8 - The Horse with Donkey’s Ears
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2020
Summary
AFTER THE FALL of Constantinople, the most credible claim to preside over a surviving eastern Christian empire came from Moscow, which identified itself both as heir to the former Byzantine empire and also, to a lesser extent, as the “third Rome,” heir to the ancient Christian Roman empire established by Constantine. Surpassing even these glories was the conviction that Moscow ruled over the “New Israel,” a nation chosen by God to defend the true religion against its enemies (including Muslims, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and any others not committed to Orthodoxy), to expand the territorial boundaries in which the true religion was observed, and to do so by the power of the cross and force of arms. The Moscow Palm Sunday procession witnessed in 1558 by Anthony Jenkinson, or perhaps by “an anonymous member of his entourage,” reflected these glittering aspirations. The English traveller's description is worth quoting in full:
On Palm Sunday, they have a very solemn procession in this manner following:
First they have a tree of a good bigness, which is made fast upon two sleds, as though it were growing there, and it is hanged with apples, raisins, figs, and dates, and with many other fruits abundantly. In the midst of the same tree stand five boys in white vestures, which sing in the tree before the procession. After this there followed certain young men with wax tapers in their hands, burning, and a great lantern, that all the light should not go out. After them followed two with long banners, and six with round plates set upon long staves. The plates were of copper, very full of holes and thin. Then followed six carrying painted images upon their shoulders; after the images follow certain priests, to the number of one hundred or more, with goodly vestures, whereof ten or twelve are of white damask, set and embroidered round about with fair and orient pearls, as great as peas, and among them certain sapphires and other stones. After them followed the one half of the emperor's noblemen. Then cometh the emperor's majesty and the metropolitan, after this manner:
First, there is a horse, covered with white linen down to the ground, his ears being made long with the same cloth, like to an ass's ears.
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- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019