The Mitre: Its Origins and Early Development

✍ Scribed by Nancy Spies

• Publisher: Brill
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 383
• Series: Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe; 21
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The story of the mitre began during the 11th-century church reform movements and was, surprisingly, inspired by a popular pastime. After a thousand years of bare heads, the Church finally had an official hat, signaling newly-structured internal dynamics, an increase in power and influence in society, and greater parity with secular leaders.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Cover
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Figures and Tables
Introduction
1 What Is a Mitre? A New Definition
2 Terminology
3 Terms Specific to the Mitre
3.1 (a) Mitre
3.2 (b) A Simple Folding Hat: the Peaked Mitre
3.3 (c) Lobed
3.4 (d) Peaked
4 Bands, Ornamental
4.1 (a) Circular
4.2 (b) Vertical
4.3 (c) Terminal
4.4 (d) Median
4.5 (e) Transverse
4.6 (f) Pendants
Chapter 1 Finding and Examining the Evidence
1 Sample Collecting: Methodology
2 Examination of the Visual Evidence
3 General Statistics
4 The First Mitre Images – Styles and Orientation – from the End of the Eleventh Century to 1115
5 Mitres from 1119 to the End of the Twelfth Century–Beginning of the Thirteenth Century
6 Lobed Mitres
7 Peaked Mitres
8 Details of the Mitres Themselves
9 Mitres at the End of the Twelfth Century–Beginning of the Thirteenth Century
10 The Choice of Images
11 Issues for Consideration
11.1 (a) Source Availability
11.2 (b) Dating
11.3 (c) Provenance
11.4 (d) Proficiency of the Artist
11.5 (e) Color and Decoration
11.6 (f) Style Oddities and Further Artistic Issues
12 Extant Mitres
13 Who Wore the Mitre?
Chapter 2 Testing the Development
1 Braun’s Version of the Early Evolution of the Mitre
2 The Conical Hat on Ecclesiastical Heads
3 The Round Hat on Ecclesiastical Heads
4 Experimental Archaeology
5 The Conical Hat and the Round Hat
6 The Lobed Mitre
7 The Peaked Mitre
Chapter 3 Understanding the Institutional Context
1 Vestments
2 Church Rituals
Chapter 4 Reading the Documents
1 Eleventh-Century Written Evidence
2 Twelfth-Century Written Evidence
3 Gifting, the Miraculous, the Purely Political
Chapter 5 Searching for Origins
1 Religious and Political Factors
2 Origins of the Peaks and the Lobes
3 Geographical Origins
4 A Special Situation: Bohemia (Poland and the Czech Republic)
Chapter 6 Declaring the Winner
Conclusions
Appendices
Appendices A–G
Appendix A Examples of the Conical Hat on Ecclesiastical Heads
Appendix B Examples of the Round Hat on Ecclesiastical Heads
Appendix C Examples of Mitra Interpretations from Old Testament and Ancient Greek Sources
Appendix D Outlier Hats on Ecclesiastical Heads
Appendix E Mitres on Ecclesiastical Heads from the Late 11th Century to the Beginning of the 13th Century
Appendix F 13th Century (to 1250) Mitres on Ecclesiastical Heads (Exceptions Only)
Appendix G Secular Lobed Hats and Pouches (Bags)
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Back Cover