"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."
“From about 1125 a mitre of another form and somewhat different appearance is often found. In it the puffs on the sides had developed into horns (cornua) which ended each in a point and were stiffened with parchment or some other interlining. This mitre formed the transition to the third style of mitre which is essentially the one still used today: the third mitre is distinguished from its predecessor, not actually by its shape, but only by its position on the head. While retaining its form, the mitre was henceforth so placed upon the head that the cornua no longer arose above the temples but above the forehead and the back of the head. The lappets had naturally, to be fastened to the under edge below the horn at the back. The first example of such a mitre appeared towards 1150. Elaborate mitres of this kind had not only an ornamental band (circulus) on the lower edge, but a similar ornamental band (titulus) went vertically over the middle of the horns. In the fourteenth century this form of mitre began to be distorted in shape. Up to then the mitre had been somewhat broader than high when folded together, but from this period on it began, slowly indeed, but steadily, to increase in height until, in the seventeenth century, it grew into an actual tower. Another change, which, however, did not appear until the fifteenth century, was that the sides were no longer made vertical, but diagonal. In the sixteenth century it began to be customary to curve, more or less decidedly, the diagonal sides of the horns. The illustration gives a summary of the development of the shape of the mitre.”
(Authoritative Source: 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia Online: MITRE)
For both you and Bob:
Here is an excerpt from: http://philologos.org/__eb-ttb/sect61.htm
"The two-horned mitre, which the Pope wears, when he sits on the high altar at Rome and receives the adoration of the Cardinals, is the very mitre worn by Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians. There were two ways in which Dagon was anciently represented. The one was when he was depicted as half-man half-fish; the upper part being entirely human, the under part ending in the tail of a fish. The other was, when, to use the words of Layard, "the head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, while its scaly, fan-like tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed." Of Dagon in this form Layard gives a representation in his last work, which is here represented to the reader (Fig. 48); and no one who examines his mitre, and compares it with the Pope's as given in Elliot's Horae, can doubt for a moment that from that, and no other source, has the pontifical mitre been derived. The gaping jaws of the fish surmounting the head of the man at Nineveh are the unmistakable counterpart of the horns of the Pope's mitre at Rome...."
Do a little more digging, 'Protestant'. It seems almost a pity to point out that that the mitre was originally almost flat, not pointed at all - &, Bob, that there is a difference between wearing a hat that looks vaguely like a fish's open jaws, & wearing an entire artificial fish-skin. The mitre is related to the academic cap - both are developments of a cap of Byzantine origin called in Latin camelaucum, which gave rise to the mitre, beret, & academic cap.
Dagon was in any case not a fish-god. The book this is taken from is 140 years old - it is badly out of date. Old books can be good for ideas, but not for archaeology; & this is a matter of interpreting archaeological data.
Again, the symbolism of the present day mitre is attached to pentecost when the flame of the Holy Spirit danced on their heads.
I remember when I was confirmed as a Catholic, the Bishop informed us that it also represents the bible by the way it folds, and the two tassels that hangs from the miter, representing the New Testament and the Old Testaments.
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