noun
definition
A long, white robe worn by priests and other ministers, underneath most of the other vestments.
Examples of albs in a Sentence
Albs were originally quite plain, but about the 10th century the custom arose of ornamenting the borders and the cuffs of the sleeves with strips of embroidery, and this became common in the 12th century.
These "apparelled albs" (albae paratae) continued in general use in the Western Church till the 16th century, when a tendency to dispense with the parures began, Rome itself setting the example.
At the present time, so far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, apparelled albs are only in regular use at Milan (Ambrosian Rite), and, partially, in certain churches in Spain.
In the medieval inventories are sometimes found albae, described as red, blue or black; which has led to the belief that albs were sometimes not only made of stuffs other than linen, but were coloured.
A good example of the camisia of the 12th century is the rochet of Thomas Becket, preserved at Dammartin in the Pas de Calais, the only surviving medieval example remarkable for the pleating which, as was the case with albs also, gave greater breadth and more elaborate folds.
Its use was furiously assailed by the extremer Reformers but, in spite of their efforts, was retained by Elizabeth's Act of Uniformity, and enforced by the advertisements and injunctions issued under her authority, which ordered the "massing vestments" - chasubles, albs, stoles and the like - to be destroyed.
It is clear, however, from the descriptions of these vestments that in some cases they were actually tunicles, the confusion of terms arising from the similarity of shape (see Dalmatic); in other cases the colour applied to the parures, not to the albs as a whole.
Whatever the letter of the law under th.e rubric, the Protestant bishops and the commissioners made short work of such "popish stuff" as chasubles, albs and the like.