Mitre

The mitre (Commonwealth English) or miter (American English; see spelling differences; both pronounced ; ) is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in traditional Christianity. Mitres are worn in the Catholic Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (IOC), Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church (Jacobites), Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, some Lutheran churches, for important ceremonies, by the Metropolitan of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and also, in the Catholic Church, all cardinals, whether or not bishops, and some Eastern Orthodox archpriests.

Etymology

(Ionic ) is Greek, and means a piece of armour, usually a metal guard worn around the waist and under a cuirass, as mentioned in Homer's Iliad. In later poems, it was used to refer to a headband used by women for their hair, and a sort of formal Babylonian headdress, as mentioned by Herodotus (Histories 1.195 and 7.90). It also refers to a kind of hairband, such as "the victor's chaplet at the games", a headband and a badge of rank at the Ptolemaic court, an oriental headdress, perhaps a kind of turban, worn "as a mark of effeminacy", a diadem, the headdress of the priest of Heracles, or the headdress of the High Priest of Israel referenced in the Septuagint (Greek) text of Exodus 29:6. (1913)

Western Christianity

, Martin Modéus, wearing a mitre as part of his liturgical vestment. In its modern form in Western Christianity, the mitre is a tall folding cap, consisting of two similar parts (the front and back) rising to a peak and sewn together at the sides. Two short lappets always hang down from the back. File:Coat of arms of Andorra.svg|Coat of arms of Andorra includes the bishop's mitre on the top left. File:Mitra simplex Gamarelli 2008-28-07.jpg|Mitre simplex traditional style: White damask with its white lappets ending in red fringes. File:Visita di Papa Benedetto XVI a Genova - 2008-05-18 - Primo piano di Benedetto XVI.jpg|Benedict XVI wearing a pretiosa: elaborately embroidered mitre. File:Coat of arms of Benedictus XVI.svg|Papal Arms of Pope Benedict XVI. The papal tiara was replaced with a bishop's mitre. File:KarinJohannessonStorvretaBeskuren.jpg|A female Lutheran bishop wearing a mitre

Eastern Christianity

Saint Chrysostomos of Smyrna, martyred when the Turks captured the city in 1922. The most typical mitre in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches is based on the closed Imperial crown of the late Byzantine Empire. Therefore, it too is ultimately based on the older καμιλαύκιον although it diverged from the secular headdress at a much later date, after it had already undergone further development.

Military uniform

grenadiers wearing mitres During the 18th century (and in a few cases the 19th), soldiers designated as grenadiers in various northern European armies wore a mitre (usually called a "mitre cap") similar in outline to those worn by western bishops. As first adopted in the 1680s this cap had been worn instead of the usual broad-brimmed hat to avoid the headdress being knocked off when the soldier threw a grenade. The hand grenade in its primitive form had become obsolete by the mid-18th century but grenadiers continued as elite troops in most European armies, usually retaining the mitre cap as a distinction. Militarily, this headdress came in different styles. The Prussian style had a cone-shaped brass or white metal front with a cloth rear having lace braiding; the Russian style initially consisted of a tall brass plate atop of a leather cap with a peak at the rear, although the German model was subsequently adopted. The British style—usually simply called a "grenadier cap" instead of a mitre—had a tall cloth front with elaborate regimental embroidery forward of a sloping red back, lined in white. Some German and Russian fusilier regiments also wore a mitre with a smaller brass front-plate. By the end of the 18th century, due to changes in military fashion, the mitre had generally given way to the bearskin or had been replaced by the standard infantry tricorn or bicorn. The British Army made this change in 1760s-1780s and the Prussian Army in 1790. All Russian grenadiers continued however to wear mitre caps until 1805, even when on active service. The mitre in its classic metal-fronted 18th-century form survived as an item of ceremonial parade dress in the Prussian Leib-Grenadier No 1 and regiments; plus the Russian Pavlovskii Regiment, until World War I.

Other uses

. The bishop in the board game chess is represented by a stylised Western mitre having Unicode codes U+2657 (white) and U+265D (black): ♗♝ . The crowns of the Austrian Empire and Imperial Russia incorporated a mitre of precious metal and jewels into their design. The Austrian Imperial Crown was originally the personal crown of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and has the form proper to that of a Holy Roman Emperor. At the Roman rite of their Coronation, the Pope placed a mitre on their heads before placing the crown over it. Their empress consorts also received both a mitre and crown on their heads from a cardinal bishop at the same ceremony. The form of the Russian Imperial Crown dates back to the time of Peter the Great's early attempts to westernise Russia and was probably inspired by the crowns worn by Habsburg emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and possibly also the Orthodox mitre. Abbesses of certain very ancient abbeys in the West also wore mitres, but of a very different form than that worn by male prelates. The mitral valve of the human heart, which is located between the left atrium and the left ventricle, is named so because of its similarity in shape to the mitre. Andreas Vesalius, the father of anatomy, noted the striking similarity between the two while performing anatomic dissections in the sixteenth century.

Notes

References

External links

Mitres—Photographs and descriptions of the different types of mitres Episcopal Mitre from Kavsokalyvia, Mount Athos Mitre worn by the Archbishop of Esztergom, the Primate of Hungary, at coronations of Kings of Hungary. Mitre worn by Pope John Paul I at his papal inauguration Mass . From the National Geographic book Inside the Vatican, 1991.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1367713146 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.

Names in other languages