Red Velvet

Lavish, frankly, is all we can say. Here is the scarlet red velvet biretta as worn by the Provost of Paderborn Cathedral, adorned tastefully as it is with scarlet velvet.


Many of the dear sisters would be grateful of a hat of such virtue; the convent gas metre has seized up in the freezing cold, and won't even admit the fifty pences from last years lent boxes. We wonder if Paderborn cathedral ever had problems with the heating, thus necessitating a toasty warm biretta for its hierarchy? 


More sumptuousness to follow tomorrow.

But they’re both so different!

Mother Prioress: [Mother and some novices are deciding between two similar knotted girdles for an order habit. Father Andy sniggers because he thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?

Father Andy Sachs No. No, no. Nothing's... You know, it's just that both those girdles look exactly the same to me. You know, I'm still learning about all this stuff and, uh...

Mother Prioress: 'This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your vestry and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue chasuble, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take your Mass too seriously to care about what vestments you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that chasuble is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually, cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2011, Domus Biettarum did a collection of cerulean birettas. And then I think it was Gamerelli... wasn't it who showed cerulean skull caps? I think we need a skull cap here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different ecclesiastical tailors. And then it, uh, filtered down through the Via Duomo and then trickled on down into some tragic Discount Supplier where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of pounds and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the ecclesiastical fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the chasuble that was selected for you by the people in this room; from a pile of… stuff. 

The above scene has been lovingly plagiarized for the benefit of ANYONE thinking of describing this biretta as anything to do with the ICKSP or College of Our Lady of Hanworth. It is in fact, the biretta of a Claretian priest, and our Spanish friends assure us it is most certainly cerulean.

Pretty in Pink

Mother Prioress is convinced we have lost the plot, entirely, if we ever had it in the first place. Here today we give you a pink silk biretta, the logic for which is as follows: as it is customary for Cardinals to change to purple cassocks for lent and advent, surely pink or rose birettas would be requisite for the Gaudete and Laetare Sundays? Yes, we know it’s a dignity/insignia thing, not a liturgical colour thing, but is it not a thing to behold? And anyway a number of Anglican bishops in India, in areas where the priests wear white instead of black, wear pink instead of purple. Therefore, if they wore a biretta, therefore, it would surely be pink. So there.

Il Mostro

A brief preview before we can take proper shots, but here is a very silly hat indeed.

Back to Black #5

Mother Prioress tells us we’ve been spoiling you all rotten with this Technicolor cavalcade of extravagant ecclesiastical hats, so in the spirit of Holy Week (for a moment at least) here is a black hat. In this instance it is the black piped hat of a Vicar General or Vicar Capitular. We’ll post something ludicrous soon to brighten your Lenten devotion, we promise.

White Knuckles #2

Here again with a completely white hat, inside and out, we present the Biretta of a Cistercian Abbot. It has three blades, and taking a little dash of luxury with the deep asceticism for which the order is known, it is made of watered silk. 

Why so serious?

At first we thought the younger nuns had been at the internet, downloading pirated Hollywood films again. What’s wrong with the Betamax player in the common room we do not know, but it might go some way to explaining this sartorial confection, looking as it does like something fresh from the pages of DC Comics or from the Dark Knight.

It is in fact a rather vibrant violet biretta with a violet tuft and lime green lining, worn by certain Chinese Bishops. Still puts us in mind of the Joker whatever you say:

Gold Digger

This is an unassuming three bladed black biretta, in every respect perfectly ordinary and run-of-the-mill, save for the subtle addition of a muted gold tassel which marks it out as the hat of choice of the Benedictine Imperial Abbot; a man whose title is just slightly more exciting than his headwear. We’ll excuse the lack of elan on the ground of monastic asceticism.    

Purple Haze

Here again we give you the Biretta of a Minor Prelate or Monsignor, in this instance a deeper shade of purple. Either the pinkish kind or this example is appropriate. Variety being the spice of life why would any self respecting Monsignor have not both? One for feasts and one for ferias, we reckon.

Red Alert

Here we have a Canon’s or Dean’s biretta. It has a red tuft and red lining. Some have red piping, should the pom-pom not on its own not quite strike the right note.

In the Pink

So today we give you the Biretta of a Minor Prelate or Monsignor. It is plain black wool, but with a purple tuft and purple lining. It is also worn traditionally by parish priests in Spain, who have obviously noticed that a bit of purple here and there adds a dash of pizzazz to the proceedings. Considering they give to the wider church an entirely new style of biretta altogether, Mother Prioress finds this a department of no surprise.

We entitle this post according to the rather pink appearance of the Roman Purple lining. 

Putting a round peg in a square hole

Sounds easier than it actually is, in Biretta terms, but it does allow us to embrace a new word which is always a source of much rejoicing (apart from for Mother Prioress, who remembers Dr Johnson’s very first dictionary being published), and that word is: ‘dolichocephalic.’ It literally means long or oval-headedness , and is a highly important consideration when trying to fit a square box onto a circular, prolate or oval-shaped head. Such thoughts are important should you be minded of requesting a Biretta from our subterranean workshops…

The Biretta Today

The Biretta Today

There are two principal types of biretta worn in the Western Church: the Roman, distinguished by its blades on the top, and the Spanish, distinguished by its four corner curved points. The latter is strictly speaking for use in Spain and Latin-American countries, wherever the Spanish Church had an influence, but it is also worn traditionally in other parts of the Church to celebrate the feasts of Spanish saints. In most cases the colours, fabrics and pompoms or tassels of the Spanish biretta are identical to those of the Roman biretta, except that the Spanish cardinal’s biretta often has a scarlet tassel.

THE BLACK BIRETTA

The fabric used for these is traditionally worsted wool, although cotton drill, polycotton, and gabardine are also used. Silk is normally used, whether plain or watered, for priests serving a special function, such as canons, monsignori, archdeacons and deans. The lining is black silk, except that red silk is used for deans and for priests in the household of a cardinal. Purple silk is used for monsignori and canons. Sky-blue silk is used for priests of the ICK.

The pompom or tassel is black for a priest, deacon and subdeacon, purple for monsignori, and red for deans canons and archdeacons. Priests of the ICK have a sky-blue pompom or tassel. Some Cistercian abbots have a white tassel. Vicars General and Vicars Capitular have black piping.

The number of blades is normally three, though canons regular and academic doctors have four, and subdeacons traditionally have one. Academic birettas without any blades are used in Poland. Some German dioceses (such as Munster) traditionally have four blades.

Imperial Abbots used to have a gold-coloured pompom, and the canons of many Spanish cathedrals have a green pompom.

Academic birettas have pompoms or tassels in a wide variety of colours representing the different faculties. These usually have piping in the same colour too.

THE WHITE BIRETTA

This is worn by priests serving in tropical countries and traditionally by the Superior of the Cistercian Order. Priests have a black pompom, and the Cistercian has a white pompom.

Canons Regular, such as the Canons of St John Lateran and the Premonstratensians, have a white biretta with four blades. Some have no pompom, whilst others can have a white or a black one.

The ‘pope’ of the Spanish Palmarian Church wears a white watered silk biretta with a white tassel.

THE PURPLE BIRETTA

The purple biretta is worn by bishops, archbishops and patriarchs. Its lining is traditionally of green silk, and the pompom or tassel is also purple.

The fabric is either cotton, wool or silk, but Papal Nuncios have watered silk. Some Chinese bishops wear a violet biretta. Traditionally some north Italian bishops had a green tassel, and there are some African bishops who wear a black pompom with their purple biretta.

THE RED BIRETTA

Cardinals wear a scarlet biretta with no pompom or tassel, but if the Spanish variety is worn it often has a scarlet pompom.

The fabric is watered silk, though the scarlet biretta presented to new cardinals by the pope is traditionally of wool.

The lining is scarlet silk.

Anglican priests serving in Royal Peculiars would wear a scarlet wool or cotton biretta with a scarlet pompom.

The Archbishop of Salzburg wears a ruby-red biretta instead of a purple one.

OTHER COLOURS

The Superior of the Institute of Christ the King wears a sky-blue biretta.

In the Chinese Catholic Church the prelates wear a violet biretta rather than a Roman purple one.

Green birettas have traditionally been worn by priests who are also Doctors of Canon Law.

Some bishops have shown a preference for a green tassel on the purple biretta.

Brocade birettas in various colours are worn by the priests of some autocephalous Catholic Churches. The colours vary according to the colour of their vestments.