Canterbury Cap
The Rectory Cat
Shipmate Posts: 1
Hi folks, please can anyone advise the correct times to wear a Canterbury cap for a priest celebrating Holy Communion? As far as I can tell, it is when processing and when seated, but Dearmer also says something about wearing it while pronouncing absolution ... *confused face*
And what do you do with it when not wearing it? Thanks.
And what do you do with it when not wearing it? Thanks.
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Now, it can be fun to tip one's biretta to a prelate (rather like tipping a top hat) but it is quite difficult to tip a Canterbury cap. I tend to need both hands to get it on snugly enough so as to not slide around. (Husband says I am enough of a fat head some days that should not be a problem )
A very high up the candle priest friend wears a biretta, and will just barely lift it off the forehead at the mention of St. Mary, before settling it back down. Husband also says that looks like something out of an old movie set in the wild west, as if said priest is saying "Howdy m'am, just passing through"
At least the frequent doffing and donning would keep the wearer awake, should the sermon be, shall we say, dull...
This is when the wily visiting preacher develops an impromptu exegesis about cheeses?
His text would obviously be "Blessed are the cheese makers."
And the sermon hymn would be "What a friend we have in cheeses."*
*This was the actual chapter title in a cookbook many years ago.
Hehe - and muttering the while, so as to further discombobulate the Holy Clergy, who would be uncertain as to whether they were hearing aright...
Historically, as it well known, men were not supposed to cover their heads in worship and women were. This comes from St Paul.
@Amos has it right, I think.
And, mention of mine comes with an odd story! I placed my order on line, and was shipped a shirt instead. I contacted the seller (a major Islamic clothing company) about a return. They confided that my cap had been sent to a woman in another part of the US, and the shirt I recieved was to have gone to her. Their solution was that she and I should contact eachother and swap via post. We did so and in discussion she shared that her son, raised Christian, was becoming a Muslim and she, sad as she was, wanted to support him in his decision and had ordered the shirt so she could in some way, wrap him 'round. I confided I was simply a priest with a cold head, averse to wearing a ski cap when vested. We chatted quite some time, and promised to keep each other (and her son) in prayer for the next six months. A cap that came with a blessing!
It reminds me of a Mass I attended at an Abbey in southern France some years ago. The church has a south-facing window in the chancel, so, after Communion, the Abbot disappeared into the sacristy, and emerged therefrom wearing a baseball cap* to protect his bald head from the hot noonday sunshine streaming in, whilst the post-Communion prayer, and the Angelus, were said and sung.
*It did NOT proclaim 'Make America (or anywhere else) Great Again!
Actually the square cap is pre-reformation, as half an hour in the NPG would prove if it were open. Fox, Wolsey, and Warham are depicted in quire habit wearing Canterbury caps.
We have beanies in Northern latitudes, too...
I take it that that's not the kind of thing you mean by beanie.
I think Canadians call it a tuque (beanie to most other parts of the world).
Here, a beanie is the kind of hat that Brownies wear.
My usual head gear is the flat cap, of which I seem to have about half a dozen of various colours. My favourite is a greenish tweed number with a 'Made in Yorkshire' label in it. I have a fairly large head, so when I find one the right size I tend to buy it. My happiest hunting ground seems to be market stalls.
My Canterbury Cap is a relic of the much lamented (by me anyway) Vanheems company, and is seen on any occasion on which I have to hang around outside in a cassock.
It's so long since I saw a Brownie that I can't remember what they (or Cubs for that matter) wear, but there'd almost certainly be either a brim or a peak.
Yes, that's why I added the comment.
For reasons I never understood, my parents were dead against them. My sisters were not Brownies or Guides, I was not a Cub or Scout. That's why my memory fo what they wore is hazy.
Or maybe they just thought the uniforms were naff.
What to call the hat under discussion is often used as marker of regional word usage in the US. Toboggan is the term generally used in the Southern US.
I thought that (sledge, but not sled) was what fielding cricketers did when addressing the batspersons.
Nick Tamen, I think the word you're after is toque. It's the sort of hat worn by Queen Mary (relict of George V), and of couse Miss Amanda
Wikipedia tells me tells me that tuque (a French Canadian word adopted into Canadian English), touque or toque are the Canadian words and spellings for a knit cap. That article also says: “The word is also occasionally spelled touque. Although this is not considered a standard spelling by the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, some informal media polls have suggested that it is the preferred spelling by many Canadians.”
That Wiki comment is none too reassuring, is it. "Some informal media polls" etc is scarcely reputable evidence.
But fwiw, the citation given for that statement is this CBC story: Thousands vote on correct spelling of Canadian knit cap.
It strikes me as similar to polling North Carolinians as to whether we are Tar Heels or Tarheels.
I believe it's called a skufta. My Orthie friends tell me it's worn by more rigorous types who like to look folksy-- they're quite common among Old Believers, so shipmates from northern Alberta might want to keep their eyes open.
About the spelling of touque. Of course, I am correct, but I understand that some variations are about. I checked with two professional editors, as well as a former manager of mine who was in his time a departmental resource for correct English. They all agree on touque, although one of the editors thought that it might be a local usage.
As to the spelling, I've never seen it as touque. I appreciate the impossibility of your being in error, but the spell check puts a red squiggly line under it as if it were, and keying it in on Google jumps straight to toque. Much further down the page there are entries for touque, with suggestions that it's a Canadian spelling.