tunica, it also bore the name of tunicella; dalmalica minor; dalmalica linea, or simply linea; tunica stricta, or merely slricta; subdiaconale; roccus; alba; and, especially in Germany, snhtile.

As to the original form of the vestment, it was at first a tunic in the shape of a gown with narrow sleeves and without the vertical ornamental strips (clavi). The material of which it was made was linen for ordinary occasions, but as early as the ninth- century inventories silk tunics are mentioned. The development that the vestment has undergone from the Carolingian period up to the present time has been in all points similar to that of the dalmatic; during the course of tliis development the distinction Ijetween the dalmatic and the tunic steadily de- creased. Silk gradually became the material from which the tunic was regularly made; it grew continually shorter, and slits were made in the sides which, by the end of llic .Middle Ages, went the length of the

entire side up to the sleeve. Finally, outside of Italy, the sleeves were also slit, just as in the dalmatic, which, already in the later Middle Ages, was hardly to be distinguished from the tunic, especially as in the meantime the red clam of the dalmatic had been re- placed by another form of ornamentation, which was also adopted for the tunic. When in the course of the twelfth century a canon was developed respecting the liturgical colours, the canon was naturally authori- tative for the tunic as well as for the chasuble and dalmatic.

In the Middle Ages the use of the tunic at Mass corresponded throughout to that of the dalmatic, consequently discussion of it here is unnecessarj'. The ceremony in which the bishop, after the ordination, places the tunic upon the newly-ordained subdeacon had its origin in the twelfth centurj', but even in the thirteenth century it was only customary in isolated cases. It was not until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that the usage was universally adopted in the rite of ordination of subdeacons. As to the origin of the subdiaconal tunic it was, without doubt, a copy of the dalmatic, in which the vertical trim- ming of the dalmatic was omitted, and the sleeves were made narrower.

The tunic (o-Tixd^iov) worn by the subdeacon in the Oriental Rites does not correspond to the subdiaconal tunic of Western Europe, which from the beginning had the fixed character of an outer tunic, but resem- bled the alb, even though, according to present cus- tom, it Is no longer exclusively white, but often coloured.

Boci, Gesch. der Uturg. Gewander, II (Bonn, 1866) : RoHAULT DE Fleury, La Tnesse. VII (Paris, 1888) ; Braun. Die titurgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient (Freiburg, 1907).

Joseph Br.4UN.

Tunis, French protectorate on the northern coast of Africa. About the twelfth century before Christ Phoenicians settled on the coast of what is now Tunis and founded colonies there, which soon attained great economic importance. Among them were: Hippo Zary- tus, Utica, Carthage, Hadrumetum, and Tunes. I'ltimately all these cities were obhged to acknowl- edge the suzerainty of Carthage, which ruled a terri- tory almost as extensive as the present Tunis. The fall of Carthage, B.C. 146, made the Romans rnasters of the country, which as the Province of Africa be- came one of the granaries of Italy. Numerous ruins of palaces, temples. Christian churches, amphithea- tres, aqueducts, etc., which are still to be found, give proof of the high civilization existing under Roman sway. Christianity also flourished at an early era. In 439 the country was conquered by the Vandals, and in 533 Belisarius retook it and made it a part of the Eastern EmjMre. The supremacy of Constanti- nople was not of long duration. First the Patri- cian Gregorius, Governor of North .\frica for the Emperor Herachus, proclaimed his independence. However, on the incursion of the Arabs from the East, Gregorius was overthrown in 648 by the Ara- bian commander Abdallah, who returned to Egypt with enormous booty. In 670 the Arabs again en- tered the country, conquered Biserta, and founded the City of Kairwiln in the region beyond Susa. In 697 they also took the City of Carthage, up to then suc- cessfully defended by the Eastern Empire, and re- duced it to a heap of ruins. Tunis, a town formerly of small importance, now took the place of Carthage in commerce and traffic. When the Ommayyad dy- nasty was overthrown by the Abbassids, almost^all Africa regained independence, and it was not until 772 that the caliphs again acquired control over it. Caliph Haroun al Raschid matle the vigorous Ibrahim ibn el Aghlab Governor of Africa, but in SOO Ibrahim threw off the supremacy of the caliiiliatc. Kairwiln remained the capital of the Aglihiliite Kingdom, which embraced Tripoli, Algiers, the greater part of Tunis, and