Biretta
Occasionally the biretta is worn by legal professionals, for instance advocates in the Channel Islands[1] or judges in some Polish courts.
The biretta seems to have become more widely used as an ecclesiastical vestment after the synod of Bergamo, 1311, ordered the clergy to wear the "bireta on their heads after the manner of laymen.
The Tridentine Roman Missal rubrics on low Mass require the priest to wear the biretta while proceeding to the altar, to hand it to the server on arrival and to resume it when leaving.
Clerks Regular (that is, post-Renaissance religious orders primarily dedicated to priestly ministry, for instance the Jesuits and Redemptorists) generally wear a black biretta with no tuft.
Other priests who belong to various forms of community life, as the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri for instance, generally also wear birettas, but without a pom.
According to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, "It was formerly the rule that a priest should always wear it in giving absolution in confession, and it is probable that the ancient usage which requires an English judge assume the 'black cap' in pronouncing sentence of death is of identical origin.
"[5] The use of the biretta has not been abolished as a result of changes in the regulation of clerical dress and vesture following the Second Vatican Council and still remains the correct liturgical headgear for those in Holy Orders whilst "in choir", but its use has been made optional.
The biretta is also worn by a priest, deacon, subdeacon, and bishop in attendance at a Mass offered according to the rubrics for the Roman Missal of 1962.
"Biretta Belt" is a slang term for regions where Anglo-Catholic clergy were historically noticeable and more commonly donned birettas (such as the Episcopal[6] Dioceses of Fond du Lac, Eau Claire, and Milwaukee in Wisconsin, Quincy, Chicago and Springfield in Illinois, Northern Indiana, and Marquette in Michigan).
In the medieval university, the ceremony by which a new master or doctor received his degree included the birretatio, or imposition of the biretta.
1378...doctoribus seu gradum academicum in una ex quatuor supradictis facultatibus <
1377, § 1), deferendi, extra sacras functiones, (quarum nomine ad hunc eflectum non-venit ex usu sacra praedicatio), nisi aliunde amplietur eis hoc ius quoad a) annulum etiam cum gemma "ipsis a iure huius canonis concessum" (can.
136, § 2), b) et biretum doctorale, (idest: cum quatuor apicibus) utpote insigne huius gradus ac diverso colore ornatum pro Facultate.
