Biretta
biretta
Stiff, square cap with three or four ridges on its upper surface, worn by clerics, whose rank is distinguished by its color, when entering sanctuary for Mass and at other functions.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Biretta
A square cap with three ridges or peaks on its upper surface, worn by clerics of all grades from cardinals downwards. The use of such a cap is prescribed by the rubrics both at solemn Mass and in other ecclesiastical functions. Etymologically, the word biretta is Italian in origin and would more correctly be written beretta (cf. however the French barette and the Spanish bireta). It probably comes from birrus, a rough cloak with a hood, from the Greek pyrros, flame-coloured, and the birretum may originally have meant the hood. We hear of the birettum in the tenth century, but, like most other questions of costume, the history is extremely perplexed. The wearing of any head-covering, other than hood or cowl, on state occasions within doors seems to have originally been a distinction reserved for the privileged few. The constitutions of Cardinal Ottoboni issued by him for England in 1268 forbid the wearing of caps vulgarly called “coyphae” (cf. the coif of the serjeant-at-law) to clerics, except when on journey. In church and when in the presence of their superiors their heads are to remain uncovered. From the law the higher graduates of the universities were excepted, thus Giovanni d’Andrea, in his gloss on the Clementine Decretals, declares (c. 1320) that at Bologna the insignia of the Doctorate were the cathedra (chair) and the birettum.
At first the birettum was a kind of skull-cap with a small tuft, but it developed into a soft round cap easily indented by the fingers in putting it on and off, and it acquired in this way the rudimentary outline of its present three peaks. We may find such a cap delineated in many drawings of the fifteenth century, one of which, representing university dignitaries at the Council of Constance, who are described in the accompanying text as birrectati, is here reproduced. The same kind of cap is worn by the cardinals sitting in conclave and depicted in the same contemporary series of drawings, as also by preachers addressing the assembly. The privilege of wearing some such head-dress was extended in the course of the sixteenth century to the lower grades of the clergy, and after a while the chief distinction became one of colour, the cardinals always wearing red birettas, and bishops violet. The shape during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was everywhere considerably modified, and, though the question is very complicated, there seems no good reason to reject the identification, proposed by several modern writers, of the old doctor’s birettum with the square college cap, popularly known as the “mortar-board”, of the modern English universities. The college cap and ecclesiastical biretta have probably developed from the same original, but along different lines. Even at the present day birettas vary considerably in shape. Those worn by the French, German, and Spanish clergy as a rule have four peaks instead of three; while Roman custom prescribes that a cardinal’s biretta should have no tassel. As regards usage in wearing the biretta, the reader must be referred for details to some of the works mentioned in the bibliography. It may be said in general that the biretta is worn in processions and when seated, as also when the priest is performing any act of jurisdiction, e. g. reconciling a convert. It was formerly the rule that a priest should always wear it in giving absolution in confession, and it is probable that the ancient usage which requires an English judge assume the “black cap” in pronouncing sentence of death is of identical origin.
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HERBERT THURSTON Transcribed by Janet Grayson
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Biretta
(Ital., from red) is a cap so called from the color of the fur, its original material. The cappa was also called a birrus, and worn with a fur hood to cover the head. In 1281 copes were ordered by archbishop Peckham not to be worn biretted behind and before, that is, without folds (another meaning of birrus), and not slit down the back or the centre in front. The earlier birrus, a cloak, as Sozomen explains it, loose and of woollen material, was usually red in color, and common to all the clergy. St. Cyprian wore a beros; together with his tunic, and the habit is alluded to under the same name by the Council of Gangra. St. Austin speaks of a precious birrus, probably made of rich silk. At the coronation of William and Mary some of the clergy wore square caps, resembling flat-topped birettas. The biretta, a skull-cap, is mentioned in 1298 as the instrument of investiture of a rector by the archbishop of Canterbury. Birrus was also a tippet worn on the tunic, and sometimes buttoned over the chest, or else flowing over the shoulders: it was used by the clergy, of a ruddy black or brown, or more usually fire-red color, as its name, purros, as an adjective, implies; but as a substantive, indicating a dress, it was spelled beros. It had sometimes a hood attached to it, and is represented by the modern mozzetta. A covering, similar in many respects to that represented in the illustration, was universally used by clerics about the 16th century, but afterwards was changed and modified in different countries, though retaining all its main and marked features. The ordinary Roman biretta is a square, stiff-sided cap, with curved ridges, and a tassel at the top, commonly made of black cloth or stuff, and of the same material as the cleric’s cassock. Hence it is usually of black for priests, violet for bishops, and scarlet for cardinals. Birettas with four ridges are sometimes assumed by professors of theology; and those worn by doctors of canon law in some parts of Spain and Germany are made of black velvet. SEE BIRRUS.