Cardinal's hat

“ The obedience is done at Mass and Vespers; but never twice on the same day, nor in services for the dead.
The color of a cardinal’s dress is red, unless he belong to a religious order, in which case he retains that of his habit, but uses the same form of dress as the others. In 1245, Innocent IV. conferred upon the cardinals at the first Council of Lyons the famous distinction of the red hat, which is so peculiarly the ornament of their rank that, in common parlance, to “receive the hat” is the same as to be raised to the cardinalate. ”

“ Winchester Place, St. Saviour's, Southwark.
[G. A. S. and James H. Smith have forwarded similar replies.]
With reference to the Query of J. D. A. (p. 106. antè) , it would appear that the cardinal's hat, but with a difference in the number of rows of tassels, is sometimes seen on the monuments of men who never were raised to that dignity. ”

“ The King and Queen of Spain evidently stimulated those proceedings: the Pope just dead had opposed him; but the cardinals would not agree to his disgrace; they would not consent to strip him of his dignity. The example would have been too dangerous. That a cardinal, prince, or great nobleman, should surrender his hat in order to marry, the store of his house demands it; well and good; but to see a cardinal deprive himself of his hat by way of penitence, is what his brethren will not endure. A cardinal may be poisoned, stabbed, got rid of altogether, but lose his dignity he never can. ”

“ A crest is never used with a mitre or ecclesiastical hat. Many writers deny the right of any ecclesiastic to a crest. Some deny the right also to use a motto, but this restriction has no general acceptance.
Therefore ecclesiastical heraldry in Britain is summed up in (1) its recognition of the cardinal's hat, (2) the official coat of arms for ecclesiastical purposes, (3) the ensigns of ecclesiastical rank above alluded to, viz. mitre, cross, and crosier. ”

“ It should be no fault of his, that any toy of his rank should not be looked up to with awe. Accordingly, a most curious story is told of the way in which he contrived that the Cardinal's hat, which was sent him during his residence in York Place, should make its first appearance in public. Cavendish says, that the hat having been sent by the Pope through the hands of an ordinary messenger, without any state, Wolsey caused him to be "stayed by the way," newly dressed in rich apparel, and met by a gorgeous cavalcade of prelates and gentry. ”

“ Besides these there were two or three stiff-backed chairs, a table, a crucifix, a small but beautiful painting of the Annunciation, and a little clock, fashioned after those of the Valois period, a gift of Jacques des Horloges; for portable clocks were still a luxury for the rich, and the priest would as soon have dreamed of buying one as of possessing a cardinal’s hat. This was all, except the books, and those were Père Antoine’s greatest worldly treasures ”

“ It is very true that when the season and affairs permit us to write and make known to His Holiness the veneration we hold him in as the vicegerent of God, we hope that he will be too well disposed toward us to refuse him the cardinal's hat, inasmuch as the conditions which could forbid his having this dignity for the honor of our person and of our realm are not fulfilled in his case, viz., residence in England, since we can send him to dwell at Rome, as we promise, and with the royal magnificence requisite for his birth. ”

“ Which of the four is now in the possession of the Misses Pigott is not mentioned.
Anon.
Bishop of Ossory—Cardinal's Hat (Vol. vii., p. 72.) .—A. S. A. is quite correct, that the hat is common to all prelates, and that the distinction is only in the number of the tassels to the hat-strings; but I think he is wrong in attributing the hat to priors. I believe it only belonged to abbots, who had black hats and tassels; while the colour of the prelatical hats and tassels was green. (See Père Anselme's Palais d'Honneur, chap. xxii. and plate.) ”

“ It has been most strongly recommended by a writer of the present day.
Abhba.
Replies. CARDINAL'S MONUMENT. (Vol. iii., p. 106.)
Your correspondent and querist, J. D. A., asks for some information respecting the coat of arms surmounted by a cardinal's hat, sculptured and affixed to one of the pillars of the south transept in St. Saviour's Church, Southwark. I send in reply an extract from a now scarce book, Arthur Tiler's History and Antiquities of St. Saviour's, 1765, with which all the later historians of the church agree:—
"Anno 1400. ”

“ Before the newly created princes of the Church receive this hat, they swear an oath of loyalty in the Six- tine Chapel in the presence of the three deacons of the cardinalate and the Cardinal-Chamberlain. They avow that they will preserve and protect the Roman See and the possessions of St. Peter against all enemies, that they will win back what has been lost, and that they will neither permit nor desire that the cities and territories of the Papal States be secularized or taken away. ”

“ His dress—a black cassock edged and buttoned with crimson, with a crimson skullcap and biretta, and a pectoral cross of gold—enhanced the picturesqueness of his aspect, and as he entered the anteroom where one awaited his approach, the most Protestant knee instinctively bent.
His dignity was astonishing. The position of a cardinal with a princely rank recognized abroad but officially ignored in England was difficult to carry off, but his exquisite tact enabled him to sustain it to perfection. He never put himself forward; never asserted his rank; never exposed himself to rebuffs ”

“ The gorgeous and heavy papal costumes only render him more insignificant, and when he is borne about, buried in his deep chair, or lost in the corner of his huge black and gold pagoda of a carriage, it is difficult to look at him without a smile. Among his cardinals, however, there are magnificent heads, boldly marked, noble and scholarlike, and I may say, perhaps, that there is no one of them, who had not nature's mark upon him of superiority. They are a dignified and impressive body of men, and their servile homage to the Pope, seems unnatural and disgusting. ”

“ An hereditary honor and privilege granted to one of my ancestors was that he might wear his hat before the king.
It is somewhat difficult to find out the exact date when the wearing of hats by men within-doors ceased to be fashionable and became distinctly low bred. We can turn to contemporary art. In 1707 at a grand banquet given in France to the Spanish Embassy, a ceremonious state affair with the women in magnificent full-dress, the men seated at the table and in the presence of royalty wore their cocked hats—so much for courtly France. ”

“ Another is, that it is a more excellent way of support, than by the mercenary and un-retraceable road, through the church-door to the altar, into which so many non-reliant women are driven. Having said this I feel at liberty to remark that we all have our little fancies, and one of mine is, that a hat is a pleasanter object of contemplation in a sick-room than a bonnet. I think, too, that my wrist reposes more comfortably in a big hand than a little one, and if my mouth is to be inspected, I prefer submitting it to a beard than to a flounce. ”

“ Of all parts of the Christian's costume, the hat is the most calculated to inspire disgust in the sight of the native of the Orient, and if ever he adopts it, it is because it is supposed to cover him with protection against the injustice of his own rulers, and not from any preference or even choice. It is always an object of ridicule, and serves to point many a remark of derision and contempt against the wearer. On the other hand, what is more noble and dignified than the turban, with its snowy white folds, or its varied hues of green or red? ”

“ The round ladies' hat, however, of the middle and end of the last century, may be seen in its primitive state in those enormous circles of straw, brought from Tuscany, and sold in our milliners' shops, fit to be pinched and cut into the prevailing fashion. The hats, both of men and women—when once they had quitted the becoming costume of the Middle Ages—arose out of one and the same type; a large circle of stuff with a projecting central cap for the skull. Human invention, in the matter of hats, seems for several centuries to have rested in this solitary idea. ”

“ There is no manner of connexion between the thing and the symbol of it, to which public opinion is expected to bow. The whole is an affair of dress—a dull masquerade. There is no proof of the doctrine of the Trinity in a three-cornered hat, nor does a black coat without a cape imply sincerity and candour. A man who wishes to pass for a saint or a philosopher on the strength of a button in his hat or a buckle in his shoes, is not very likely to be either ”

“ The Greek Kausia and the Roman Petasus are described as “hats of a pliant material which could be bent down at the sides like that worn by Atalanta.”
La Croix, a French writer on the subject, assures us that the early Romans and Franks “sought Bast and [3] Straw of which to make them hats,” and there is an antique statue of Mercury in the Vatican at Rome, which has for head covering a hat of a “wide-awake” nature, sculptured in close imitation of a finely plaitted straw. ”

“ Ribands, stiffened out into gigantic bows, set forth the ample chapeau right gaily; the brim stretched itself out with all the insolence of a public favourite; and at length Tom Hood showed us how a lady might go [Pg 248] to church on a rainy day, and shelter the whole family beneath her maternal hat. The present queen of the French wore an enormous chapeau of this kind at the audience which Louis Philippe gave to the peers and deputies that came to offer him the throne; every lady in England, of a certain age, has worn a hat of the same sort. ”

“ In the 14th century it took a fullness of loose folds, with serrated or foliated edges falling to the shoulder as in Fig. 15 (see p. 73) . A close helmet-shaped cap is seen in the 12th century, with a falling point from the crown, and the 13th century brought in the higher crowned hat, with a long peaked front, turned up at the back. Feathers were worn at the front, back, or side of hats, and sometimes on the [76] front of the hoods; these increased their dimensions in height and peak, till the straight-up high hat, which was often brimless, came in the 15th century. ”

“ THE SHALLOW. A Hat more admired for the ease and simplicity of style than for any peculiar character in its general appearance; being low in the crown, it is worn to most advantage by tall thin gentlemen with very large heads; and as the fore and hind part of the brim is set nearly horizontal from the base of the crown, it has two great advantages; the first of which is, that it may be conveniently worn over a wig ”

“ They like his bearded face, under the shadow of the broad-brimmed and steeple-crowned Puritan hat;—a visage resolute, grave, and thoughtful, yet apt to kindle with that glow of a cheerful spirit by which men of strong character are enabled to go joyfully on their proper tasks. ”

“ In these bleak surroundings, a valiant and energetic gentleman in the scarlet cassock and biretta of a cardinal—a cardinal with wings and beak and feathers, you understand—was darting from point [Pg 210] to point of the big evergreen, from apex to branch, from branch to apex, a gorgeous splash of color against the clear green of the boughs and the blue-white of the snow.
The spruce, with the flitting cardinal on its boughs, stood at the side of the bishop’s grounds between his slate-roofed and ivy-clad house and the brick orphan asylum. ”

“ It has no distinction, no beauty of color or romance; it appeals neither to the senses, nor the mind, nor the eye, and it must be very uncomfortable. It is meagre and stunted. The hat, above all, struck me; it is a sort of truncated column, and does not adapt itself in the least to the shape of the head; but I am told it is easier to bring about a revolution than to invent a graceful hat. Courage in Paris recoils before the thought of appearing in a round felt; and for lack of one day's daring, men stick all their lives to this ridiculous headpiece. ”

“ The use of the ecclesiastical hat is very general outside Great Britain, and affords one of the few instances where the rules governing heraldic usages are identical throughout the Continent.
This curious unanimity is the more remarkable because it was not until the seventeenth century that the rather intricate rules concerning the colours of the hats used for different ranks and the number of tassels came into vogue. ”

“ A white bowler and a blue serge suit made as stylish and effective a garb as anyone needed. Soft hats no doubt were comfortable, but they were also slovenly. Moreover they were not practical. At a horse sale, for example, you could not rattle them. As for the plea that tall hats were of value to conjurers, he had no use for such arguments. Conjurers dealt in illusion and all illusion was retrograde. (Oh! Oh!) .
The Bishop of LINCOLN said that he felt bound to dissociate himself from his, partner's remarks. He himself looked upon a silk hat as an essential. (A voice, "With rigging?") ”

“ Every body who has worn a hat, has perceived it to be a nuisance, although he may never have said any thing on the subject till the present cry was raised. As soon as a man gets out of the streets of the capital, or of his own accustomed provincial town, and sets foot in a railway carriage or on board of a steamboat, his first care is to make himself comfortable by disembarrassing his aching temples of his hat. The funnel is put away, and a cap, more ornamental and a thousand times more easy, is elevated to the place of honor, to the great satisfaction of the wearer. ”