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Ritual and reality in the early medieval ordines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Janet L. Nelson
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Extract

To know what was generally believed in all ages, the way is to consult the liturgies, not any private man’s writings.’ John Selden’s maxim, which surely owed much to his own pioneering work as a liturgist, shows a shrewd appreciation of the significance of the medieval ordines for the consecration of kings. Thanks to the more recent efforts of Waitz, Eichmann, Schramm and others, this material now forms part of the medievalist’s stock in trade; and much has been written on the evidence which the ordines provide concerning the nature of kingship, and the interaction of church and state, in the middle ages. The usefulness of the ordines to the historian might therefore seem to need no further demonstration or qualification. But there is another side to the coin. The value of the early medieval ordines can be, not perhaps overestimated, but misconstrued. ‘The liturgies’ may indeed tell us ‘what was generally believed’—but we must first be sure that we know how they were perceived and understood by their participants, as well as by their designers. They need to be correlated with other sources, and as often as possible with ‘private writings’ too, before the full picture becomes intelligible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 11: The Materials Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History , 1975 , pp. 41 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1975

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References

I am grateful to professor Walter Ullmann for first showing me the importance of the ordines, to professor Dorothy Whitlock for her generous help on several points relating to tenth-century England, and to John Gillingham for his always stimulating criticism.

1 The quotation is from Selden’s Table-Talk (London 1689) under ‘Liturgy’. His great work on liturgy, Titles of Honor, was first published in 1614. I have used the third edition of 1672.

2 Waitz, G., ‘Die Formeln der deutschen Königs-und der Römischen Kaiser-Krönung vom zehnten bis zum zwölften Jahrhundert’, in Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 18 (1873)Google Scholar; Eichmann, [E.], ‘Königs—und Bischofsweihe’, in Sitzungsberichte der bayrischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Phil. Hist. Klasse, Abh. 6 (Munich 1928),Google Scholar and many other articles; Schramm, P.E., A History of the English Coronation (Oxford 1937)Google Scholar, Der König von Frankreich (2 ed Weimar 1960), Herrschaftszeichen und Staats symbolik (3 vols Stuttgart 1954-6), various articles on the west frankish, anglosaxon, and german ordines, originally published during the 1930s, now conveniently reprinted in vols II and III of his collected papers, K[aiser,] K[önige und] P[äpste] (Stuttgart 1968). The imperial ordines have been edited by Elze, R., Ordines Coronationis Imperialis, MGH Fontes Iuris Germanici Antiqui, 9 (Hanover 1960)Google Scholar. But only royal ordines will come under consideration below.

3 See, for example, Southern, R.W., The Making oj the Middle Ages (London 1953) pp 97 Google Scholar et seq; Ullmann, W., Principles of] Government and] P[olitics in the Middle Ages (London 1961) pp 129 et seq; Google Scholar The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship (London 1969) pp 101 et seq; Tierney, B., The Crisis of Church and State (Englewood Cliffs 1964) pp 25 et seq; Google Scholar Wallace-Hadrill, J.M., Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford 1971) pp 133 et seq. Google Scholar

4 Thanks especially to the publications of the H[entry] B[radshaw] S[ociety]. For the anglo-saxon ordines discussed below, the relevant editions are those of The Landet Pontifical, by Doble, G.H. HBS 74 (for 1937)Google Scholar; The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, by Wilson, H., HBS 24 (for 1903)Google Scholar; Three Coronation Orders, by Legg, J. Wickham, HBS 19 (for 1900)Google Scholar; The Claudius Pontificals, by Turner, D.H., HBS 97 (for 1964, publ 1971)Google Scholar. Other editions will be cited below. As yet, unfortunately, there is no complete edition of the english ordines.

5 Widukind, , Rerum Gestarum Saxonicarum Libri Tres, ed Lohmann, H.E., rev Hirsch, P. (Hanover 1935) pp 64 et seq. Google Scholar

6 Birch, W.G., Cartularium Saxomcum, 3 vols (London 1885-93)Google Scholar of northumbrian magnates and welsh princes at Eadred’s inauguration may be inferred from the witness-list.

7 Vita Dunstani (Auctore ‘B’) ed Stubbs, W. in Memorials of St Dunstan RS (1874) p 32 Google Scholar; Vita Oswaldi ed Raine, J. in Historians of the Church of York, RS (1879) I, pp 437 Google Scholar et seq, this passage reprinted in Schramm, , KKP, II, pp 241 et seq. Google Scholar On the significance of the feast, see Hauck, K., ‘Rituelle Speisegemeinschaft im 10. und 11. Jht.’, in Studium Generale, III (Heidelberg 1950) pp 611 et seq. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 See Ward, P.L., ‘An early version [of the Anglo-Saxon coronation ceremony’], in EHR, 57 (1942) pp 345 CrossRefGoogle Scholar et seq;, at p 358. I hope to show elsewhere that this ordo represents mid-tenth-century usage. For the priority of this ordo over that of 973, see Ward, , ‘The coronation ceremony in medieval England’, in Speculum, 14 (1939) pp 160 CrossRefGoogle Scholar et seq, at pp 169 et seq. Compare the earlier view of Robinson, J.A., ‘The coronation order in the tenth century’, in JTS, 19 (1917) pp 56 et seq. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The text is most conveniently consulted in Schramm, , KKP, II, pp 233 et seq, at p 239 Google Scholar, showing manuscript variants. See also the text of BM Cotton Claudius Aiii, in Turner’s edition, pp 89 and 94. For the association of this ordo with 973, see Schramm, , KKP, II, pp 180 Google Scholar et seq; and the more convincing arguments of Bouman, C.A., S[acring and] C[rowning] (Groningen 1957) p 18 Google Scholar and n i. Some of the objections raised by Richardson, H. C. and Sayles, G., The Covernance of Medieval England (Edinburgh 1963) pp 397 Google Scholar et seq have been answered by John, E., Orbis Britanniae (Leicester 1966) pp 276 Google Scholar et seq.

10 Ed F.E. Warren (Oxford 1883) pp 230 et seq, the ordo reprinted in Schramm, KKP, II, pp 223 et seq. See also Bouman, SC, pp 167 et seq.

11 Hincmar’s letter to Adventius of Metz has been edited and well-discussed by Andrieu, M., ‘Le sacre épiscopal d’après Hincmar de Reims’, in RHE, 48 (1953) pp 22 Google Scholar et seq. The best general introduction to this subject is to be found in Bouman, SC, part II, esp pp 70 et seq.

12 See Schramm, , KKP, II, pp 223 Google Scholar et seq. I have argued for a ninth-century dating for the whole ordo in my unpublished Cambridge dissertation, Rituals of Royal Inauguration in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1967) cap 5.

13 See, for example, the ordo of Burgundy, ed Eichmann, E., ‘Die sogenannte römische Königskrönungsformel’, in Historisches Jahrbuch, 45 Jahrbuch, 45 (Cologne 1925) pp 518 Google Scholar et seq. I cannot agree with Böhm, L., ‘Rechtsformen und Rechtstitel der burgundischen Konigserhebungen im 9.Jht.’, in Historisches Jahrbuch, 80 (1961) pp 27 Google Scholar et seq, that the text of this ordo as it survives in manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries represents ninth-century practice. Two later medieval english ordines may be found in the fourteenth-century Liber Regalis, ed Legg, L.G. Wickham, English Coronation Records (Westminster 1901) pp 81 et seq,Google Scholar and in the fifteenth-century Liber Regie Capelle, ed W. Ullmann (HBS, 92 for 1959, pubi 1961) pp 74 et seq and introduction, pp 22 et seq.

14 See Baumstark, A., Comparative Liturgy, rev Botte, B., new ed and trans Cross, F.L. (Oxford 1958)Google Scholar; and Bouman, SC, pp 55 et seq, 79 et seq.

15 The manuscripts are listed by Ward, ‘An early version’, pp 347 et seq, with the ‘SMN’ variant at p 352 (and n 6). The Coronation Book of Charles V has been edited by Dewick, E.S. (HBS, 16 for 1899), with the variant at p 27.Google Scholar

16 Titles of Honor Bk I, c 8, p 177. Selden quite rightly saw that the names must have been ‘without question taken out of some Saxon ceremonial’.

17 As used to be surmised: see the note by Dewick in his edition, p 80. These names seem to have reappeared at french royal consecrations for as long as the ancien régime lasted.

18 See Eichmann, , ‘Königs-und Bischofsweihe’.Google Scholar

19 See Kantorowicz, E.H., Laudes Regiae (Berkeley 1946) p 36 Google Scholar, 1189, and p 90, n 84; Bouman, SC, pp 147 et seq; Ritzer, K., Formen, Riten und religiöses Brauchtum der Eheschliessung in den christlichen Kirchen des ersten Jahrtausends (Münster 1962) p 258 Google Scholar. The similarities between status changing rites were first pointed out by van Gennep, A., The Rites of Passage, trans Vizedom, M. and Caffee, G.L. (Chicago 1960)Google Scholar.

20 Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 91

21 Bouman, SC, p 148.

22 Ibid p 147.

23 Erdmann, C., Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frühmitteiaters (Berlin) 1951 pp 56 et seq,Google Scholar and his edition of the ordo, pp 87 et seq. See also Schramm’s interpretation: ‘die Auffassung des Königtums in die Otto I hineingewachsen ist’ (—still believing the ordo to be a German composition of c 960) in his article of 1935, now reprinted in KKP, III, pp 81 et seq. Compare the views of Kantorowicz, , [The]K[ing’s] T[wo] B[odies] (Princeton 1957) p 88 Google Scholar; Ullmann, PGP, pp 130, 142 et seq, and ‘Der Souveränitätsgedanke in den mittelalterlichen Krömingsordines’, in Festschrift Schramm, P.E. (Wiesbaden 1964) pp 81 et seq; Bouman, SC, pp 137 et seq. Google Scholar

24 See Schmidt, R., ‘Zur Geschichte des fränkischen Königsthrons’, in Frühmittel alterliche Studien, II (Berlin 1968) pp 45 et seq. Google Scholar

25 This is the arrangement envisaged in the ‘Leofric’, and related, ordines. See above p 43 n Io.

26 For the text, see Ward, ‘An early version’, p 357.

27 For the aromatic ingredients in chrism, see Hofmeister, P., Die heiligen Ole in der morgen-und abendlandischen Kirche (Würzburg 1948) pp 25Google Scholar et seq.

28 Kantorowicz, KTB p 89. Compare the penetrating comments of Nineham, R., ‘The so-called Anonymous of York’, in JEH 14 (1963) pp 31Google Scholar et seq at p 41 et seq.

29 This term was used by Treitinger, O., Die Oströmische Kaiser-una Reichsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im höfischen Zeremoniell (Jena 1938) pp 233 Google Scholar et seq, with refer ence to developments in Byzantium. It is hard to think of an elegant english translation.

30 See Pange, J.De, Le Roi très chrétien (Paris 1949); Kantorowicz, , Laudes Regiae, pp 56 et seq; Johnson, A.R., Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel (Cardiff 1955) pp 12 et seq. Google Scholar

31 For the text, see Schramm, KKP, II, p 235.

32 See Schramm, History of the English Coronation, pp 179 et seq; David, M., ‘Le serment du sacre du IXe auXVe siècle. Contribution a l’étude des limitesjuridiques de la souveraineté’, in Revue du Moyen Age Latin, 6 (Lyons 1950), p 144 Google Scholar et seq. Kern, F., Gottesg nadentum und Widerstandsrecht im früheren Mittelalter, rev Buchner, R. (2 ed Münster 1954), anhang 14, pp 304 Google Scholar et seq, tried (in my view unsuccessfully) to obliterate the distinction between precept and promise. See also Bouman, SC, pp 144 et seq.

33 For the text, see Schramm, KKP, II pp 243 et sea, with references to other editions. This oath is explicitly linked with Dunstan. It was given ‘at Kingston’, and could relate to 975 (Edward) or 978 (Aethelred).

34 BM Cotton Cleopatra B xiii is dated to the third quarter of the eleventh cen tury. BM Cotton Vitellius A vii, of the first half of the eleventh century, was damaged in the fire of 1731, but a copy of it survives: Oxford Bodleian, Junius 60. In both manuscripts the address followed the oath. I quote below from the translation by Stubbs, Memorials of St Dunstan, pp 356 et sea. Professor D. Whitelock kindly drew my attention to this text.

35 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Revised Translation, ed Whitelock, D. with Douglas, D.C. and Tucker, S.I. (London 1961) p 107.Google Scholar

36 Compare Gierke, O., Political Theories of the Middle Age, trans Maitland, F.W. (Cambridge 1900) p 34 Google Scholar: ‘Lordship was never merely a right; primarily it was a duty; it was divine, but for that very reason an all the more onerous calling; it was a public office.’ Douglas, M., Natural Symbols (London 1970) pp 55 Google Scholar et seq recalling Durkheim’s premise ‘that society and God can be equated’, suggests a correlation between the development of ritual as ‘a system of control as well as a system of communication’ and the value placed on ‘effective social coherence’ within a given society. See also ibid pp 73 et seq, where professor Douglas outlines the social conditions in which ritual is likely to be emphasised.

37 All the treatises of the Anonymous, including the De consecratione pontificum et regum et de regimine eorum in ecclesia sanda, are now edited by Pellens, K. (Wiesbaden 1966)Google Scholar. The quotation is from p 160 of his edition; ibid pp 166 et seq, is the royal ordo quoted in extenso. The Anonymous was using an earlier version of the anglo-saxon ordo of 973: see Nineham, ‘The so-called Anonymous of York’, pp 34 et seq. The prayer Benedic domine hos presules principes appears in the Sacramentary of Angoulême of C 800, ed Cagin, P., Le sacramentair gelösten d’Angoulême (Angoulême 1919) fol 168v Google Scholar. I believe that its content shows it to be a late Merovingian composition: see my unpublished dissertation, pp 44 et seq. For the later role of this prayer (referring now only to a single ruler) as part of ‘the stock of “regal texts” ‘, see Bouman, SC, pp 75 et seq. In some tenth-century manuscripts, its incipit is recast to read, Benedic domine hune principem, or hune regem, compare Bouman, SC, pp 174 and i8o, but presul remains in the ‘Leofric’ ordo, ed Warren, p 251, in the ordo of the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, ed Wilson, p 146, and in the ordo of the Sacramentary of Rátold of Corbie, ed Ward, ‘An early version ‘, p 357. Compare above p 43 n io.

38 Kantorowicz, , KTB, pp 87 Google Scholar et seq.