How to Measure for a Chasuble
A chasuble needs two numbers: centre-back length from the shoulder fold to the hem, and width across the garment laid flat. No chest, waist or sleeve, because it hangs from the shoulders and touches nothing else.
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A chasuble needs two numbers and no more: centre-back length, taken from the shoulder fold at the neck opening straight down the back to the hem, and width across, the full span of the garment laid flat from one side hem to the other. There is no chest, waist or sleeve measurement, because a chasuble hangs from the shoulders and touches the body nowhere else. Knowing how to measure for a chasuble is therefore mostly a matter of deciding two things — where you want the hem, and how much cloth you want on the arms — and then reading the shape you have chosen off a chart.
The figures below are The Clergy Couture’s workroom practice, not an industry standard. Chasuble length in particular is not standardised: what one house calls a gothic 48 will not hang where another’s does, because the two are drafted from different shoulder angles. Use these to get to a shortlist, then check the chart of whoever is cutting the garment. The general method behind all of it is in the seven measurements that size a vestment.
Taking the two measurements
Centre-back length
With the wearer standing straight in their usual shoes, find the bone at the base of the neck — the one that stands out when the head tips forward. Run the tape from there down the centre of the back to the height you want the hem. That is the number to give.
Two things trip people up. First, a chasuble is measured from the shoulder fold, not from a collar seam, so if you are measuring an existing garment on a table, measure from the edge of the neck opening at the shoulder line, not from the front hem or the back of the neck facing. Second, the tape must follow the back rather than hanging free of it; a tape allowed to swing away adds an inch and a half over that distance.
Width across
This is a garment measurement, not a body one. Lay a chasuble flat, arms of the garment spread, and measure the full span from the left hem edge to the right hem edge at the widest point. On the wearer, the equivalent question is: where should the side hem fall — at the elbow, the wrist, over the hand? Answer that and the width follows. Gaspard’s published chasuble charts quote 60 inches across for both their monastic and gothic cuts, dropping to 52 inches on a small size; that is a fair picture of where the mainstream sits.
What you do not need
Chest, waist, neck, sleeve and shoulder are all irrelevant to a chasuble. If a maker asks for them, they are either drafting something unusual or filling in a generic form. The one indirect exception is build: a very broad wearer will lose an inch or two of effective width to the shoulders, so where a wearer’s chest is above about 48 inches we would add two inches to the width rather than change the length.
Height-to-length chart by shape
Centre-back lengths, in inches and centimetres, for a wearer standing in ordinary shoes. Each column represents a different hem position, which is what the shapes actually differ about.
| Height | Conical / monastic (hem near the ankle) |
Full gothic (hem at the low calf) |
Semi-gothic (hem below the knee) |
Roman (hem at the back of the knee) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5’0″ / 152 cm | 45½ / 116 | 40 / 102 | 37 / 94 | 35 / 89 |
| 5’2″ / 157 cm | 47½ / 121 | 41½ / 105 | 38½ / 98 | 36½ / 93 |
| 5’4″ / 163 cm | 49 / 124 | 43 / 109 | 40 / 102 | 38 / 97 |
| 5’6″ / 168 cm | 51 / 130 | 45 / 114 | 42 / 107 | 40 / 102 |
| 5’8″ / 173 cm | 52½ / 133 | 46½ / 118 | 43½ / 110 | 41½ / 105 |
| 5’10” / 178 cm | 54 / 137 | 48 / 122 | 45 / 114 | 43 / 109 |
| 6’0″ / 183 cm | 56 / 142 | 50 / 127 | 47 / 119 | 45 / 114 |
| 6’2″ / 188 cm | 57½ / 146 | 51½ / 131 | 48½ / 123 | 46½ / 118 |
| 6’4″ / 193 cm | 59 / 150 | 53 / 135 | 50 / 127 | 48 / 122 |
| 6’6″ / 198 cm | 61 / 155 | 55 / 140 | 52 / 132 | 50 / 127 |
All figures are inches followed by centimetres. Add nothing for fringe or orphrey; those sit inside the length.
Width by shape
| Shape | Width across, laid flat | Where the side hem falls |
|---|---|---|
| Conical / monastic | 62–68 in / 157–173 cm | Over the wrist and part of the hand; the arms must be lifted to free them |
| Full gothic | 58–62 in / 147–157 cm | At or just past the wrist |
| Semi-gothic | 52–56 in / 132–142 cm | Mid-forearm |
| Roman (panel width, not span) | 26–30 in / 66–76 cm | Just past the shoulder point; the arms are entirely free |
The Roman row is measured differently on purpose. A Roman or fiddleback chasuble is two stiffened panels rather than a draped circle, so what is quoted is the width of the back panel, not a span. Comparing a 28-inch Roman with a 60-inch gothic and concluding that one is half the size of the other is a category error.
How shape changes both numbers
The shapes are not sizes of the same garment; they are different drafts. Their history is not a straight line of decline either — the conical cut approximates the original Roman casula, the gothic developed as celebrants began raising their arms, and the reduced continental shapes came later, with St Charles Borromeo at one point requiring chasubles in his diocese to be no less than 55 inches wide, as Watts & Co. set out. What each shape does to the garment in wear is covered in the differences between gothic, Roman and semi-gothic.
For measuring purposes, three consequences matter:
- Width borrows from apparent length. A very wide chasuble drapes into deep folds at the sides, and those folds pull the hem line up. Two garments cut at 48 inches, one 54 wide and one 64 wide, will not hang to the same place. The wider one needs an extra inch of length to look the same.
- The shoulder angle changes the drop. A conical cut has a steep shoulder, so more of its length is spent getting over the shoulder and less of it hangs. This is the main reason two makers’ “50-inch gothic” chasubles arrive at different hem heights.
- Roman shapes barely vary with height. Because the panels are stiffened and cut to a set pattern, a Roman chasuble made for a 5’6″ priest and one made for a 6’0″ priest may differ by only two or three inches. The chart column above is a guide; in practice makers often stock two lengths and no more.
How the chasuble should sit over the alb
This is the check that catches most sizing errors, and almost nobody does it. The chasuble is worn over the alb and stole — the ordering is set out in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal at no. 337 — so the alb hem is always visible below it, and the amount that shows is a proportion you either get right or live with.
Subtract the chasuble’s centre-back length from the alb’s and look at the answer:
| Alb showing below the hem | Reads as |
|---|---|
| 3–6 in / 8–15 cm | The long conical or monastic look. Deliberate, and only right with a full width to match |
| 9–13 in / 23–33 cm | The standard gothic proportion. Safest choice if you are unsure |
| 14–18 in / 36–46 cm | Semi-gothic and Roman. Correct for those shapes, wrong under a full gothic |
| Under 2 in / 5 cm | The chasuble is too long, or the alb too short. Something needs remaking |
Work the sum before ordering, not after. If the alb is not right either, the lengths for both are in the cassock, alb and surplice measurements. And a stole that shows below the chasuble hem is a length error of its own; the height-based stole chart gives the figures for a stole worn underneath.
Taller and shorter wearers
Above about 6’2″ and below about 5’4″ the standard size runs stop being useful, and the failure is not the same at both ends.
Tall wearers usually get a garment that is long enough and not wide enough, because makers extend the length of a stock pattern without regrading the width. The result hangs like a tabard. If you are over 6’2″, specify the width explicitly rather than accepting whatever comes with the length — and expect to add two to four inches over the chart.
Shorter wearers get the opposite problem: a standard 60-inch width on a 5’2″ frame puts the side hems below the hand and swamps the wearer. Take the width down before you take the length down. A 52-inch width on a 42-inch length reads as a properly proportioned gothic chasuble; a 60-inch width on the same length reads as a borrowed one. The same logic applies to any wearer of slighter build, which is why women clergy are so often better served by a narrower cut than a shorter one.
What cloth weight does to the hang
Two chasubles cut from the same pattern in different cloths are not the same garment.
- Heavy wool, wool damask and lined silk hang close to the plumb and fall into few, deep folds. The hem sits where the pattern puts it. These cloths flatter a full gothic or conical cut and can carry the extra width.
- Light polyester and unlined lightweight blends lift on the arms and swing. The effective hem is around an inch higher than the flat measurement, and the side folds are shallow and numerous. If you are ordering light cloth in a full width, add an inch to the length.
- Stiff brocade and metallic-ground cloth stand away from the body rather than draping. Width becomes volume instead of fold, so reduce the width by two to four inches from what you would choose in a soft cloth.
- Interlining pushes any cloth towards the stiff end of that scale. A lined-and-interlined polyester behaves more like brocade than like polyester.
Which fibre suits how often the vestment is actually worn is a separate question, taken up in choosing between polyester, wool and silk. If you already know the shape and the cloth, our cut-to-measure chasubles are made to the lengths and widths in these tables.
Common questions
How do I measure for a chasuble if I only know the wearer’s height?
Read the chart, choose the shape column, and order at that length. Height alone is enough for a chasuble in a way it is not for a cassock, because there is no fitted seam anywhere on the garment. The one thing height will not tell you is the width, so decide separately whether the side hem should reach the elbow, the wrist or beyond.
Should the chasuble be shorter than the alb?
Always, and by a visible margin. A full gothic chasuble typically leaves 9 to 13 inches of alb showing; a semi-gothic or Roman shape leaves more. If less than about two inches of alb shows, the chasuble is too long for that wearer and will look as though the alb has been forgotten.
Can a chasuble be shortened?
Usually yes, if the hem is plain. The garment is opened at the hem, taken up and re-finished. Where an orphrey, a woven border or a pattern repeat runs to the hem, shortening cuts into the design and is rarely worth doing. Narrowing a chasuble is a much bigger job, because the side seam carries the drape.
What is a standard chasuble size?
There is no standard. The nearest thing to one is a gothic cut around 48 to 50 inches long and 60 inches wide, which fits wearers of roughly 5’10” to 6’0″. Outside that band the stock sizes diverge sharply between makers, which is why comparing two charts by number alone gives a misleading answer. Our chasubles are cut to your own length and width rather than to a standard, at no extra charge.
Before you order
Ask the maker three questions: from what point on the garment they measure the length, whether the width they quote is the full span or a half, and what the hem allowance is if you later need it shortened. Then do the alb subtraction. A chasuble that is an inch out is unnoticeable; one that is four inches out is visible from the back of the nave for the next twenty years.
