MITRA. - A liturgical headdress, the distinctive insignia of the pope, of cardinals and bishops, to whom it belongs by right; and also of abbots, prelates and canons, but by virtue of a special privilege. Its present form is that of a bellows-like headdress, with the two parts ending in points (cornua), held upright by a reinforcing lining and joined by an intervening fabric, and with the back part adorned with two strip-like appendages (fasciae, vittae, penduli, fanones, infulae).
Its origin and antiquity are debated; the first certain testimony dates to the 11th century and to Rome. Leo IX (1049-53) granted the Roman m. to Archbishop Eberhard of Trier, who had accompanied him to Rome, pro investitura ipsius primatus (of the Church of Trier), so that he and his successors might use it pro ecclesiastico officio, in remembrance of their dependence on Rome (Jaffé-Wattenbach, II, 4158). Two years later (1051) Leo IX granted it to the cardinals of the Church of Besançon and Bamberg for specific occasions. Little by little the use spread, and in the second half of the 12th century the m. was in general use among all bishops, with or without the explicit permission of the pope. The first certain grant to abbots is from 1063. Sometimes the m. was also granted to lay princes, for example, by Nicholas II (1059-61) to the Duke of Bohemia, by Lucius II (1144-45) to the King of Sicily. When crowning the emperor, the pope first placed on him the clericalis m., then the imperial diadem (Ordo Rom., XIV, 105: PL 78, 1241).
According to richness and use, three kinds of m. are distinguished: the simple m. of white silk (or of white linen cloth) with red fringes (used in blessings, in funeral services, on Good Friday); the gold-fringed (auriphragiata) m. of cloth of gold without other ornament (used in Advent, in Lent, except on the Sundays Gaudete and Laetare, on vigils; and also at Mass and Vespers at the throne or at the cathedra); the third, precious, adorned with embroidery of gold, silk and precious stones (on the greatest feasts, when going to the altar and returning to the sacristy, in imparting the solemn blessing, in solemn processions). The m. does not follow the liturgical colors.
The m. is always removed when the bishop recites an oration (I Cor. 11, 4), or when the deacon sings the Gospel, and at the singing of the Benedictus and the Magnificat.
Among the Greeks and in the Eastern rites, the m. does not have the Latin form, but that of a royal crown surmounted by a cross; used from the 15th century, first by patriarchs and metropolitans, then also by the other bishops; only the patriarchs of Alexandria had already from the 10th century used a liturgical headdress in the form of a turban.
Bibliography3 works
Pietro Siffrin
THE MITRA IN ART
The form of the m. has undergone transformations over the centuries. Of the earliest, in the shape of conical caps ending in a point, perhaps the oldest example is found in the roll of the Exultet of the Archive of the cathedral of Bari, from the early 11th century. From the conical form one passes to the round one, subsequently flattened in the middle at the top, so as to form two lateral swellings (see the figure of Archbishop Frederick of Cologne [1100-1131] in the illuminated codex of the letters of St. Jerome, in the cathedral of Cologne). From the lateral swellings there derive, with further transformation, the rigid cornua which always remain as such, even when the m. is placed on the head no longer with the points at the temples, but at the forehead and the nape, and the appendages are attached at the bottom of the rear horn, rather than in the hollow. This is how one returns to the primitive cone shape, but now become bellows-like. The proportions, however, have changed; from the 14th century onward the m. lengthens considerably, and from the 16th century onward the sides of the horns curve more and more, until they form, as can also be seen in the present-day m., a true pointed arch. Examples of m. dating back to the 12th-14th centuries are preserved: in Italy, those of white linen of the church of the Most Holy Trinity in Florence, of the cathedral of Anagni, of the parish church of Castel S. Elia, of Ferentino, the latter believed to be that of Celestine V, and, in damask fabric, that of John XXII, in the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library and in the Abbey collection in Turin, and m. with decorations either along the band around the rim (in circulo) or at the point of the horn down to the rim (in titulo). At first the ornamentations were made with galloons; from the 13th century onward, both the circulus and the titulus and the appendages are often adorned with embroidered figures. Beautiful examples of embroidered m. (v. STOFFE) of the 12th and 13th centuries are preserved in the Treasury of the cathedral of Anagni, in S. Zeno in Verona, in the cathedral of Cividale, and, from the 14th century, in the cathedral of Fiesole, in the National Museum of Ravenna, in the cathedral of Urbino, in S. Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. The embroidery sometimes extends so far as to cover the entire front part of the m., so that the "title" is entirely embroidered with figures or decorations. An example from the 14th century of a fully embroidered m. is that of the Museum of Cluny in Paris, in white silk worked in black with very fine representations of the burial of Christ and the border with half-figures of Apostles within architectural frames. At the end of the 16th century and in the Baroque age the m. is no longer decorated with figural embroidery or with precious stones, but with applied and rich embroidery of an ornamental character: for example, the sumptuous m. of the cathedral of Fribourg. - See plate LXXVII.
