Why the Bishop has cut on it's head?

So I've been thinking a lot about Bishops and it's cut. Now my question to everyone is why the Bishop has a slash on its head?

The "bishop" is not a priest, but it stands for a war elephant - hence the piece is shaped like the elephant's trunk, and the slash is the opening. 

For Staunton design pieces you are referring to the hat worn by a Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, which is called a "mitre".. The same is true for Christian religions whose clergy has adopted the vestments of the Roman Catholic Church, such as the Anglican Church (England) and the Episcopal Church (United States)...

Interesting.

russ I think is right.

Bishops WERE also elephants in the old game."shatranj"

but when the game made the transition from the Arab world to the medieval world;  symbolism like this made sense to European Nobility.

Nothing says 'person of importance' like a ludicrous hat.

I always thought it was supposed to be the visor in plate armor

Catholic hierarchy rocks!

The most recent Chess Life for Kids has an article about the pieces. The bishop got it's name in English due to the fact the piece looked like the mitre, it didn't get the mitre look because of the English name.

The design is thought to look like an elephant's tusks without being an physical representation of an elephant, at least according to that article.

Sounds like a stretch to me...I don't think the Roman Catholic Church was envisioning elephants or chess pieces when it designed the Bishop's mitre...

The evolution of the Bishop's mitre....

The bishop piece, with the cut,  predates the bishop's mitre that gave the piece its name in English. So, when chess made it into the European courts from the Arabic world, the piece with that form existed and it was an elephant; alfil.

The claim isn't that the church modeled the mitre after the piece.

Are you saying that the Staunton bishop "hat" is not modeled on the mitre of the Roman Catholic Bishop?  But instead after an Arabic chess piece?  

Note that the Staunton design is an English design.  The Bishop's vestments in the Anglican (English) church are very similar to those worn by the Bishops in the Roman Catholic Church, as the Anglican Church (Church of England) was the Roman Catholic Church before King Henry VIII changed things, pronouncing himself the head of the church in England.

By the way, elephants are not indigenous to Arab countries....so it would make no sense that an Arabic chess piece would be modeled on an elephant.  But I believe (not certain though) that an Indian chess piece would have been...

I contend that, due to the fact that the Staunton design is an English design, it makes it unlikely that the design of the Staunton Bishop has any relationship to, or was influenced by, an Arabic or Indian chess piece...

I'm not sure I have deep insight to offer.... but I'm going to stubbornly stick with this point.  Chess skill was considered a mark of education in the medieval world.  "proof" that someone possessed not just courage and valar but intelligence and wit in a battle.  A bishop was a symbol of power within their society. and I think the symbol resonated in a way that Elephant did not.

Pre-Staunton bishops looked very similar to what Staunton designed.

I still believe the modern bishop is of English design, though. But I don't believe Staunton is the one who really came up with the idea. He moreso was just seeking to standardize the designs across Europe. For example, the English Barleycorn set predated Staunton and used a similar bishop design, with the notch.

The Northern Upright set had a similar bishop design, also predating Staunton.

I can't speak much to the Staunton design, without researching it, but the likely path of Chess was from India via Persia into the Arabic world. When taken up by the latter, the design was changed from an obvious elephant, to a representation of an elephant (due to prohibitions against iconography). Alfil is the Arabic name for the piece and that means elephant.

I can probably find more references; the only reason I posted is that I just flipped through that issue and read the article (I get for the affiliate I run).  I would also need to perform more research in general, to see how accurate the article was. 

The reason I said it's an elephant and not a priest, is that why would a priest be in the middle of a battle? You have rooks as siege towers or catapults (or some war machine), pawns as infantry squads, and knights as cavalry squads. It would only make sense for the bishops to be war elephants rather than priests.