Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday 6 July 2020

Spanish Birettas


John Paul Sonnen has a post on the Liturgical Arts Journal today about the distinctive, historic, and let’s face it, rather endearing, ecclesiastical headgear traditional for Spanish clergy, the Spanish biretta. The way the medieval pileus soft head covering evolved into the stiffened biretta in Spain was different from the rest of Europe, with four horns rather than the three ( four for academic distinctions) vanes that became normative elsewhere. 

The illustrated article can be seen at The Spanish "El Bonete Español" Biretta 
and even includes where to go to get such a biretta in Madrid.


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