page_title: Ecclesiastical heraldry
section_title: Ecclesiastical hat
hierarchical_section_title: Ecclesiastical heraldry / Around the shield / Ecclesiastical hat
context_page_description: Ecclesiastical heraldry refers to the use of heraldry within the Christian Church for dioceses and Christian clergy. Initially used to mark documents, ecclesiastical heraldry evolved as a system for identifying people and dioceses. It is most formalized within the Catholic Church, where most bishops, including the Pope, have a personal coat of arms. Clergy in Anglican, Lutheran, Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches follow similar customs, as do institutions such as schools and dioceses.
  Ecclesiastical heraldry differs notably from other heraldry in the use of special insignia around the shield to indicate rank in a church or denomination. The most prominent of these insignia is the low crowned, wide brimmed ecclesiastical hat, commonly the Roman galero. The color and ornamentation of this hat indicate rank. Cardinals are famous for the "red hat", while other offices and churches have distinctive colors of hat, such as black for priests and green for bishops, customarily with a defined number of tassels that increases with rank.
  Other insignia include the processional cross, and the episcopal mitre and crosier.
context_section_description: The ecclesiastical hat is a distinctive part of the achievement of arms of a Roman Catholic cleric. This hat, called a galero, was originally a pilgrim's hat like a sombrero. It was granted in red to cardinals by Pope Innocent IV at the First Council of Lyon in the 13th century, and was adopted by heraldry almost immediately. The galero in various colors and forms was used in heraldic achievements starting with its adoption in the arms of bishops in the 16th century. In the 19th century the galero was viewed heraldically as specifically "Catholic", but the Public Register of Arms in Scotland show Roman Catholic, presbyterian Church of Scotland and Anglican Episcopalian clergy all using the wide brimmed, low crowned hat. The galero is ornamented with tassels (also called houppes or fiocchi) indicating the cleric's current place in the hierarchy; the number became significant beginning in the 16th century, and the meaning was fixed, for Catholic clergy, in 1832. A bishop's galero is green with six tassels on each side; the color originated in Spain where formerly a green hat was actually worn by bishops. A territorial abbot was equivalent to a bishop and used a green galero. An archbishop's galero is green but has ten tassels. Bishops in Switzerland formerly used ten tassels like an archbishop because they were under the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See and not part of an archiepiscopal province. Both patriarchs and cardinals have hats with fifteen tassels. A cardinal's hat is red or scarlet while a patriarch who is not also a cardinal uses a green hat; the patriarch's tassels are interwoven with gold. Primates may use the same external ornaments as patriarchs.
  The depiction of the galero in arms can vary greatly depending on the artist's style. The top of the hat may be shown flat or round. Sometimes the brim is shown much narrower; with a domed top it can look like a cappello romano with tassels, but in heraldry it is still called a galero. The tassels may be represented as knotted cords.
  A special exception is made for Chinese bishops, who avoid using a green hat in their arms since "to wear a green hat" is a Chinese idiom for cuckoldry. Rather than green, these bishops use a variety of colors from violet and black to blue, or scarlet if a cardinal. A cross behind the shield denotes a bishop.
  Lesser Roman Catholic prelates use a variety of colors. Violet hats were once actually worn by certain monsignors, and so in heraldry they have used a violet hat with red or violet tassels in varying numbers, currently fixed at six on each side. The lowest grade of monsignor, a Chaplain of His Holiness, uses a black hat with violet tassels. The superior general of an order displays a black galero with six tassels on each side, while provincial superiors and abbots use a black galero with six or three tassels on each side, although Norbertines (White Canons) use a white galero. Although a priest would rarely assume arms unless he had an ancestral right to arms independent of his clerical state, a priest would use a simple black ecclesiastical hat with a single tassel on each side. Priests who hold an office such as rector would have two tassels on each side.
  Clergy of the Church of England who were not bishops historically bore arms identical to a layman, with a shield, helm and crest, and no ecclesiastical hat. In England in 1976 a system for deans, archdeacons and canons was authorized by the College of Arms, allowing a black ecclesiastical hat, black or violet cords, and three violet or red tassels on each side. A priest uses a black and white cord with a single tassel on each side, and a deacon a hat without tassels. A Doctor of Divinity may have cords interwoven with red and a hat appropriate to the degree, and members of the Ecclesiastical Household add a Tudor rose on the front of the hat. According to Boutell's Heraldry, this system represents the practice of the Church in England in the 16th century.
  Within Presbyterian Church heraldry, a minister's hat is represented as black with a single tassel on each side, someti
caption: Arms of Bishop Joseph Zen of Hong Kong with the simple Latin cross, and a violet galero (prior to his elevation to cardinal priest)
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