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POLITICAL LITURGIES IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES
MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN POLITICAL THEOLOGY HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
VOLUME 4 Series Directors Jaume Aurell, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona Montserrat Herrero, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona Editorial Board Martin Aurell, Université de Poitiers António Bento, Universidade da Beira Interior, Covilhã William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University, Chicago, IL Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Brad S. Gregory, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN Paul W. Kahn, Yale University, New Haven, CT Julia R. Lupton, University of California, Irvine, CA Francis Oakley, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA Heinrich Meier, Karl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung/ Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München Teófilo F. Ruiz, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
Political Liturgies in the High Middle Ages Beyond the Legacy of Ernst H. Kantorowicz
Edited by paweł figurski, johanna dale, and pieter byttebier
© 2021, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2021/0095/326 ISBN 978-2-503-59567-2 eISBN 978-2-503-59568-9 DOI 10.1484/M.MEMPT-EB.5.124570 ISSN 2565-862X eISSN 2565-9685 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.
Contents
Acknowledgements
7
Abbreviations
9
Introduction Paweł Figurski and Pieter Byttebier
11
Sacramental Kingship. Modern Historiography versus Medieval Sources Paweł Figurski
25
The Lord of the Liturgy. Political Theology in the Byzantine Liturgies György Geréby
61
Mass Riot in the Reign of Sylvester II John F. Romano
93
Gertruda and Her Saints. The Liturgical Calendar Between West and East, and Its Political Meanings Grzegorz Pac
119
How Many Bodies for the Bishop? Episcopal Methods of Politurgy in Early Eleventh-Century Lotharingia Pieter Byttebier
139
Lector, si adesses! Liturgy and Strategies of History Writing in Medieval Southern Italy Andrew J. M. Irving
165
Palm Sunday and Easter 1118 in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Sacred Topography, Liturgical Celebrations, and a Dynastic Crisis Bartłomiej Dźwigała
193
The Barbarossaleuchter. Imperial Monument and Pious Donation Vedran Sulovsky
211
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CONTENTS
‘One Harmonious Form’. Liturgy and Group Formation in CentralMedieval Denmark Erik Niblaeus
239
Saint Oswald on Bishop Richard’s Vestments. Liturgy and Politics at Old Saint Paul’s Johanna Dale
255
Liturgy and Kingship at the Sainte Chapelle M. Cecilia Gaposchkin
277
Index
297
Acknowledgements
This volume is an outcome of the multi-year cooperation within the PSALMNetwork (Politics, Society, and Liturgy in the Middle Ages), the academic platform described in more detail beneath and on www.psalm-network.org. As the editors, we thank all the scholars who actively collaborated with us within the PSALM-Network since its creation in 2016. This volume collects the papers deliv‐ ered and extensively discussed at a dedicated workshop in Obrzycko near Poznań in 2019, which was organized building on the lively discussions in numerous ses‐ sions at previous scholarly conferences. We are very grateful to the intellectually vibrant community established due to the PSALM-Network initiatives over the past years, and in particular to the authors of this volume who embarked with us on a common journey leading to the very first book of the society. Since its origin, the PSALM-Network’s numerous events received generous patronage of Prof. Józef Dobosz, the Dean of the Faculty of History at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, to whom we would like to express our utmost gratitude. Without his significant intellectual, logistical, and financial support, this book would not have been possible. With this edited volume, venturing beyond the legacy of the most famous Poznań-born modern historian, Ernst H. Kantorowicz, we would like to recognize Prof. Dobosz and the entire Faculty of History at the Adam Mickiewicz University who seminally further the field of medieval studies. We decided, therefore, to dedicate the book to the memory of Prof. Brygida Kürbis, another fine, though largely overlooked Poznań medieval‐ ist of the past century, who in her studies continued the heritage of Kantorowicz. The year when the volume was finished and submitted to the press, 2021, marked the 100th birth anniversary and the 20th decease anniversary of Prof. Kürbis. On the long and arduous path to the publication amidst the global pandemic, numerous scholars have graciously aided to improve the book chapters and offered invaluable feedback on the selected papers. We would like to thank all those scholars of diverse expertise, named beneath in alphabetical order: Harald Buchinger, Daniel Galadza, David Ganz, Richard Gyug, Charles Hilken, Lars Kjær, Clemens Leonhard, Jonathan Lyon, Reinhard Meßner, Maureen Miller, John Ott, Laura Pani, Matthew Philips, Christian Raffensperger, Carine van Rhijn, Antonio Sennis, Iris Shagrir, Alan Thacker, and Nicholas Vincent. We deeply appreciate your insight and benevolent help.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
From the Mission Statement of the PSALM-Network The goal of the PSALM-Network is to create a platform for scholars from different fields, methodological backgrounds, institutions, and research traditions. The network explicitly intends to bring together scholars who usually do not confer at the same venues and to offer a locus of debate and different methodological approaches. The emphasis on international and interdisciplinary collaboration is chosen deliberately, for we are convinced that we are only able to understand the various forms of liturgy, their local traditions, and meanings for the individual communities, and their contextualization within medieval societies through inter‐ national and interdisciplinary collaboration. We wish to encourage scholars who are not specialists in liturgical texts, but who have touched upon liturgy or believe that the liturgical texts could be useful for their own research, to participate in our network and to contribute to debates on methodological questions and on individual liturgical texts and their societal, political, and ideological contexts and backgrounds. The practical activities of the PSALM-Network consist of international and in‐ terdisciplinary collaborations. This is reflected in the organization of international workshops and conferences on liturgy and its political and social connections, which are intended to gather different scholars from various institutions, fields, and research traditions. Furthermore, we aim to sponsor annually several sessions at the international medieval congresses (such as the ICMS at Western Michigan University and the IMC in Leeds) to promote our network and to reach a broader audience. Another important component of the PSALM-Network is to provide a platform through which participants do not only debate ideas but also share information on the source material and the library/archival resources that are essential for the field of liturgy (as most liturgical texts are not edited). Our website will be a valuable tool for all the scholars interested in research on the intersection of liturgy and politics and will connect them with each other more easily. Our long-term goal is to create a network in which groups of scholars find a platform to organize co-operations. We also strive to support and encourage scholars to gain funds from international and national funding organizations for projects focusing on the connection between liturgy and medieval societies. We cordially invite all scholars interested in the political, social, and liturgical history of the Middle Ages to join us at www.psalm-network.org.
Abbreviations
CCCM MGH
MPH PG PL
Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis Monumenta Germaniae Historica DD Diplomata Ldl Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum LL nat. germ. Leges nationum Germanicarum SRG (NS) Scriptores rerum Germanicarum (Nova Series) SRM Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum SS Scriptores Monumenta Poloniae Historica Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Latina
PAwEł fIGuRSkI AND PIETER bYTT EbIE R
Introduction
The issue that lies at the heart of this book was already highlighted by Walahfrid Strabo, a Carolingian scholar, in the 840s. In a treatise entitled De exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, Strabo discussed how Christian rituals developed throughout the centuries, influenced by demonic, human, or divine interventions. Crucially, to Strabo, this development is due to mutual exchanges between worship and the world, while the world is simulta‐ neously also altered by liturgy. To illustrate this point, Strabo pointed for example to the fact that after the destruction of Jerusalem the number of Christians grew to such an extent that the former Roman sites of idols were converted into churches. In consequence, former administrative buildings, basilicas, became true royal houses, as the cult of the King of kings was finally correctly celebrated in them, according to Strabo. The topography and liturgical landscape of realms were also changed by emperors, who established new temples and occasionally new liturgical customs.1 For Strabo it was apparent that Christian liturgy was one of the driving forces of society, and thereby also of activities that today would be understood as political. Such an opinion was not by any means a novelty brought during the Carolingian period. Already in the Pauline epistles, rituals are described as the main ways of shaping and expressing the new Christian identity and in turn of changing the world.2 Religious rites of political significance were not, however, a Christian invention. The essential role that rituals played in shap‐ ing premodern societies has been well documented, the republican suppression of the Bachanalia by the Romans around 186 bc being just one of numerous earlier examples.3 The political role that rituals can play, is well acknowledged in current scholar‐ ship, especially after the so-called ‘performative turn’ in the humanities, which
1 Walafrid Strabo, De exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, ed. by Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause, MGH, Capitularia regum Francorum, 2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1897), pp. 474–516, especially 477–80 (c. 3–6). Recently on this issue see Christina Pössel, ‘Appropriate to the Religion of their Time: Walahfrid’s Historicisation of the Liturgy’, in Writing the Early Medieval West. Studies in Honour of Rosamond McKitterick, ed. by Elina Screen and Charles West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 80–97. 2 Ryan T. Jackson, ‘A Pauline Strategy for Challenging Cultural Liturgies: Making Corinthian Disciples’, Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology, 3/1 (2016), 65–85. 3 Craige B. Champion, The Peace of the Gods. Elite Religious Practices in the Middle Roman Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), pp. 28–29, 33–34, 156–63.
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has led many scholars in recent decades to pay more attention to rituals and cere‐ monies as important driving forces in society.4 Especially scholars of the Middle Ages have been prominent adopters of anthropologically inspired approaches on this point. In their vigorous investigations, however, most historians have chiefly studied non-religious ‘ritual’ behaviour, largely glossing over liturgy. Ernst H. Kan‐ torowicz, on the other hand, asserted already in 1946 that ‘it is really no longer possible for the mediaeval historian […] to deal cheerfully with the history of mediaeval thought and culture without ever opening a missal’.5 Yet liturgy has never truly entered the mainstream of historians’ training in academia, and many medievalists still research political culture without considering to consult a liturgical book. Obviously, this is not to say that liturgy has been neglected as a topic of re‐ search.6 But its study was long the privileged domain of liturgists, especially those associated with the so-called Liturgical Movement.7 Encouraged by this latter intellectual stream, scholars have for around two centuries focused on accurately tracing the various ways in which worship in Christian Churches developed, and
4 See, among others, Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt: Primus, 1997); Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual. Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Geschichtswissenschaft und ‘performative turn’. Ritual, Inszenierung und Performanz vom Mittelalter bis zur Neuzeit, ed. by Jürgen Martschukat and Steffen Patzold (Cologne: Böhlau, 2003); Gerd Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale: Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003); Philippe Buc, ‘The Monster and the Critics: A Ritual Reply’, Early Medieval Europe, 15/4 (2007), 444–52; Christina Pössel, ‘The Magic of Early Medieval Ritual’, Early Medieval Europe, 17/2 (2009), 111–25; Nathan J. Ristuccia, Christianization and Commonwealth in Early Medieval Europe: A Ritual Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 5 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae. A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946), p. ix. 6 There are a number of bibliographies for liturgical studies, e.g., Richard W. Pfaff, Medieval Latin Liturgy: A Select Bibliography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982); Matthew Johnson, Bibliographia liturgica = Bibliographie der Nachschlagewerke für Liturgiewissenschaft = Bibliographie liturgique = Reference Bibliography for Liturgics (Rome: C.L.V.-Edizioni liturgiche, 1992); Martin Klöckener, ‘Bio-Bibliographisches Repertorium der Liturgiewissenschaft. Folge 1 für die Jahre 1983– 1992 mit Nachträgen aus früheren Jahren’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 35/36 (1993/94), 285–357; Martin Klöckener, ‘Bio-Bibliographisches Repertorium der Liturgiewissenschaft. Folge 2 für die Jahre 1993–1997. Mit Nachträgen aus füheren Jahren’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 41 (1999), 63–120; also regarding the social aspect of liturgical phenomena: John Romano, Bibliography: Liturgy and History in the Medieval West, as of 7/25/2018, on https://www.academia.edu/37119913/ Bibliography_Liturgy_and_History_in_the_Medieval_West [accessed on 6 June 2020]. 7 Generally on the Liturgical Movement: Alcuin Reid, ‘The Twentieth-Century Liturgical Movement’, in T&T Clark Companion to Liturgy, ed. by Alcuin Reid (London et al.: T&T Clark, 2016), pp. 153–75; Paul Bradshaw, ‘The Relationship between Historical Research and Modern Liturgical Practice’, in A Living Tradition. On the Intersection of Liturgical History and Pastoral Practice. Essays in Honor of Maxwell E. Johnson, ed. by David A. Pitt, Stefanos Alexopoulos, and Christian McConnell (Collegeville: Pueblo Books, 2012), pp. 3–18.
INTRODUCTION
they have collected huge amounts of source material. Most of these scholars have been active members of Christian communities, and they have been particularly interested in exploring long abandoned or largely overlooked practices. These explorations were therefore not simple antiquarianism: most often they were motivated by contemporary pastoral concerns. The predominant incentive for this research was to reform worship in contemporary Christian denominations rather than understanding past societies through a study of liturgy. Amongst these pastoral concerns, the interest in political activities did not figure highly. This was a consequence of changes in society occurring since the nineteenth century, as political institutions, both outside and inside Christian Churches, largely became secularized (e.g. the loss and then the renouncement of the Papal State), thus moving religious and political practice further apart. Furthermore, the idea that religion as an area of private or personal conviction standing apart from the secular arena, which is considered an autonomous sphere of human public exis‐ tence, has increasingly gained ground in twentieth-century philosophy, sociology, and even in Christian theology itself.8 The predominant interest of liturgists has thereby not very much been the study of political meaning of worship practices.9 For many historians, therefore, liturgy still remains an arcane discipline, not widely accessible to the uninitiated. It is indeed challenging to achieve ‘liturgical literacy’ in the multifarious and nuanced Christian practices, the specialized terminology, and the resulting numerous and complex source types, all weighed down by 2000-year-long developments. Nevertheless, some medievalists have crossed the bridge in order to fully enter the experiential and cognitive world of the medieval past reality. Indeed, when Kantorowicz exhorted the importance of opening a missal, there had already been substantial research conducted on monarchic inauguration rites, war liturgy, acclamations, votive masses for kings, and para-liturgical healing rituals performed by selected rulers.10 These studies
8 Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967); Robert A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); idem, Christianity and the Secular (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). For an overview of various positions on secularization, see Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2007), especially pp. 423–539. 9 A significant exception is Virgil Michel, ‘Liturgy the Basis of Social Regeneration’, Orate Fratres 9 (1935), November, 536–45. However, this is still not a study of the past political significance of liturgy, but rather an exploration of its modern societal impact. 10 See for instance Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, trans. by Stanley B. Chrimes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1939 [1914]); Marc Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges. Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale, particulièrement en France et en Angleterre (Strasbourg: Librairie Istra, 1924); Eduard Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1928); Gerd Tellenbach, ‘Römischer und christlicher Reichsgedanke in der Liturgie des frühen Mittelalters’, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophischhistorische Klasse 1 (1934/1935), 1–71; Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of the Crusade, trans. by Marshall Baldwin, Walter Goffart (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977 [1935]); Ludwig Biehl, Das liturgische Gebet für Kaiser und Reich. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Verhältnisses von Kirche
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were furthered in the second half of the twentieth century, with the publication of important books by Rosamond McKitterick, Janet Nelson, Arnold Angenendt, Michael McCormick, and Éric Palazzo, among others. These scholars seminally demonstrated the significance of liturgical phenomena when examining such issues as the broadening of cultures of learning and instructing the uneducated, the legitimization of power structures via inauguration rituals, the establishment of spiritual kinship that determined political agenda, the adoption of imperial Roman ideology, and the expression of societal desires.11 In recent decades several medievalists have further explored this path.12 For instance, Yitzhak Hen, Susan Boynton, Margot Fassler, Sarah Hamilton, Helen Gittos, Henry Parkes, Cecilia Gaposchkin, and Sean Griffin, among others, have analyzed the interaction liturgy had with particular aspects of medieval sources or societal life.13 Yet overall, for all the increasing curiosity, different interests in liturgy still seem to remain disconnected from one another and fields of actual liturgical study are still often methodologically sealed off from other disciplines within medieval studies. This book contributes to opening up this field more broadly to a wider group of scholars. It does so by binding together different concrete examples of liturgical sources or concepts which are used to analyze societal phenomena of political significance. This is indeed one of the few col‐ lected multi-authored volumes on the topic of liturgy and politics. Moreover, this book connects more frequently analyzed regions (e.g. England, Capetian France, Hohenstaufen Empire), with regions that are often more neglected in Anglophone
und Staat (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1937); Percy E. Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Päpste. Beiträge zur allgemeinen Geschichte, 4 vols (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1968–1971), II, especially pp. 140–306. 11 Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms: 789–895 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), pp. 115–55; Arnold Angenendt, Kaiserherrschaft und Königstaufe. Kaiser, Könige und Päpste als geistliche Patrone in der abendländischen Missionsgeschichte (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 1984); Janet Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe, collected essays (London: Hambledon Press, 1985); Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Éric Palazzo, Liturgie et société au Moyen Âge (Paris: Aubier, 2000). 12 For a general overview see Miri Rubin, ‘Liturgy’s Present: How Historians Are Animating a New History of Liturgy’, in Liturgy’s Imagined Past/s. Methodologies and Materials in the Writing of Liturgical History Today, ed. by Teresa Berger and Bryan D. Spinks (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2016), pp. 19–38. 13 Yitzhak Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul: To the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (London: Boydell & Brewer, 2001); Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); Margot Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Sarah Hamilton, Church and People in the Medieval West, 900–1200 (London: Routledge, 2013); Helen Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture, and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Henry Parkes, The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church: Books, Music and Ritual in Mainz, 950–1050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017); Sean Griffin, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
INTRODUCTION
medieval studies (e.g. Poland, Rus’). It also offers multi-faceted analyses of versa‐ tile sources that have received lesser attention in liturgical studies (e.g. vestments, calendars, or art objects). Importantly, this volume makes its analysis from the perspective of venturing beyond the main narratives established in this field by Ernst H. Kantorowicz.
The Legacy of Ernst H. Kantorowicz Kantorowicz remains one of the most significant twentieth-century medievalists, whose impact reaches far beyond the field of medieval studies. He strongly influ‐ enced contemporary philosophy, sociology, the political sciences, and theology, to name a few adjacent disciplines.14 Even though the Poznań-born historian was neither the first to utilize liturgical sources in his studies of medieval political culture, nor the first to master all the nuances of premodern Christian worship, he most clearly expressed the need to embed liturgy more prominently into the historian’s curriculum. Over seventy-five years after Kantorowicz’s rallying cry, the incorporation of liturgy into historical training has still not been fully realized. However, it is not our desire to simply repeat Kantorowicz’s call to duty but to further bridge the division between liturgical scholarship and historians interested in political culture, who, generally speaking, still often neglect liturgical sources in their research. Kantorowicz’s treatment of liturgical phenomena, as inspiring, illuminative, and influential as it is, also contains the constraints of previous scholarship, which we aim to challenge in this volume. Many scholars dealing with Kantorowicz hint that the author of The King’s Two Bodies himself had two incarnations.15 The disruption between the ‘two historians in one person’ started with Kantorowicz’s flight from Nazi Germany in 1938. After
14 See, among others, Giorgio Agamben, Homo sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. by Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998) [1995], p. 57; Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 334; Victoria Ann Kahn, The Future of Illusion: Political Theology and Early Modern Texts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014); Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1999), p. 151. Recently on the influence of Kantorowicz see Brett Edward Whalen, ‘Political Theology and the Metamorphoses of The King’s Two Bodies. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology, by Ernst H. Kantorowicz’, American Historical Review, 125/1 (2020), 132–45 (pp. 132–33). 15 Paul Monod, ‘Reading the Two Bodies of Ernst Kantorowicz’, Yearbook: Leo Baeck Institute 50/1 (2005), 105–23. The idea is already present in Robert Lerner, ‘Ernst Kantorowicz and Theodor E. Mommsen’, in An Interrupted Past: German Speaking Refugee Historians in the United States after 1933, ed. by Hartmut Lehmann and James J. Sheehan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 188–205. For a refutation of this view see: Carl Landauer, ‘Ernst Kantorowicz and the Sacralization of the Past’, Central European History, 27/1 (1994), 1–25 (p. 3). Nevertheless, the same impression about the Kantorowicz’s duae personae might be found in the recent biography Robert Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz. A Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), pp. 5, 387–88, especially when the author neglects the influence of Carl Schmitt on Kantorowicz in the postwar period (p. 347). Cf. infra.
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that, he increasingly distanced himself from his pre-World War II intellectual and political activities. But the question remains: who was he in Germany? Norman Cantor’s assertion that he was a Nazi, or at least sympathetic to National Socialist ideology has been shown, by Robert L. Benson and most recently by Robert E. Lerner, to be a profound misrepresentation. A University lecture of 1933, personal testimonies of friends and colleagues, Kantorowicz’s letters, in which the historian hails the Führer as Shitler (though this is taken from his later correspondence), are just some examples disproving the unjust portrait of Kantorowicz, which nevertheless gained wide currency through the success of Cantor’s Inventing the Middle Ages.16 Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Kantorowicz in his earlier years was a German nationalist, which he proved on the World War I battlefields, university courses, and most influentially in his bestseller book, Friedrich II. Kantorowicz’s first monograph depicted a messianic figure of the past, a ruler awaited in the twentieth century by the members of the Geheimes Deutschland group, whose ideals were shared by Kantorowicz.17 As a disciple formed in the Stefan George circle, Kantorowicz was highly at‐ tentive to what we today call symbolic power. It is no wonder then, that liturgical phenomena associated with rulers were primarily perceived by Kantorowicz as legitimization strategies. Moreover, he tended to place Christian rituals within broad anthropological models, such as the concept of Germanic sacral kingship, which was imbued at his times with nationalistic ideas.18 The broad anthropologi‐ cal brush often used to paint various rituals in cultures distant in time and space also seems to obscure the details of the rituals’ context and meaning. For all the insight of Kantorowicz’s works, the specific, local, and temporized meaning conveyed by the analyzed phenomena are often hyperbolic. For example, the 16 Norman F. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages. The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (New York: Morrow, 1991), pp. 79–117; Refutations: Robert L. Benson, ‘Norman Cantor and “The Nazi Twins”: On Inventing the Middle Ages’, in idem, Law, Rulership, and Rhetoric: Selected Essays of Robert L. Benson, ed. by Loren J. Weber in collaboration with Giles Constable and Richard H. Rouse (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), pp. 317–37; Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 113–16, 158–71, 234–38, 284–85. 17 Lerner, Kantorowicz, 23–41, 74–82, 101–07, 160–61, 168–71; See also the prefatory note in Kantorowicz’s first book on Frederick II: Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite (Berlin: Georg Bondi, 1927), prefatory note (no page number): Seinen Kaisern und Helden / Das Geheime Deutschland. 18 The idea of Germanic sacral kingship was recently utilized and described in Francis Oakley, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 143–77. There references to earlier works. Kantorowicz’s engagement with the sacral kingship ideas attested mostly in his Frederick the Second, 1194–1250, trans. by Emily O. Lorimer (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1957) [1931], pp. 28, 79–80, 203, 379, 572. On the nationalistic ideology influencing the concept of Germanic sacral kingship see Frantisek Graus, ‘Über die sogenannte germanische Treue’ in idem, Ausgewählte Aufsätze (1959–1989), ed. by Hans-Jörg Gilomen, Peter Moraw, Rainer C. Schwinges (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2002 [1959]), pp. 167, 178–79; Klaus von See, Kontinuitätstheorie und Sakraltheorie in der Germanenforschung. Antwort an Otto Höfler (Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1972), pp. 41, 50; Walter Goffart, ‘Two Notes on Germanic Antiquity Today’, Traditio 50 (1995), 9–30 (pp. 9–19).
INTRODUCTION
Carolingian Laudes Regiae were, according to Kantorowicz, attempts to create theocratic order and manifestations of medieval ruler worship. In Kantorowicz’s words: [the Laudes Regiae] display, as it were, the cosmic harmony of Heaven, Church and State.19 The question could then be raised: is this not an exaggerated reading of liturgical litanies begging victory and long life for a ruler and his entourage? Definitively not, at least if one subscribes to the secularization paradigm, as Kantorowicz did.20 This is the second context of his other persona and embodies the predominant presuppositions of many past studies dealing with medieval liturgy, which we also challenge in this volume. One of the general definitions of the secularization paradigm claims that religiously defined political power belongs only to traditional and non-rational societies, but fades away in modernity. The acceptance of this paradigm propelled scholars to create linear and unilateral nar‐ ratives about premodern Europe, in which secular civic power came to dominate the modern period. It was a story about transformations of supposedly traditional societies, in which politics was religiously grounded, to the supposedly secular age of today.21 As a consequence of accepting this paradigm, liturgical phenomena were commonly explained as a means of ‘churchifying’ the essentially secular political power or adopting Roman imperial ideology.22 Kantorowicz subscribed to the secularization thesis and paved the way for its acceptance in the field of medieval history, most evidently by writing the King’s Two Bodies. This is a book with many narrative lines, but the grand narrative within this opus magnum is the transformation of cultural markers: from liturgy, predominant before c. 1100, through the law of the high medieval period, to the nearly autonomous humanism of the later Middle Ages. Thus, for Kantorowicz, liturgy was the essential part of an enchanted world. It offered the potential
19 Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, 61–62, quote at 62. 20 On Kantorowicz’s own convictions regarding religion see Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz, 16–17, 79, 386–87. Compare also the view on his religious loss expressed by Landauer, Ernst Kantorowicz, 15: ‘If another Jewish scholar, Emile Durkheim, has analyzed the loss of the religious world, Ernst Kantorowicz has made his own work a witness to that same sense of loss. And this, I would argue, provides the key to reading Kantorowicz’s whole corpus’. Compare also our judgement with Conrad Leyser, ‘Introduction’, in Ernst H. Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies. A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) [1957], pp. xiv–xv. 21 Various theories of secularization and its challenges available in Taylor, A Secular Age, 428–37; Ian Hunter ‘Secularization: The Birth of a Modern Combat Concept’, Modern Intellectual History, 12/1 (2015), 1–32; Clayton Fordahl, ‘The Post-Secular: Paradigm Shift or Provocation?’, European Journal of Social Theory, 20/4 (2017), 550–68. 22 Churchifying, e.g., Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, trans. by Stanley B. Chrimes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1939 [1914]), p. 41; Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe, 4; Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, 60; Nelson, Politics and Ritual, 133–73, 239–59, 283–309; adopting Roman imperial ideology, e.g., Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Sean Griffin, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
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to ground politics before becoming obsolete as less theologically ingrained ideas took over the predominant role of ordering society.23 Whereas some of the anthropological models used in medieval scholarship on liturgy, such as the previously highly influential sacral kingship model, have been rejected by scholars,24 the secularization paradigm has only recently started to be called into question. Philosophical deliberations as well as a global analysis of empirically verified phenomena have thrown doubt on the view that secularity is the default mode of existence in the twenty-first century.25 In the face of changing paradigms in both contemporary humanities and also the world, Kantorowicz’s secularization narrative demands reassessment. Following these changes, this volume, taken as a whole, contributes to the dismantling of the secularization paradigm in medieval studies. It offers examples in favor of the thesis that liturgy remained a central political marker across Christian Europe during the period in which Kantorowicz argued for its decline. In doing so, the book contributes to a growing interest in the political significance of ecclesiastical rituals in the High Middle Ages, a period which, as Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton have recently commented, is finally starting to receive much deserved attention from researchers interested in liturgical phenomena.26
Political Liturgies When Kantorowicz claimed that a transfer occurred from ecclesiastical rituals to state rituals of power as the Middle Ages progressed, this apparent passage from the arcana ecclesiae to the arcana imperii closely resembles the often quoted statement of Carl Schmitt that all significant concepts of the modern theory of the
23 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘Mysteries of State: An Absolutist Concept and Its Late Mediaeval Origins’, The Harvard Theological Review, 48/1 (1955), 65–91; idem, King’s Two Bodies, 42–87. See Leyser, ‘Introduction’, pp. xix–xx; Whalen, ‘Political Theology and the Metamorphoses’, pp. 142–43. 24 For instance Eve Picard, Germanisches Sakralkönigtum? Quellenkritische Studien zur Germania des Tacitus und zur altnordischen Überlieferung (Heidelberg: Winter, 1991), pp. 11–14, 38–39, 220– 29; Jens I. Engels, ‘Das “Wesen” der Monarchie? Kritische Anmerkungen zum “Sakralkönigtum” in der Geschichtswissenschaft’, Majestas, 7 (1999), 3–39; Ian N. Wood, ‘Deconstructing the Merovingian Family’, in The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artefacts, ed. by Richard Corradini, Martin Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2003), pp. 149–70; Yitzhak Hen, ‘The Christianisation of Kingship’, in Der Dynastiewechsel von 751. Vorgeschichte, Legitimationsstrategien und Erinnerung, ed. by Matthias Becher and Jörg Jarnut (Münster: Scriptorium, 2004), pp. 163–77. 25 Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger, Dialektik der Säkularisierung: Über Vernunft und Religion (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2005); God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, ed. by Monica D. Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy S. Shah (New York: Norton, 2011), pp. 1–20; Dylan Reaves, ‘Peter Berger and the Rise and Fall of the Theory of Secularization’, Denison Journal of Religion, 11/3 (2012), 11–19. Compare also note 21. 26 Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton, ‘Introduction’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), p. 8.
INTRODUCTION
state are secularized theological concepts.27 Even though many scholars have striven to disprove the influences of Schmitt on Kantorowicz, it has been convincingly ar‐ gued that the historian knew the works of the political theorist (even if only from second-hand).28 Furthermore, Montserrat Herrero has suggested that ‘method‐ ologically, Kantorowicz’s attempt is perhaps the best example of a theologicalpolitical work in Schmitt’s sense’.29 Even though the affinities between the two scholars are too evident to be entirely hidden, it should also be admitted that there are significant differences between Kantorowicz’s and Schmitt’s perception of political theology.30 If the issue of political theology is invoked here, it is only to argue that the term political liturgies, used as the title of this volume, does not denote the application of Schmitt’s or Kantorowicz’s political theologies, but has another meaning, much humbler, but one that might challenge their crucial concepts. Political liturgies in the Schmittian sense would denote the secularized rituals (once religious) of the modern state that express and shape its theory, whereas for Kantorowicz the term could signify the rites that established medieval theocracy, understood as the amalgamation of the Heaven, the Church, and the State. Both interpretations of the term are only conceivable, however, when based on the modern Western-centric assumption that there is an autonomous sphere of human existence, such as the state with its own autonomous rites, that can be easily separated from religious rituals and beliefs. In the modern age we consider this sphere to be the secular, but clearly this is not a medieval interpretation. In the Middle Ages saeculum (‘the secular’) meant something very different. Robert Austin Markus eloquently argued that ‘the secular’ was an important theological concept in the thought of Augustine, essential to understand Christian eschatology – ‘the secular’ was the place of encounter between the divine and the 27 Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität (Munich-Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1922), p. 37: Alle prägnanten Begriffe der modernen Staatslehre sind säkularisierte theologische Begriffe. 28 Landauer, Ernst Kantorowicz, pp. 19–20; Alain Boureau, Histoires d’un Historien. Kantorowicz (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), pp. 103–07; György Geréby, ‘Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson on the Problem of Political Theology. A Footnote to Kantorowicz’, in Monotheistic Kingship. The Medieval Variants, ed. by Aziz Al-Azmeh and János M. Bak (Budapest-New York: Central European University Press, 2004), pp. 33–36; Montserrat Herrero, ‘On Political Theology. The Hidden Dialogue between C. Schmitt and Ernst H. Kantorowicz in “The King’s Two Bodies”’, History of European Ideas, 41/8 (2015), 1164–77 (p. 1174); Robert Pawlik, ‘Le teologie politiche medievali e le loro ripercussioni novecentesche. Ernst Kantorowicz a confronto con Carl Schmitt e Erik Peterson’, in Ernst Kantorowicz (1895–1963). Storia politica come scienza culturale, ed. by Thomas Frank and Daniela Rando (Pavia: Pavia University Press, 2015), pp. 32–33. A different view in Lerner, Kantorowicz, 347. 29 Herrero, ‘On Political Theology’, pp. 1176–7. 30 See, among others, Jennifer Rust, ‘Political Theologies of the Corpus Mysticum. Schmitt, Kantorowicz, and de Lubac’, in Political Theology and Early Modernity, ed. by Graham Hammill and others (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), pp. 102–23; Paweł Figurski, Karolina Mroziewicz, and Aleksander Sroczyński, ‘Introduction’, in Premodern Kingship and Contemporary Political Power. The King’s Body Never Dies, ed. by Karolina Mroziewicz and Aleksander Sroczyński (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), pp. 11–13.
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profane. It was, therefore, an important element of Church tradition and definitely not an autonomous sphere of human existence – ‘the secular’ is indeed a theolog‐ ical concept.31 Moreover, Markus admitted in 1970 that premodern authors did not ‘hypostatize’ Augustine’s saeculum to embody particular institutions.32 Instead, in his earlier publications Markus seems he would have agreed with a theologian extensively utilized by Kantorowicz – the Jesuit Henri de Lubac – who had shown that before the early modern period there was no conception of the autonomy of the created order. Furthermore, the supernatural was not simply an addition to a self-sufficient natural order. According to de Lubac, it was only in the dispute between Catholic theology and the theology of the Reformed Churches in the sixteenth century that the conception of the autonomous natural order was propagated in Catholic theology.33 Therefore, the term political liturgies that runs through this volume as a com‐ mon thread, is framed by the idea that secularity as the autonomous order, dispensable from the supernatural, was not a medieval concept. The term is intentionally left broad and serves just as a modern rendition of a fact rather obvious to medieval people like Walahfrid Strabo – that being a Christian was not to profess privately and individually certain theological convictions, but foremost to participate in the public rites that influenced all spheres of human existence: intellectual, economic, social, and, last but not least, political.34 In the Middle Ages, liturgical phenomena were viewed as venues in which all human experiences could converge, an arena with the power to express and shape core values that also determined civic deliberations and actions. In all its different forms and dimensions, liturgy permeated, impacted, articulated, and even shaped almost all aspects of both individual and communal life in the Middle Ages. This book, alongside specific goals mentioned earlier, wishes to promote research on the multiple political meanings and objectives of medieval liturgy, in its various forms, and on its significance for the study of medieval societies.
Ways to Read this Volume The essays gathered here bring together research from different disciplines (phi‐ losophy, theology, art history, manuscript studies, and history) and numerous angles, taking many approaches to Kantorowicz’s legacy. While only a few con‐ tributors would call themselves liturgists, they all study different aspects and 31 We thank Conrad Leyser for drawing this to our attention in his keynote lecture at the British Columbia conference on the theologies of the political in 2019. 32 Markus, Saeculum, 62–63, note 3. However, Markus differs from this opinion in his later work: Christianity and the Secular, p. 9. 33 Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. by Rosemary Sheed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1998 [1965]). On the influences of de Lubac on Kantorowicz see Rust, ‘Political Theologies’, pp. 102–23. 34 See Ristuccia, Christianization and Commonwealth, pp. 218–19.
INTRODUCTION
regions of Christian Europe in the High Middle Ages. This volume arose from bringing these diverse perspectives together at a residential workshop in June 2019 in Obrzycko – outside Kantorowicz’s birth-place of Poznań – which was hosted by the Institute of History, University of Adam Mickiewicz (Poznań) and coordinated through the PSALM-Network (Politics, Society, and Liturgy in the Middle Ages). This workshop built on two earlier conferences held in July 2017 and June 2018 in Poznań, likewise organized by the same two partners. The editors wish to express here again their deepest gratitude to Professor Józef Dobosz who acquired the financial and logistical support to organize the events. As a result of the authors’ different backgrounds and research interests as well as the great variety of sources on which they work (from vestments via architecture to liturgical manuscripts), the essays connect and interact with each other in a number of different ways. As a consequence, there are multiple ways in which one can navigate this volume, with each route through the essays offering a different perspective on the central theme. This potential multiplicity of readings conveys the numerous and compound ways in which liturgy and its expression in sources were intrinsically and complexly woven into the fabric of society, all over Christian Europe, and all throughout the High Middle Ages. One, more traditional way of reading would be thematic, grouping the essays along four lines. First, three authors study how liturgy could express and shape theologies of the political. Paweł Figurski takes our modern preconceptions about (Carolingian and post-Carolingian) sacral kingship to task, arguing for a different understanding of monarchy. György Geréby analyzes traditional Greek liturgies in the middle Byzantine period, pointing out the many liturgical formulae that carried political meanings, and unveiling their far-reaching implications for Byzan‐ tine political theory. Cecilia Gaposchkin looks at the ways in which liturgies of the Sainte Chapelle, established and enacted multiple times throughout the thirteenth century, evoked and instilled a new form of kingship, one that merged territorial command with the mystical body politic. A second theme is the interplay between liturgy and narrative sources. Andrew Irving investigates ritual descriptions in four historical works written in Southern Italy between the late-eleventh and mid-twelfth centuries by a diverse group of authors. This allows him to assess the impact of ecclesiastical role and ritual knowledge on a writer’s liturgical descriptions. John Romano studies the narrative description in a papal letter of a riot that erupted during pope Sylvester II’s celebration of the Mass in Orte in June 1000. He demonstrates how the liturgy of the Mass can help to understand not just the events better, but also how they were remembered. Bartłomiej Dźwigała analyzes chronicles alongside liturgical sources to uncover not just how the Palm Sunday and Easter ceremonies of 1118 in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem functioned within the concurrent dynastic crisis, but also how this political-liturgical perspective was remembered in narratives. Three other authors study how liturgy was consciously activated and func‐ tioned within the formation and maintenance of group cohesion in specific con‐ texts, be they on a diocesan, metropolitan or regnal/dynastic level. Pieter Bytte‐
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bier evaluates how different eleventh-century bishops in Lotharingia engaged with liturgical settings in order to build unity and group identity, particularly using the example of saintly predecessors. Erik Niblaeus studies liturgical reform in late twelfth-century Lund, and the interplay between notions of regnum, ecclesiastical provinces and liturgical uniformity. Grzegorz Pac analyzes the liturgical calendar in the tenth-century Cividale Psalter and shows how the additions made by Gertrude, Duchess of Kyiv, in the eleventh century express not just her personal devotion but also dynastic ideologies. Finally, Vedran Sulovsky and Johanna Dale each investigate how liturgy and politics could interact through material culture, and in turn how various objects can be sources to better understand this dynamic. Sulovsky investigates the exact production date and context of Aachen’s famous Barbarossaleuchter, arguing that the ideological program expressed by this crown chandelier is not so much connected to sacrum imperium as more to a history of salvation and the cult of a saintly predecessor. Dale studies the described iconography of episcopal vest‐ ments in late twelfth-century London and how they encapsulate bishop Richard fitz Nigel’s interweaving of liturgical and political messages. A second way in which one could read this book is through the lens of the two examples of authority for whom liturgy could be activated in the Middle Ages: royal and episcopal. Figurski, Pac, Dźwigała, Geréby, Sulovsky, and Gaposchkin all discuss royal authority and its interrelation with liturgy, while Romano, Byttebier, Niblaeus, and Dale discuss liturgy and its workings for bishops. Irving discusses both types, as well as the nobility’s use of liturgy. Essays could also be grouped by their methodological approach to studying the interplay between politics and liturgy. Dale, Pac, and Sulovsky each study the context of particular liturgical sources (respectively episcopal vestments, a liturgi‐ cal calendar in a psalter, and the Barbaraossaleuchter) in order to improve our understanding of those sources. In turn, a better understanding of these sources sheds light on the contexts in which they operated. Romano, Irving, and Niblaeus, on the other hand, explicitly use liturgical sensitivities as a method to better understand particular texts and contexts – but again, in turn, better understanding of context demonstrates how context influenced text. Romano engages the liturgy of the Mass to understand why rioters in Orte chose the papal celebration of the Eucharist to voice their complaints. Irving assesses the application of liturgi‐ cal knowledge by different types of authors to better comprehend their texts. Niblaeus examines how attempts to regulate and reform liturgy influenced group identity in Denmark and impacted the formation of a new arch-episcopal author‐ ity, while also considering how this interaction affected understandings of litur‐ gical practices. Finally, Figurski, Byttebier, Dźwigała, Geréby, and Gaposchkin, investigate how politics could function inside liturgies – but equally how liturgies functioned in political contexts. Figurski points to sacramental expressions of political power in liturgical practices. Byttebier demonstrates how Lotharingian bishops pulled contextual political statements into their liturgy and equally pulled liturgical motifs into their wider policies. Dźwigała studies the way in which the
INTRODUCTION
rulers of Jerusalem used Christo-mimetic liturgical rituals in holy sites to express ideas of Christ-like kingship. Geréby points to far-reaching expressions of lordship in Byzantine liturgies. Gaposchkin shows how royally commissioned liturgies in the Sainte Chapelle served as mechanisms to express a new version of kingship in the thirteenth century. Given the contextual spread of the essays, one could also read them as an – albeit limited – geographic exploration across Christian Europe. Dale discusses liturgical objects and their political meaning in England (London), Niblaeus treats liturgical reform in Lund and Scandinavia, Pac looks at personal and dynastic devotion in Kyiv, Figurski studies liturgical phenomena both in the cores and the peripheries of Carolingian and post-Carolingian Europe, Sulovsky investigates the liturgical significance of an iconographical object in one of the symbolic centres of the Empire at Aachen, Byttebier studies episcopal activation of liturgy in Lotharingia, Gaposchkin treats royal liturgy in the Sainte Chapelle in the French realm, Romano examines the liturgy as a scene for conflict in papal Rome and central Italy, Irving analyses ritual descriptions from Benevento and southern Italy, Geréby studies the theocratic and political aspects of liturgy in Byzantium, and Dźwigała assesses political purposes of procession and anointing liturgies in Crusader Jerusalem. Reading the contributions in this way, the political and societal implications of liturgy emerge as being highly pervasive across Christ‐ ian Europe during the High Middle Ages, from England to Jerusalem, from Benevento to Denmark: if one only looks closely enough, political liturgies pop up everywhere. A final way of reading the essays, and indeed the order in which the editors have chosen to present the contributions in this volume, is chronological. It is intended as a neutral presentation offering sequential spotlights of the myriad ways in which liturgy interacted with society across four centuries. The volume begins with a consideration of liturgical expressions of the ideals of Carolingian kingship in the ninth century and its reception in the High Middle Ages by Figurski, followed by middle Byzantine political theory by Geréby. We then meet papal conflict as grounded in liturgy around the turn of the millennium in Romano’s essay, Pac’s dynastic liturgical presentation, and Byttebier’s episcopal political liturgies in the eleventh century. In the long twelfth century we find Irving’s liturgically influenced historical writing, Dźwigała’s crusader ceremonies, discussions of Scandinavian liturgical reform and uniformity by Nibleaus, an analysis of the Barbaraossaleuchter by Sulovsky and a contextual study of episcopal vestments by Dale. The book concludes with Gaposchkin’s thirteenth-century liturgies of the Sainte Chapelle. These flashes do not offer a comprehensive overview of how liturgy interacted with societal dynamics, and nor do they outline an entirely new narrative about their evolutions. Yet, together all these different pictures do irrefutably attest that throughout these centuries and all across Christian Europe, the use of liturgy in the societal arena was preeminent and common: be it as a political tool, as a framework for understanding, or as an expression of societal attitudes, of core
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values, or of theologies of the political. Therefore, while seeking to move beyond the legacy of Kantorowicz’s grand narrative, this volume confirms his assertion that ‘liturgy… is today one of the most important auxiliaries to the study of medieval history’.35 Seventy-five years after Kantorowicz made this claim, the study of liturgy remains essential to the medieval historian. Indeed, it is key to understanding the functioning of medieval Christian societies.
35 Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. ix.
PAwEł fIGuRSkI
Sacramental Kingship * Modern Historiography versus Medieval Sources
Introduction In 1944 Ernst H. Kantorowicz published an article entitled ‘The Problem of Me‐ dieval World Unity’. The text was produced amidst the most turbulent times, both worldwide and in Kantorowicz’s life. In 1943 the historian had lost his mother, who did not manage to escape from Nazi Germany, even though he tried from afar to organize her rescue. Moreover, Kantorowicz’s position at the University of Berkeley was shaken – de facto, he lost his job temporarily. The US military effort that was damaging the economy led to cutting funds at the universities, and Kantorowicz was, in the words of Robert Gordon Sproul, president of the University of Berkeley, ‘among the first of our war casualties’.1 It was not the best time to discuss any unity: European, historiographical, or other. Nevertheless, Kantorowicz, with his usual wit and brilliance, strove to restore the meaning of the medieval world to modern readers. While criticizing the romantic vision of Europe perceived as Christendom, unified in its institutions, language, beliefs, or other political, social, or religious practices, he wrote: Is a handful of potsherds still a pot? The housewife, rightly, says ‘No’ and throws the pieces into the garbage. The archeologist, rightly, says ‘Yes’, gathers the pieces from the garbage, puts them into a glass case and visualizes the pot as an entity, although in reality, it is not. The Middle Ages stood by the
* This paper was made possible by the National Science Centre, Poland, Sonatina grant no. 2018/28/C/HS3/00464. Moreover, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Wolfgang Eric Wagner who in the autumn of 2018 invited me as an International Fellow to WWU Münster, where this text originated. I also thank the participants of the 2020 Lektürseminar für Liturgiewissenschaft in Vienna who offered invaluable comments on this paper throughout its development. I am particularly indebted to Prof. Harald Buchinger, Prof. Reinhard Meßner, and Prof. Clemens Leonhard. Special thanks go to Prof. David Ganz and Prof. Carine van Rhijn for reading the final draft of this article and improving it with their expertise. For help with obtaining access to numerous publications during the pandemic I am very grateful to Jeffrey Berland. 1 Robert Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz: A Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), pp. 252–68 (Gordon Sproul as quoted by Lerner on p. 260). Paweł Figurski • Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences
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archeologist. His ability to look at mere fragments in a glass case and yet see the whole vessel as it should appear and to forget completely its fragmentary state, this ability was native to the medieval mind.2 Kantorowicz argued that the medieval vision of world unity was part of Christian eschatology, thus encompassing both the real and the ideal vision of the world, both at the particular moment in its history and at its end. It embraced both temporality and eternity, both heaven and earth ‘with the one referring to the other, reflecting the other, and flowing over into the other’. Kantorowicz called this reality sacramental.3 He suggested that political institutions, particularly the Roman Empire, also had sacramental features: ‘In East and West alike, the Roman Empire was not considered a political unit but a supra-political idea, an almost sacramental entity’.4 In this paper, I would like to follow Kantorowicz’s suggestion and argue that not only the Roman Empire but also medieval kingship should be understood within the framework of the medieval world’s sacramentality. My goal is to propose the concept of sacramental kingship as the description of royal power in the Early and High Middle Ages to grasp more accurately the medieval affinities between what we today call politics and religion. A theory of kingship set within the sacramental framework describes the belief in royal power as an inner ecclesi‐ astical office intermingled with God’s heavenly kingship, signifying the latter and making it present on earth. This approach proposes a way out of the puzzles of modern historiography, which – according to my assessment – is trapped within the false dichotomy (sacred/sacral kingship versus essentially secular kingship), and the dialectical processes of sacralization versus de-sacralization, or secularization versus de-secularization. To prove this point, I shall firstly describe the ideological constraints of modern historiography on medieval kingship, especially regarding political liturgies. Secondly, based on the analysis of selected medieval sources, I shall demonstrate the sacramental nature of kingship in the Middle Ages.
Constraints of Modern Historiography on Medieval Kingship In a 1956 article in American Anthropologist Horace Miner described the mysteri‐ ous Nacirema people:
2 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘The Problem of Medieval World Unity’, in Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Selected Studies (Locust Valle, NY: Augustin, 1965), pp. 76–81 (p. 77). The article first published as part of the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1942, vol. 3: The Quest for Political Unity in World History, ed. by Stanley Pargellis (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), pp. 207–31. 3 Kantorowicz, ‘The Problem of Medieval World Unity’, p. 78. 4 Kantorowicz, ‘The Problem of Medieval World Unity’, p. 80.
SACRAMENTAL KINGSHIP
The Nacirema are a North American group. […] Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east. According to Nacirema mythology, their nation was originated by a culture hero, Notgnihsaw, who is otherwise known for two great feats of strength – the throwing of a piece of wampum across the river Pa-To-Mac and the chopping down of a cherry tree in which the Spirit of Truth resided. […] The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them.5 Soon after the publication, it was clear that Miner had written the article about his own society. With typical anthropological jargon, usually applied to other ‘unknown’ cultures, the author had described the American way of life in its so-called golden age, the mid-1950s. And yet, Miner left some clues for reading his paper; Nacirema and Notgnihsaw read backward are American and Washing‐ ton. By writing such a paper, Miner strove not to ridicule the academy, but to demystify the approach adopted by many scholars toward ‘other’ cultures and present the problem of accurate representation. It seems to me that the debate on medieval kingship is as misrepresented in scholarly debate, as was American society in Miner’s article. Let us then examine these constraints. In 1946 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, in a study on the Laudes Regiae, wrote that ‘it is really no longer possible for the mediaeval historian […] to deal cheerfully with the history of mediaeval thought and culture without ever opening a missal’, adding also in the very same preface that ‘the liturgy […] is today one of the most important auxiliaries to the study of mediaeval history’.6 Kantorowicz gave homage to the exceptional scholars who had already examined various liturgies of political significance.7 These seminal studies provided gripping master narratives on medieval worship and gathered source material for any subsequent analyses. However, some of those works were often influenced by various concepts that do not seem to describe the medieval realities accurately, but rather artificially
5 Horace Miner, ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema’, American Anthropologist, 58/3 (1956), 503–07 (pp. 503–04). 6 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946), pp. vii, ix. 7 For example, Marc Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges: Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance royale, particulièrement en France et en Angleterre (Strasbourg: Librairie Istra, 1924); Eduard Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1928); Percy E. Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Päpste: Beiträge zur allgemeinen Geschichte, 4 vols (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1968–1971), II, pp. 140–306 [various articles published earlier]; Gerd Tellenbach, ‘Römischer und christlicher Reichsgedanke in der Liturgie des frühen Mittelalters’, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-historische Klasse, 1 (1934/1935), 1–71; Ludwig Biehl, Das liturgische Gebet für Kaiser und Reich: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Verhältnisses von Kirche und Staat (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1937).
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imposed modern categories on medieval sources. Specifically, this scholarship was ingrained in one of the most successful anthropological fictions of our times – sacral kingship.8 As is well known, the concept is derived from the anthropology of Sir James Frazer who wrote extensively about ‘other’ cultures in Africa and beyond. In his monumental work entitled The Golden Bough, Frazer describes the magical figure of the king-priest who, as sacral monarch, performs both religious and political rituals, and is responsible for linking the political community and the supernatural world. In Frazer’s words: Kings were revered, in many cases not merely as priests, that is, as intercessors between man and god, but as themselves gods, able to bestow upon their subjects and worshippers those blessings which are commonly supposed to be beyond the reach of mortals, and are sought, if at all, only by prayer and sacrifice offered to superhuman and invisible beings.9 Most of the medievalists contemporary to Kantorowicz, though there were some exceptions, argued that Germanic leaders of the political community were be‐ lieved to possess a similar sacral character (das germanische Heil), embedded in their royal/aristocratic blood.10 Alternatively, scholars linked the sacral char‐
8 The classic studies on sacral kingship include The Sacral Kingship: Contributions to the Central Theme of the VIIIth International Congress for the History of Religions (Rome, April 1955) = La Regalità Sacra: Contributi al tema dell’ VIII congresso internationale di storia delle religioni (Roma, aprile 1955), ed. by the conference organizers (Leiden: Brill, 1959), especially the papers by: Edwin Oliver James, ‘The Sacred Kingship and the Priesthood’, pp. 63–70 and Margaret Murray, ‘The Divine King’, pp. 595–608. See also William A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 7–43; David H. Miller, ‘Sacral Kingship, Biblical Kingship, and the Elevation of Pepin the Short’, in Religion, Culture, and Society in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Richard E. Sullivan, ed. by Thomas F. X. Noble and John J. Contreni (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1987), pp. 131–54. 9 James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. A New Abridgement from the Second and Third Editions, ed. by Robert Fraser, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 22–25, quote at p. 24. 10 Sacral kingship as rooted in Germanic religion, e.g., Reinhard Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung: Das Werden der frühmittelalterlischen ‘gentes’ (Cologne: Böhlau, 1961), pp. 312–14, 576– 82; Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Päpste, IV, pp. 69–70; John M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); Karl Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottonian Saxony (London: Arnold, 1979), pp. 75–109. On the royal charisma, das Heil, as embedded in the Germanic royal blood see, e.g., Fritz Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, trans. by Stanley B. Chrimes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1939), pp. 20–21, 26; Helmut Beumann, ‘I. Die sakrale Legitimierung des Herrschers im Denken der ottonischen Zeit’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Germanistische Abteilung, 66/1 (1948), 1–45 (pp. 7–10); Percy E. Schramm, Der König von Frankreich: Das Wesen der Monarchie vom 9. zum 16. Jahrhundert, 2nd edn (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960), p. 71; Karl Hauck, ‘Geblütsheiligkeit’, in Liber Floridus; Mittellateinische Studien: Paul Lehman zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Bernhard Bischoff and Suso Brechter (St Ottilien: Eos Verlag, 1950), pp. 187–240 (pp. 223–30); Otto Höfler, ‘Der Sakralcharakter des germanischen Königtums’, in Das Königtum: Seine geistigen und
SACRAMENTAL KINGSHIP
acter of medieval monarchs with the legacy of Roman imperial ideology.11 Re‐ gardless of the origins (Roman or Germanic), liturgical phenomena concerning monarchs were not rarely interpreted as the manifestations of Christian sacral kingship modeled on pre-Christian examples.12 According to Kantorowicz, the Carolingian liturgical acclamations (Laudes Regiae) were even the manifestations of Christian rulers’ worship.13 Although many scholars still subscribe to the view that sacral kingship grounded medieval political culture,14 the concept has been increasingly ques‐ tioned in past decades. Historians have brought attention to the fact that sacral kingship is an umbrella term based on a peculiar interpretation of sources which were produced in very distant times and cultures, but have been analysed to‐ gether as if all the witnesses were dealing with the same historically constant phenomenon.15 Having read the sources within their contexts, recent historians have proposed another framework that seems closer to the reality of the authors
11
12
13 14
15
rechtlichen Grundlagen, ed. by Theodor Mayer (Lindau: Thorbecke, 1956), pp. 75–104 (pp. 78, 81, 84, 100). Dissenters from such views, e.g.: Walter Baetke, Yngvi und die Ynglinger: Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung über das nordische Sakralkönigtum (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1964), pp. 172–81; František Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger: Studien zur Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit (Praha: Nakladatelství Československé akademie věd, 1965), pp. 313–33; Klaus von See, Kontinuitätstheorie und Sakraltheorie in der Germanenforschung: Antwort an Otto Höfler (Frankfurt a. M.: Athenäum, 1972), pp. 41–49. On sacral kingship as rooted firmly in the Roman imperial ideology: Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Päpste, IV, pp. 73–76; Gerd Tellenbach, Church, State and Christian Society at the Time of the Investiture Contest, trans. by Ralph F. Bennett (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948), p. 57 who also strongly stresses biblical components; Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘Mysteries of State: an Absolutist Concept and its Late Mediaeval Origins’, The Harvard Theological Review, 48/1 (1955), 65–91 (p. 72, n. 23) who also elaborates on the specifically Christian input. For example Kern, Kingship and Law, pp. 35–37, 51–54, 61–68; Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe, pp. 6–14; Schramm, Der König von Frankreich, p. 73; Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of the Crusade, trans. by Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 6, 35–46, 52–53; Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘Gods in Uniform’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 105/4 (1961), 368–93 (pp. 384–90); Tellenbach, ‘Römischer und christlicher Reichsgedanke’, pp. 11, 20–22; Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges, pp. 51–86; Schramm, Der König von Frankreich, pp. 151–55. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, pp. 61–62. Twenty-first-century works include, e.g., Sergio Bertelli, The King’s Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, trans. by Robert Burr Litchfield (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001); Régine Le Jan, ‘La sacralité de la royauté mérovingienne’, Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 58/6 (2003), 1217–41; Franz-Reiner Erkens, Herrschersakralität im Mittelalter: Von den Anfängen bis zum Investiturstreit (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2006); Stefan Weinfurter, Canossa: Die Entzauberung der Welt (Munich: Beck, 2006), esp. pp. 31–36; Francis Oakley, Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (to 1050) (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010); Laura E. Wangerin, Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019), pp. 3, 14, 111–12, 128–29, 188–89. Eve Picard, Germanisches Sakralkönigtum? Quellenkritische Studien zur Germania des Tacitus und zur altnordischen Überlieferung (Heidelberg: Winter, 1991), pp. 11–14, 38–39, 220–29; Walter Goffart, ‘Two Notes on Germanic Antiquity Today’, Traditio, 50 (1995), 9–30 (pp. 18–19).
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than the sacral kingship model. For instance, the Pseudo-Fredegar story about the sea-monster Merovech could be interpreted as the etymological search for the meaning of the name proper and the result of literary traditions; as the manifesta‐ tion of political agenda; or as inspired by biblical stories.16 Moreover, medievalists emphasize Christian input into the theory of medieval kingship rather than focus‐ ing on the belief in the legacy of pre-Christian heritage.17 Furthermore, attempts to define the concept of sacral kingship fully, sometimes understood very broadly as merely the religious underpinnings of medieval monarchy, have also shown that the term is often too vague, especially for the Middle Ages: what does it mean for the ruler to be empowered with sacred authority in a world which was almost entirely embedded in religious rituals?18 Last but not least, to numerous scholars, the idea of ‘Germanic sacral kingship’ reflects ideological elements linked to racism and Nazism, and hence is unacceptable in scholarship.19 Abandoning the idea that sacral kingship grounded medieval political thought has not, however, meant that liturgical phenomena have come to be understood in the way that medieval actors primarily perceived them. Quite often scholars have reduced the multifaceted meanings of ideas conveyed by medieval political worship to a simple guise for social or political interests. Inauguration rituals, for example, have been interpreted merely as a means of legitimizing and ‘churchify‐ ing’ political power, apparently secular in its essence.20 The liturgy of the hours 16 Alexander Callander Murray, ‘“Post vocantur Merohingii”: Fredegar, Merovech, and sacral kingship’, in After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter Goffart, ed. by Alexander Callander Murray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 121–52; Ian N. Wood, ‘Deconstructing the Merovingian Family’, in The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artefacts, ed. by Richard Corradini, Martin Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz, The Transformation of the Roman World, 12 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), pp. 149–70; Erik Goosmann, ‘The Long-Haired Kings of the Franks: Like so Many Samsons?’, Early Medieval Europe, 20/3 (2012), 233–59. 17 Yitzhak Hen, ‘The Christianisation of Kingship’, in Der Dynastiewechsel von 751: Vorgeschichte, Legitimationsstrategien und Erinnerung, ed. by Matthias Becher and Jörg Jarnut (Münster: Scriptorium, 2004), pp. 163–77; Franz-Reiner Erkens, ‘Sakralkönigtum und sakrales Königtum: Anmerkungen und Hinweise’, in Das frühmittelalterliche Königtum: Ideelle und religiöse Grundlagen, ed. by FranzReiner Erkens (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2005), pp. 1–8. 18 Jens Ivo Engels, ‘Das Wesen der Monarchie? Kritische Anmerkungen zum Sakralkönigtum in der Geschichtswissenschaft’, Majestas, 7 (1999), 3–39. Johanna Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century: Male and Female Accession Rituals in England, France and the Empire (Melton: York Medieval Press, 2019), pp. 11–20 also with other arguments against the sacral kingship model. 19 Goffart, ‘Two Notes’, pp. 9–19. Such accusations are already expressed in František Graus, ‘Über die sogenannte germanische Treue’, in František Graus, Ausgewählte Aufsätze (1959–1989), ed. by Hans-Jörg Gilomen, Peter Moraw, and Rainer. C. Schwinges (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2002), pp. 133– 79 (pp. 167, 178–79); von See, Kontinuitätstheorie, pp. 41, 50. 20 The idea of ‘churchifying’ the apparently secular office might already be found in Kern, Kingship and Law, p. 41; Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe, p. 4; Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 60. In post-war historiography see, e.g., Walter Ullmann, Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 89–95, 99, 135–37; Janet L. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe, 2nd edn (London: Hambledon Press, 1986), pp. 239–81
SACRAMENTAL KINGSHIP
and votive masses for kings have been seen as tools for gathering symbolic capital for rulers in their attempts to stabilize the polity.21 War liturgy and the newly com‐ posed offices of ruler saints propagated the ancient tradition of Roman imperial ideology.22 According to Yitzhak Hen, even royal patronage over various forms of liturgy in the Carolingian period was meant to serve as political propaganda.23 In summary, the outstanding studies mentioned above, although refraining from the sacral kingship model, nevertheless regard liturgical phenomena only as build‐ ing blocks for constructing medieval power structures. Here, I do not aim to argue against the political significance of liturgical phenomena seminally elaborated in these studies. Instead, I argue that this is not the complete picture. What remains puzzling in the scholarship mentioned here is that it appears to regard liturgy concerned with monarchs merely as a sacralizing force applied to the essentially secular institution of kingship. It seems to me that such an assessment does not fully reflect the medieval perspective that should also be brought to the fore. Many preconditions could have induced scholarship to reduce the meaning of political worship to a guise for other, non-religious interests and to perceive kingship as an essentially secular institution. Eric Hobsbawm pinpointed some of the currents in post-World War II historiography that could explain this bias: Marxist historiography allied with the post-Braudelian Annales school, inspired by Durkheim’s sociology, as well as with structural-functional social anthropology inspired by Weberian thought.24 This alliance, now dissolved, still heavily influ‐ enced the reductionist reading of liturgical phenomena. However, an overarching precondition for these currents provided an even more predominant stream of thought in the humanities of the past centuries – the secularization theory. This
21 22
23 24
(esp. pp. 256, 263–65); Jacques Le Goff, ‘A Coronation Program for the Age of Saint Louis: The Ordo of 1250’, in Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual, ed. by János M. Bak (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 46–56 (pp. 48–49, 55–56); Jaume Aurell, Medieval Self-Coronations: The History and Symbolism of a Ritual (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 127–46. On the royal inaugurations as propaganda e.g. Michael J. Enright, Iona, Tara, and Soissons: The Origin of the Royal Anointing Ritual (New York: De Gruyter, 1985), pp. 2, 28, 35, 75, 119, 137, 139, 146, 163–65. However, Enright still perceives premodern Germanic kingship via classic understanding of sacral kingship model: pp. 53–54, 109, 123, 137, 139–42; similarly does Franz-Reiner Erkens, Die Herrschersakalität im Mittelalter: Von den Anfängen bis zum Investiturstreit (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2006), p. 122 on Carolingian inaugurations as merely legitimization strategies. Ildar H. Garipzanov, The Symbolic Language of Authority in the Carolingian World (c. 751–877), Brill’s Series on the Early Middle Ages, 16 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 43–100. Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. pp. 384–85; Sean Griffin, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), esp. pp. 229–32, 40–42. Yitzhak Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul: To the Death of Charles the Bald (877) (London: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), p. 93. Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Marxist Historiography Today’, in Marxist History-Writing for the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Chris Wickham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 180–87 (pp. 183–85).
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theory claimed that religiously defined political power belongs only to traditional (i.e. archaic and non-rational) societies, but fades away in the modern period. It is a claim about transformations of the premodern societies, in which politics were religiously grounded, to the allegedly secular age of today. Paradoxically, the secularization theory is also foundational for Frazer’s an‐ thropology which paved the way for the sacral kingship model in medieval studies. In the Golden Bough he states: ‘the movement of the higher thought, so far as we can trace it, has on the whole been from magic through religion to science’.25 Here, Frazer concisely articulates the secularization theory. Using this paradigm, schol‐ ars created linear narratives about premodern Europe in which secular civic power gained ascendance and prevailed in the modern period as medieval societies be‐ came disenchanted. Such narrative streams are evident in the now classic works of Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Robert A. Markus, and Stefan Weinfurter, who differ only in pinpointing the precise moment of European secularization.26 Similar too were the master-narratives about the medieval Church as marked by Constantinism (Howard Yodder) or political Augustinianism (Henri-Xavier Arquillière).27 More recently, however, even the formerly most convinced followers of the secularization theory, such as Peter Berger and Jürgen Habermas, have modified their views.28 From a different angle, Talal Asad has argued that modern con‐ victions about the relationship between religion and secularity are essentially Western-centric concepts that have served to legitimate modern arrangements of power.29 Having analysed the issue globally and empirically, scholars argue that religion is coming back into contemporary politics, society, and economics. This has happened to such an extent that some argue that it is more apt to describe current times as God’s century, rather than as a secular age.30
25 Frazer, The Golden Bough, p. 804. 26 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology, with a New Introduction by Conrad Leyser (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016); Robert A. Markus, Christianity and the Secular (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), p. 9, differing in his opinions when compared to his book of 1970: Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 62–63, n. 3; Stefan Weinfurter, Canossa: Die Entzauberung der Welt (Munich: Beck, 2006), esp. pp. 207–08. 27 Henri-Xavier Arquillière, L’augustinisme politique: Essai sur la formation des théories politiques du Moyen Âge (Paris: Librairie philosophique Vrin, 1934); Howard Yodder, ‘The Otherness of the Church’, in Howard Yodder, The Royal Priesthood (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1998), pp. 53–65. 28 Peter L. Berger, ‘The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview’, in The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, ed. by Peter L. Berger (Washington, DC: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 1–18. See also Dylan Reaves, ‘Peter Berger and the Rise and Fall of the Theory of Secularization’, Denison Journal of Religion, 11/3 (2012), 11–19; Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger, Dialektik der Säkularisierung: Über Vernunft und Religion (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2005), pp. 15–38 (p. 36). 29 Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). 30 God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, ed. by Monica D. Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy S. Shah (New York: Norton, 2011), pp. 1–20.
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These new reconsiderations pertaining to the secularization theory provide another framework for discussing religion in past ages, thus also challenging many previous analyses of medieval culture. Scholars now argue that the history of premodern Europe should not be seen as a unilateral and linear story of a passage from a non-normative culture or non-normative version of Christianity to the apparently normative one of today.31 Moreover, narratives about the medieval Church are now seldom marked by confessional goals seeking to justify the correctness of particular denominations.32 In the field of the intellectual history of political thought, scholars have been encouraged to embrace premodern cate‐ gories in order to read medieval sources on their own terms instead of reducing religious phenomena to mere power struggles over non-religious interests or interpreting premodern ideas as expressions of some ideal, normative order.33 Following the turn to medieval concepts, scholars have noticed that even the term religion itself, understood as a separate activity, divided from other spheres of premodern life (i.e., politics or economy), is not apt in describing the medieval world.34 Therefore, twenty-first century studies in medieval history present new ways for understanding medieval kingship.35 Mayke de Jong has elaborated on the Car‐ olingian perception of kingship as the inner ecclesiastical ministry (ministerium), divinely ordained royal service to bring salvation to the people. In the 823/825 Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines of Louis the Pious the vision of monarchical ministry culminates: according to this Carolingian ruler all other Church min‐ istries, including the episcopal one, stem from the divinely ordained highest ministry of the emperor. Together, the ruler, the episcopate, the abbots, and other
31 Alexandra Walsham, ‘Migrations of the Holy: Explaining Religious Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 44/2 (2014), 241–80. See also Sita Steckel, ‘Historicizing the Religious Field: Adapting Theories of the Religious Field for the Study of Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Church History and Religious Culture, 99 (2019), 331–70. 32 Mayke de Jong, ‘Introduction – Rethinking Early Medieval Christianity: A View from the Netherlands’, Early Medieval Europe, 7/3 (1998), 261–75; Rosamond McKitterick, ‘Introduction’, in Religious Franks: Religion and Power in the Frankish Kingdoms. Studies in Honour of Mayke de Jong, ed. by Rob Meens and others, Manchester Religious Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), pp. 1–10. 33 John Coffey and Alister Chapman, ‘Introduction: Intellectual History and the Return of Religion’, in Seeing Things their Way: Intellectual History and the Return of Religion, ed. by John Coffey, Alister Chapman, and Brad Gregory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), pp. 1–24. 34 Such views already in John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), esp. ch. ‘Migrations of the Holy”, pp. 153–73. More recently, see Andrew W. Jones, Before Church and State: A Study of Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St Louis IX (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2017), pp. 2–11; Nathan J. Ristuccia, ‘“Lex”: A Study on Medieval Terminology for Religion’, Journal of Religious History, 43/4 (2019), 531–48. 35 For example, Ludger Körntgen, Königsherrschaft und Gottes Gnade: Zu Kontext und Funktion sakraler Vorstellungen in Historiographie und Bildzeugnissen der ottonisch-frühsalischen Zeit (Berlin: Akademie, 2001); Steffen Patzold, ‘Episcopus’: Wissen über Bischöfe im Frankenreich des späten 8. bis frühen 10. Jahrhunderts (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2008); Mayke de Jong, The Penitential State: Authority and Atonement in the Age of Louis the Pious, 814–40 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
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officials are accountable for the all-encompassing (earthly and heavenly) wellbeing of their subordinates. De Jong, taking Carolingian discourse of penance and sin seriously, also describes other upheavals of the conception of royal office as ministry, with its transformation at the council of Paris in 829, where the episcopal and royal offices are treated on equal footing. The reexamination of medieval concepts, i.e., ministerium, have paved the way for an understanding of the royal office outside of the modern trap embedded in many earlier narratives on the struggles between sacrality and secularity.36 This paper follows this path. It hopes to further it by proposing to set the early medieval category of the royal ministerium into the broader medieval intellectual framework (sacramentality). In doing so, it helps in understanding why it was possible to conceive of kingship so smoothly as sacramental ministry, and how the belief was forged with liturgical rituals. There is also another rationale for using the framework of sacramental kingship. On the one hand, liturgical scholarship still remains untouched by the recent reassessments of medieval kingship presented in the works of Mayke de Jong or Steffen Patzold, among others. Traditionally, liturgists remain interested in the issues of the origin and development of various worship traditions, or the goal of their research is to shed light on contemporary pastoral and theological prob‐ lems.37 Only occasionally does contemporary liturgical scholarship engage in the debate on premodern monarchy.38 On the other hand, many historians when engaging with worship practices still perceive liturgical phenomena according to previous paradigms, evidently or indirectly subscribing to the influences of already mentioned generalizations on sacral kingship.39 Obviously there are excep‐ tions. For example, Rennie S. Choy, following Mayke de Jong’s interpretation of the Frankish polity as part of Ecclesia, presents the shifting meanings of the prayers for rulers within the framework of Carolingian monastic intercession.40
36 De Jong, The Penitential State, pp. 37–38, 121–22, 131–35, 237–39. See also Patzold, ‘Episcopus’, pp. 190–91, 197. 37 The examples of seminal recent studies representative for liturgical scholarship include The Anaphoral Genesis of the Institution Narrative in the Light of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, ed. by Cesare Giraudo (Rome: Valore Italiano Lilamé Orientalia Christiana, 2013); Daniel Galadza, Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Katie Bugyis, The Care of Nuns: The Ministries of Benedictine Women in England during the Central Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). See also the list with contemporary liturgical dissertation topics in the German-speaking area, available here: [accessed 16 September 2021]. 38 One of the exceptions among this recent stream of liturgical scholarship, though dealing with politics from a philosophical and theological rather than historical angle, is Nicholas Heron, Liturgical Power: Between Economic and Political Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017). 39 Examples of such approaches include here only the 2019 and 2020 publications: Griffin, The Liturgical Past; Wangerin, Kingship and Justice, esp. pp. 112–13; Aurell, Medieval Self-Coronation, esp. pp. 127–46. 40 Rennie S. Choy, Intercessory Prayer and the Monastic Ideal in the Time of the Carolingian Reforms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 131–61.
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Cecilia Gaposchkin, in turn, refers to eschatology as the fundamental category in understanding liturgical sources concerning the crusades, which were perceived by medieval agents as sacramental acts and communication venues that placed participants striving for personal salvation within God’s salvific battle against the devil.41 In taking this perspective, Gaposchkin echoes Kantorowicz’s view expressed at the beginning of this paper on the medieval world’s sacramental unity. Which kind of realities, however, does that sacramentality denote?
The Puzzles of the Sacramental It is arduous to reconstruct the precise meaning of the world’s sacramentality in the Early and High Middle Ages. I will now illustrate it with a few examples. In the abbey church of Saint Antimo in Tuscany, the twelfth-century text from the donation charters was inscribed on the floor and on other architectural elements of the temple. These inscriptions were not merely a propaganda tool to communi‐ cate visually the historic act of transferring material goods to the ecclesiastical institution. Such commemoration was foremost an attempt to include the very act of donating into the heavenly liturgy that was being celebrated in that church on a regular basis.42 Shared belief in the sacramentality of the medieval world also explains why many donation charters utilize liturgical phraseology and evoke the change of natural goods into supernatural ones, analogous to the transformation of the bread and wine during the Eucharist.43 The medieval world was a place of encounter between transcendence with imminence and human nature with divine grace. However, neither of these categories were understood as being sharply demarcated, nor were they entirely identified with one another. According to Henri de Lubac, before the early modern period there was no conception of the autonomy of the created order, nor was there the idea that the supernatural is simply an addition to the merely self-sufficient natural order.44
41 Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017), pp. 6–10. 42 Wilhelm Kurze, ‘Zur Geschichte der Toskanischen Reichsabtei S. Antimo in Starciatal’, in Adel und Kirche: Gerd Tellenbach zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht von Freunden und Schülern, ed. by Josef Fleckenstein and Karl Schmid (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1968), pp. 295–306 (pp. 297–98, 302– 04). On the idea of donating as a liturgical act see Paweł Figurski, ‘Duchowość eucharystyczna Bernwarda z Hildesheim: O obrazowości kultury ottońskiej’ (‘The Eucharistic Spirituality of Bernward of Hildesheim: On the Imagery of Ottonian Culture’), Kwartalnik Historyczny, 119/3 (2012), 425–65. 43 Eliana Magnani Sorares-Christen, ‘Transforming Things and Persons: The Gift “Pro Anima"in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, ed. by Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner, and Bernhard Jussen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), pp. 269–85. 44 Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. by Rosemary Sheed (New York: Herder, 1998).
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However, the invitation here to ponder sacramentality in the Middle Ages is not to revive the already criticized romantic narrative of Christendom.45 Rather, the goal is to render more accurately, according to medieval frameworks, the meaning evinced by the rituals of the past and is an attempt to comprehend the medieval affinities between what we today call politics and religion. The dichotomy utilized extensively in historiography on medieval kingship (sacred vis-à-vis secular) imposes modern concepts that originated in a particular modern Western intellectual tradition, which obscures the plethora of ways in which medieval phenomena were perceived by contemporaries. And as gripping and challenging as the concept of the sacrament during the Middle Ages was, it nevertheless opens the way to grasping medieval attempts to delineate the border between the sacred and the secular, because the sacramental framework does not exclude the two categories. The sacred denotes here medieval Christian belief in the ultimate form of God’s presence in the new world and the new heaven after the Last Judgement. According to Augustine and later theologians, sacraments were not the final forms of God’s presence available for each member of the glorified Church after the second coming of Christ, but simply a means of providing God’s presence for the members of the Church on pilgrimage through the ages.46 What modern theologians call a realized and a future eschatology was comprehended differently in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, but Christ’s first and the second coming were still not entirely identified.47 On the other hand, 45 Such overtones can be found in Jones, Before Church and State. See the review of this book by Sean L. Field, Sehepunkte, 18/9 (2018), [accessed 20 July 2020]. 46 For example, Augustine, ‘Contra Faustum Manichaeum’, in Augustinus, De utilitate credendi, De duabus animabus, Contra Fortunatum Manichaeum, Contra Adimantum, Contra epistulam fundamenti, Contra Faustum Manichaeum, Contra Felicem Manichaeum, De natura boni, Epistula Secundini, Contra Secundinum Manichaeum, ed. by Joseph Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 25/1 (Prague: Tempsky, 1891), l. 19, c. 11–14, pp. 509–12 (pp. 511–12: ‘et promissiua erant illa omnia sacramenta omnisque ritus ille sacrorum, nunc autem reuelata est fides, in quam conclusus erat populus, quando sub lege custodiebatur, et quod fidelibus promittur in iudicio, iam conpletum est in exemplo per eum, qui legem et prophetas non uenit soluere, sed adimplere’); Thomas Aquinas, Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P. M. edita (Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1906), vol. 12: Tertia pars Summae theologiae, q. 61 a. 1 co., p. 14: ‘Respondeo dicendum quod sacramenta sunt necessaria ad humanam salutem triplici ratione. Quarum prima sumenda est ex conditione humanae naturae, cuius proprium est ut per corporalia et sensibilia in spiritualia et intelligibilia deducatur. Pertinet autem ad divinam providentiam ut unicuique rei provideat secundum modum suae conditionis. Et ideo convenienter divina sapientia homini auxilia salutis confert sub quibusdam corporalibus et sensibilibus signis, quae sacramenta dicuntur’. 47 Erwin Keller, Eucharistie und Parusie: Liturgie- und theologiegeschichtliche Untersuchung zur eschatologischen Dimension der Eucharistie anhand ausgewählter Zeugnisse aus frühchristlicher und patristischer Zeit (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg, 1989), pp. 225–32; Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971–1990), I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), p. 126: ‘The coming of Christ was “already"and “not yet”: he had come already in the incarnation, and on the basis of the incarnation would come in the Eucharist; he had come already in the Eucharist, and would come at the last in the new cup that he would drink with them in his Father’s kingdom’. More recent views
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sacramentality does not exclude the concept of the secular, perceived not as the autonomous sphere distinct from religion but understood instead in Augustinian terms. Robert A. Markus explained the concept in 1970 accordingly: The ‘saeculum’ for Augustine was the sphere of temporal realities in which the two ‘cities’ share an interest. In Augustine’s language, the ‘saeculum’ is the whole stretch of time in which the two cities are ‘inextricably intertwined’; it is the sphere of human living, history, society and its institutions, characterised by the fact that in it the ultimate eschatological oppositions, though present, are not discernible.48 Clearly, this eschatological gap was commonly professed by premodern theolo‐ gians, although occasionally there were various attempts to confuse realized and future eschatology.49 However, as noted already in the writings of Augustine and Aquinas, among others, sacraments in the Early and High Middle Ages served as the medium through which believers experienced the presence of heavenly realities before the parousia, this is to say, in a way that was stretched between the already and the not yet (schon und noch nicht) – no more, no less. However, even though Augustine and Aquinas agreed on the sacraments as given to the Church on pilgrimage at the particular state before the Last Judgement, the concept of the sacramentum and its precise meaning was obviously multidimensional in the timespan dividing the two theologians. As elaborated recently by Owen Phelan, in the Carolingian period the concept of the sacramen‐ tum was theological/political, denoting both the oath sworn to the emperor and to the Lord. Alongside this ancient Roman rendition of the term as the oath of fidelity, still persisting in the post-Carolingian Middle Ages, there were various attempts to define the concept within Christian theology.50 Hugh of Saint-Victor, see: Peter C. Phan, ‘Roman Catholic Theology’, in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed. by Jerry L. Walls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 220–28; Joseph Flipper, Between Apocalypse and Eschaton: History and Eternity in Henri de Lubac (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2015), pp. 210–13. 48 Markus, Saeculum, p. 133. However, as already noted, Markus in 2006 retracted his views and aligned Augustinian saeculum to the modern Western notion of the secular: Markus, Christianity. An overview of the discussion about the secularity in Augustine can be found in Michael Bruno, Political Augustinianism: Modern Interpretations of Augustine’s Political Thought (Baltimore: Fortress Press, 2014), pp. 119–69. Recently, inspired by Markus, Conor O’Brien has attempted to restore the history of the secular within the medieval culture, see Conor O’Brien, ‘The Early Medieval Secular: Spectrum and Strategies’, Early Medieval Europe, 29/1 (2021), 5–11. 49 For various positions: Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, I, pp. 123–32; Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, III: The Growth of Medieval Theology (600–1300), pp. 104–05, 156–57, 301–03. On particular case studies see recently Michael D. Barbezat, Burning Bodies: Communities, Eschatology, and the Punishment of Heresy in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), pp. 24–33, and passim. 50 Gunther Wenz, ‘Sakramente: Kirchengeschichtlich’, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, ed. by Gerhard Müller, 36 vols (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1977–2004), XXIX, pp. 663–69; Reinhard Meßner, ‘Sakrament/Sakramentalien, I. Westen’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, 10 vols (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1977–1999), VII, cols 1267–72 (Brepolis Medieval Encyclopaedias – Lexikon des Mittelalters Online [accessed 20 July 2020]); Owen M. Phelan, The Formation of Christian Europe: The
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in his De sacramentis christianae fidei, draws together all the preceding ancient and medieval meanings of the term.51 It therefore seems useful to look at the sacrament through Hugh’s eyes and briefly lay out some possible definitions: firstly, the Latin appropriation of the Greek concept of mysterion to describe the salvific events – foremost Christ’s incarnation, his death, and resurrection – represented during liturgy.52 - secondly, the Augustinian rendition of sacramentum as the sign of a spiritual reality; for instance, the biblical events, various objects, and divergent rites of the Church providing spiritual fruits. This Augustinian interpretation was propagated in the Middle Ages by Isidore of Seville.53 - finally, the early scholastic meaning of the sacrament as the sanctifying, effica‐ cious sign of divine grace.54 Throughout the Early and High Middle Ages, the sacraments were not limited to the later number of seven, advanced by the scholastics, but also denoted other realities, often those which were labelled in the twelfth century as sacramentals (sacramentalia).55 It was Peter Lombard who first articulated the list of the seven sacraments, but even then, the number seven was not established as dogma -
51 52
53
54 55
Carolingians, Baptism, and the Imperium Christianum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 11–31 and passim. Dominique Poirel, ‘Sacraments’, in A Companion to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris, ed. by Hugh Feiss and Juliet Mousseau, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 79 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018), pp. 277–98 (p. 286). Wenz, ‘Sakramente’, p. 664; Meßner, ‘Sakrament’, col. 1267. On other meanings of the term sacramentum in the early Church: Everett Ferguson, ‘Sacraments in the Pre-Nicene Period’, in The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, ed. by Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 125–39 (pp. 125–27). Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. by Bernhard Dombaert and Alphonse Kalb, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 47 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), l. 10, c. 5: ‘Sacrificium ergo uisibile inuisibilis sacrificii sacramentum id est sacrum signum est’. Augustine, Sermo 272, PL, 38 (Paris: Migne, 1863), col. 1247: ‘Ista, fratres, ideo dicuntur Sacramenta, quia in eis aliud videtur, aliud intelligitur. Quod videtur, speciem habet corporalem, quod intelligitur, fructum habet spiritualem’. Isidore of Sevilla, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. by Wallace M. Lindsay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), l. 6, c. 19, v. 39–42: ‘Sacramentum est in aliqua celebratione, cum res gesta ita fit ut aliquid significare intellegatur, quod sancte accipiendum est. Sunt autem sacramenta baptismum et chrisma, corpus et sanguis [Domini]. Quae ob id sacramenta dicuntur, quia sub tegumento corporalium rerum virtus divina secretius salutem eorundem sacramentorum operatur; unde et a secretis virtutibus vel a sacris sacramenta dicuntur. Quae ideo fructuose penes Ecclesiam fiunt, quia sanctus in ea manens Spiritus eundem sacramentorum latenter operatur effectum’. Overview of the issue: Lewis Ayres, Thomas Humphries, ‘Augustine and the West to ad 650’, in The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, pp. 157–67. Boyd Taylor Coolman, ‘The Christo-Pneumatic-Ecclesial Character of Twelfth-Century Sacramental Theology’, in The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, pp. 201–17 (pp. 201–07); Poirel, ‘Sacraments’, p. 286. Reinhard Meßner, ‘Sakramentalien’, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, XXIX, pp. 648–63 (pp. 648– 50); Meßner, ‘Sakrament/Sakramentalien, I. Westen’, cols 1271–72.
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until much later (at the Council of Trent).56 Before seven became the accepted number, there were sacraments in the strict, narrower definition, and sacraments in a broader sense that encompassed the created world itself. Thus, the view of Hugh of Saint-Victor, wherein the idea of sacramentum is broader, conveyed many more realities than the seven sacraments. Dominique Poirel, who elaborated on the Victorine view, suggests we can understand the perplexity of various meanings thusly: all this apparent disorder of meanings is ordered and unified if one considers it not as a juxtaposition or a fragmentation of separate meanings, but as the radiance, the dynamic expansion, of a unique and central meaning toward its periphery. There is only one sacrament, the Incarnation of the Word, the supreme intervention of God in human time, but this sacrament is the source and the origin of an inexhaustible sacramentality, which, step by step, extends to all the universe, all history, and all Scripture.57 It is within this broad framework of sacramentality that I wish to interpret me‐ dieval kingship with a few examples from medieval Europe’s centre to its periph‐ eries. Premodern monarchy was neither magical nor sacred if we understand these terms as the full and universal realization of eschatology or the world as the immi‐ nent order. Neither was premodern kingship perceived as secular, as if civic rulers were transcendent or autonomous, and not under God. Instead, earthly kingship was part of a broader vision of the medieval world’s sacramentality and could have been understood accordingly within this framework, as can already be seen in Augustine’s writings.58 Therefore, in the next part of this paper, I shall examine selected liturgical practices and texts that perceived kingship as a sacramental reality in the Early and High Middle Ages.
56 Wenz, ‘Sakramente’, pp. 667–68; Meßner, ‘Sakrament’, cols 1267–72. See also Paul McPartlan, ‘Catholic Perspectives on Sacramentality’, Studia Liturgica, 38/2 (2008), 219–41 (p. 219). 57 Poirel, ‘Sacraments’, p. 297. 58 Augustine, De civitate Dei, l. IV, c. 33: ‘deus igitur ille felicitatis auctor et dator, quia solus est uerus deus, ipse dat regna terrena et bonis et malis, neque hoc temere et quasi fortuito, quia deus est, non fortuna, sed pro rerum ordine ac temporum occulto nobis, notissimo sibi; cui tamen ordini temporum non subditus seruit, sed eum ipse tamquam dominus regit moderator que disponit: felicitatem uero non dat nisi bonis. Hanc enim possunt et non habere et habere seruientes, possunt et non habere et habere regnantes; quae tamen plena in ea uita erit, ubi nemo iam seruiet. Et ideo regna terrena et bonis ab illo dantur et malis, ne eius cultores adhuc in prouectu animi paruuli haec ab eo munera quasi magnum aliquid concupiscant. Et hoc est sacramentum ueteris testamenti, ubi occultum erat nouum, quod illic promissa et dona terrena sunt, intellegentibus et tunc spiritalibus, quamuis nondum in manifestatione praedicantibus, et quae illis temporalibus rebus significaretur aeternitas, et in quibus dei donis esset uera felicitas. Itaque ut cognosceretur etiam illa terrena bona, quibus solis inhiant qui meliora cogitare non possunt, in ipsius unius dei esse posita potestate, non in multorum falsorum, quos colendos romani antea crediderunt, populum suum in aegypto de paucissimis multiplicauit et inde signis mirabilibus liberauit’.
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The Construction of Sacramental Kingship via Carolingian Political Liturgy Already Augustine wrote about kingship within the sacramental framework but the true milieu, in which such a perception flourished, was Carolingian culture. The Augustinian corpus, including the broadly disseminated De civitate Dei, was intensively copied and commented on in eighth- and ninth-century scriptoria.59 Scholars have even suggested that Augustinian concepts influenced the Frankish Royal Annals’ description of Pope Zacharias’s response to Pippin, allowing the Frankish mayor of the palace to be made king.60 However, one does not have to as‐ sume the direct influences of Augustinian thought on the Frankish Royal Annals. It was the development of political liturgy, particularly the royal anointing , initiated around the middle of the eighth century, that paved the way for the future under‐ standing of kingship within the sacramental framework. Such a view, though with multifaceted meanings, was later expressed by many medieval authors, including Peter Damian, Otto of Freising, and Peter of Blois, who referred to the rite of the royal unction as the sacrament.61
59 On the Carolingian circulation of Augustine, especially De civitate Dei, see Bernice M. Kaczynski, ‘The Authority of the Fathers: Patristic Texts in Early Medieval Libraries Scriptoria’, The Journal of Medieval Latin, 16 (2006), 1–27; Alain J. Stoclet, ‘Le De Civitate Dei de Saint Augustin: Sa diffusion avant 900 d’après les caractères externes des manuscrits antérieurs à cette date et les catalogues contemporains’, Recherches Augustiniennes et Patristiques, 19 (1984), 185–209 (pp. 191– 202); Michael M. Gorman, ‘A Survey of the Oldest Manuscripts of St Augustine’s De Civitate Dei’, Journal of Theological Studies, 33/2 (1982), 398–410 (pp. 400–04). Recently on the Carolingian engagement with Augustine’s De civitate Dei: Sophia Moesch, Augustine and the Art of Ruling in the Carolingian Imperial Period: Political Discourse in Alcuin of York and Hincmar of Rheims (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020). 60 Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi, ed. by Friedrich Kurze, MGH SRG, 6 (Hanover: Hahn, 1895), ad. a. 749, p. 8. About the influences of the Augustinian concept of ordo (De civitate Dei 19. 13) and Augustine’s etymological definition of a rex (De civitate Dei 5. 12) on the Frankish Royal Annals: Heinrich Büttner, ‘Aus den Anfängen des abendländischen Staatsgedankens: Die Königserhebung Pippins’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 71 (1952), 77–90 (at pp. 83–84). Cf. Janet Nelson, ‘Kingship and Empire in the Carolingian World’, in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. by Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 52–87 (p. 56). 61 Peter Damian, Sermo 69, PL, 144 (Paris: Migne, 1867), col. 899D: ‘quintum [sacramentum] est inunctio regis’. Cf. Peter Damian, Liber gratissimus, ed. by Lothar von Heinemann, MGH Ldl, 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1891), c. 10, p. 31: ‘regnum namque et sacerdotium a Deo cognoscitur institutum, et ideo, licet administratoris persona prorsus inveniatur indigna, officium tamen, quod utique bonum est, competens aliquando gratia comitatur. Reges enim et sacerdotes, licet nonnuli eorum reprobi sint per notabilis vitae meritum, dii tamen et christi dici reperiuntur propter accepti ministerii sacramentum’. Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I. imperatoris, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SRG, 46 (Hanover: Hahn, 1912) l. II, c. 3, p. 104: ‘dum finito unctionis sacramento diadema sibi imponeretur’. Peter of Blois, Epistola 150, PL, 207 (Paris: Migne, 1904), col. 440: ‘Fateor quidem, quod sanctum est domino regi assistere, sanctus enim et Christus Domini est: nex in vacuum accepit unctionis regiae sacramentum, cujus efficacia, si nescitur, aut in dubium venit, fidem ejus plenissimam faciet
SACRAMENTAL KINGSHIP
The beginnings of Carolingian royal anointing, however, remain obscured in three areas: 1 the direct influence on the origins of the ritual; 2 the precise meaning of the royal unction; 3 the course of events of 751 and 754; in other words, did Pippin receive royal anointing once or twice? While searching for the origins of the ritual, scholars have drawn attention to a presumed Irish tradition of royal anointing, hinted at in Adomnán’s Vita Columbae and mentioned in the Collectio Hibernensis. However, historical royal unction as practised in Ireland is not described in any sources contemporary to the narrated events: the Vita Columbae (written c. 688–704) refers to the disputed anointing of Aidan that apparently took place over a century earlier in 574, and the Collectio Hibernensis (compiled c. 690–725) mentions the ordinatio regis with reference to the unction of the biblical king Saul.62 Therefore, other scholars have argued for Visigothic influences on the Frankish inauguration ritual. Julian of Toledo in the Historia Wambae Regis describes the royal unction of Wamba in 672 and in the Chronica Regum Visigothorum many later anointings of other Visigothic kings are mentioned, at least until that of Vitiza in 700 or 701.63 According to others, Old Testament examples of royal unction might have
defectus inguinariae pestis, et curatio scrophularum’. References to more sources in Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges, pp. 195–96; Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe, p. 13. 62 Adomnán, Life of Columba, ed. by Alan Orr Anderson and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), l. III, c. 5, p. 188, online edition [accessed 29 July 2020]. The Hibernensis: Book 1: A Study and Edition, ed. by Roy Flechner (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 24. 1, p. 145. The most developed argumentation for the Irish origins of royal anointing are provided by Michael J. Enright, Iona, Tara, and Soissons: The Origin of the Royal Anointing Ritual (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1985). Skeptically about the thesis of the insular (Britton, Celtic, Irish, Anglo-Saxon) origins of royal unction: Jan Prelog, ‘Sind die Weihesalbungen insularen Ursprungs?’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 13/1 (1979), 303–56. For further discussion about insular anointing, see Michael J. Enright, ‘Further Reflections on Royal Ordinations in the “Vita Columbae”’, in Ogma: Essays in Celtic Studies in Honour of Próinséas Ní Chatháin, ed. by Michael Richter and Jean-Michel Picard (Dublin: Four Courts, 2002), pp. 20–35; Michael Richter, ‘Die frühmittelalterliche Herrschersalbung und die Collectio Canonum Hibernensis’, in Der Dynastiewechsel von 751, ed. by Becher and Jarnut, pp. 211–19; Michael J. Enright, ‘On the Unity of de regno 1.4 of the Hibernensis: The First Royal Anointing Ordo’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 48 (2015), 207–36. 63 Julian of Toledo, Historia Wambae Regis, ed. by Wilhelm Levison, MGH SRM, 5 (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1910), c. 3, p. 502: ‘dilato unctionis tempore usque in nono decimo die, ne citra locum sedis antiquae sacraretur in principe’; c. 4, p. 503: ‘sanctae unctionis vexillam susciperet’. Chronica Regum Visigothorum, ed. by. Karl Zeumer, MGH LL nat. Germ., 1 (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1902), p. 461. On the Visigothic royal unctions see Alexander P. Bronisch, ‘Krönungsritus und Kronenbrauch im Westgotenreich von Toledo’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Germanistische Abteilung, 116/1 (1999), 37–86 (pp. 43–45); Christoph Dartmann, ‘Die Sakralisierung König Wambas: Zur Debatte um frühmittelalterliche Sakralherrschaft’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 44 (2011), 39–57 (pp. 43–44, 53). However, it is difficult to explain why this tradition, apparently abandoned in the eighth century, was to influence the Frankish ritual
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directly triggered the Carolingian inauguration ritual.64 The biblical stories about the anointed ruler-figures were obviously not only well known in the Frankish realm, but were also invoked in the political liturgies of the Merovingian period. One example is the votive mass for a ruler preserved in the Bobbio Missal, produced c. 700.65 However, even though it would not be reasonable to exclude the biblical influences on the Frankish royal anointing, it is puzzling as to why the Old Testament models would not have been utilized during the inauguration of Frankish power earlier than in the middle of the eighth century.66 In the face of the above puzzles regarding the origins and precise meaning of the first Frankish royal anointings that occurred in the middle of the eighth century, Arnold Angenendt proposed a quite gripping explanation. He suggested that the Frankish royal unction was rooted in the Roman practice of the second post-baptismal anointing, reserved to be performed only by the bishop. Such second post-baptismal unction was practised in Roman liturgies but was not prescribed in the Gallican rites of Christian initiation, where there was only one post-baptismal anointing. According to Angenendt, Frankish royal anointing developed from Roman post-baptismal second unction and was an element of the larger bond between the papacy and the Carolingians, exemplified also in the papal correspondence with the Frankish kings collected in the Codex Carolinus. Letters of Paul I and Stephen III, while referring to Pippin’s or his descendants’ unctions, reference 1 Peter 2. 9 wherein the royal priesthood of all the baptized is invoked: ‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation’ (‘uos autem genus electum regale sacerdotium gens sancta’). This biblical phrase is also
not earlier than about fifty years after its postulated interruption, and had no earlier impact on the Merovingian inauguration rites. Moreover, Historia Wambae does not seem to have widely circulated in the eighth-century Frankish realms. More on these doubts in Enright, Iona, Tara, and Soissons, pp. 80–84. 64 This view was already shared by Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges, p. 69; Eichmann, Königs- und Bischofsweihe, pp. 30–32; Raymund Kottje, Studien zum Einfluß des Alten Testamentes auf Recht und Liturgie des frühen Mittelalters (6.–8. Jahrhundert), 2nd edn (Bonn: Röhrscheid, 1970), pp. 94– 105 while stressing Irish influences as well. Among further developments of the thesis on biblical inspiration of the Carolingian anointings, see foremost Janet L. Nelson, ‘The Lord’s Anointed and the People’s Choice: Carolingian Royal Ritual’, in Janet L. Nelson, The Frankish World, 750–900, 2nd edn (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), pp. 108–09; Jan Clauß, ‘Die Salbung Pippins des Jüngeren in karolingischen Quellen vor dem Horizont biblischer Wahrnehmungsmuster’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 46 (2012), 391–417, and more recently Aurell, Medieval Self-Coronation, p. 129. 65 The Bobbio Missal: A Gallican Mass–Book (Ms. Paris Lat. 13246), ed. by Elias A. Lowe (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1920), pp. 151–53. More on the history of this votive mass set, with its presumable non-Frankish origins and its possible broad spread in Early Medieval Europe: Mary Garrison, ‘The “Missa pro principe” in the Bobbio Missal’, in The Bobbio Missal: Liturgy and Religious Culture in Merovingian Gaul, ed. by Yitzhak Hen and Robert Meens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 187–205. 66 Achim Th. Hack’s thesis on the royal unction as already practiced during the Merovingian inauguration is based on fascinating but highly speculative deduction. However, Hack glosses over the exact meaning of Frankish sources and the issue of their credibility: Achim Th. Hack, ‘Zur Herkunft der karolingischen Königssalbung’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 110 (1999), 170–90.
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foundational for the theology of the Christian initiation, as well as of the Roman second post-baptismal anointing. Papal influences might also be confirmed by the fact that after the middle of the eighth century it was the papal court that was chiefly interested in the new royal rite. The Frankish royal circle, except for Pippin’s single charter, remained silent about royal unction until the composition of the Royal Frankish Annals in the 780s.67 Furthermore, it seems that the unction accompanying royal inauguration was not practised within the Carolingian king‐ dom from 781 to 848 (the unction of Charlemagne’s son happened in Rome in 800). According to Angenendt, the Frankish royal anointing was largely a papal invention (i.e., elaboration of the Roman second post-baptismal unction). In the second half of the eighth century the ritual of royal unction conveyed the idea that universal kingship, theoretically granted to all the baptized, is embodied in the figure of the anointed ruler (‘eine Spezifizierung der postbaptismalen Salbungen, die dem Getauften Anteil an Christi Königtum gaben’). As a consequence, royal unction was an elaboration on baptismal Roman practices and the theology of Christian initiation.68 Angenendt’s erudite exposition had one weak point though. Even though the influence of the papacy on the proceedings and the exegesis of the royal ritual is certainly provided for the 754 papal anointing of Pippin, it cannot be asserted so boldly for his first unction of 751 in Soissons.69 However, recent reconsiderations of the sources about the first ceremony put into doubt that the Frankish ruler was anointed in 751 at all. Rosamond McKitterick in a seminal paper questioned the credibility of the Royal Frankish Annals (produced c. late 780s/revised after 801) concerning the usurpation of the Carolingians to the Frankish throne. McKitterick deconstructs the Royal Frankish Annals’ entries surrounding the year 751 by comparing them with contemporary sources, particularly the Liber Pontifi‐ calis and the papal letters from the Codex Carolinus, which present a drastically different picture. In consequence, such events as the 749 mission of Fulrad and Burchard, the involvement of Boniface in the anointing, as well as the response of Pope Zacharias, seem quite dubious.70 The undermining of the Royal Frankish 67 Pippin’s diploma, no. 16, in Die Urkunden der Karolinger, ed. by Engelbert Mühlbacher, MGH DD Karol., I (Hanover: Hahn, 1906), p. 22: ‘et quia divina nobis providentia in solium regni unxisse manifestum est’. More on this charter: Wolfgang Eric Wagner, ‘Zum Abtswahlprivileg König Pippins für das Kloster Prüm von 762’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 57/1 (2001), 149–56. On the relative silence about the Carolingian royal anointing: Enright, Iona, Tarra, and Soissons, pp. 122–23; Nelson, ‘The Lord’s Anointed’, p. 111. 68 Arnold Angenendt, ‘Rex et Sacerdos: Zur Genese der Königssalbung’, in Tradition als historische Kraft: Interdisziplinäre Forschungen zur Geschichte des früheren Mittelalters, ed. by Norbert Kamp and Joachim Wollasch (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1982), pp. 100–19. There references to other sources. The quote after Arnold Angenendt, Kaiserherrschaft und Königstaufe: Kaiser, Könige und Päpste als geistliche Patrone in der abendländischen Missionsgeschichte (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1984), p. 163. 69 Enright, Iona, Tarra, and Soissons, pp. 127–30; Hack, ‘Zur Herkunft’, p. 176. 70 Rosamond McKitterick, ‘The Illusion of Royal Power in the Carolingian Annals’, The English Historical Review, 115 (2000), 1–20.
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Annals’ narrative about the usurpation of the Carolingians is significant because it is the first source that explicitly mentions the unction of Pippin in Soissons in 751.71 An earlier source that narrates the events of 751, the Continuation of Fredegar (produced before 786, presumably c. 768 or even a bit earlier), narrates Pippin’s ascent to the throne in 751 but does not verbatim mention the royal unction.72 Therefore, Joseph Semmler has argued that there was no royal anoint‐ ing of Pippin in 751, but only one in 754 performed by Pope Stephen II. Apart from the Carolingian sources, the ritual of 754 is also mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis. In turn, according to Semmler, the ‘consecratio episcoporum’ (‘conse‐ cration by the bishops’) mentioned by the Continuation of Fredegar, denotes not the royal unction but the blessing of the Frankish ruler, similar to those preserved in eighth-century liturgical manuscripts.73 However, Semmler’s proposition works only if one disregards information about the two unctions of Pippin contained in Clausula de unctione Pippinis regis, a highly disputed text in terms of its dating and dependance on other Carolingian narratives.74 In any event, Pippin’s royal anointing was neither a simple Christian substitute for the Merovingian quasi magical long hair, that in earlier scholarship apparently expressed the Germanic sacrality of the dynasty, nor was it the spiritualized
71 Annales Regni Francorum, ad. a. 750, p. 8 and p. 10: ‘Pippinus secundum morem Francorum electus est ad regem et unctus per manum sanctae memoriae Bonefacii archiepiscopi et elevatus a Francis in regno in Suessionis civitate’. 72 Chronicarum quae dicuntur Fredegarii Scholastici libri IV cum Continuationibus, ed. by Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM, 2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1888), c. 33, p. 182: ‘Quo tempore una cum consilio et consensu omnium Francorum missa relatione ad sede apostolica, auctoritate praecepta, praecelsus Pippinus electione totius Francorum in sedem regni cum consecratione episcoporum et subiectione principum una cum regina Bertradane, ut antiquitus ordo deposcit, sublimatur in regno’. 73 Joseph Semmler, Der Dynastiewechsel von 751 und die Fränkische Königssalbung (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2003), pp. 36–57. See these pages also for references to the relevant sources. Against this vision Franz-Reiner Erkens, ‘Auf der Suche nach den Anfängen: Neue Überlegungen zu den Ursprüngen der Fränkischen Königssalbung’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung, 90/1 (2004), 494–509. 74 Clausula de unctione Pippini regis, corrected edition of MGH in Alain Stoclet, ‘La “Clausula de unctione Pippini regis”: mises au point et nouvelles hypothèses’, Francia, 8 (1980), 1–42 (p. 3): Pippinus rex pius per (…) unctionem sancti chrismatis per manus beatorum sacerdotum Galliarum (…) in regni solio sublimatus est. Postea per manus eiusdemque Stephani pontificis de nuo (sic) (…) unctus et benedictus est. On the text’s various dating, with references to earlier works and opposing opinions, see: Alain Stoclet, ‘La “Clausula de unctione Pippini regis”, vingt ans après’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 78/3–4 (2000), 719–71; Olaf Schneider, ‘Die Königserhebung Pippins 751 in der Erinnerung der karolingischen Quellen: Die Glaubwürdigkeit der Reichsannalen und die Verformung der Vergangenheit’, in Der Dynastiewechsel von 751, ed. by Becher and Jarnut, pp. 243–75 (pp. 268–75); Jürgen Strothmann, ‘Das Königtum Pippins als Königtum der Familie und die Bedeutung der “Clausula de Unctione Pippini”’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Germanistische Abteilung, 125/1 (2008), 411–29 (pp. 412, 423–29); Ludger Körntgen, ‘Pippins Königserhebung von 751 und der Papst. Die Narrative der Reichsannalen und der Fredegar-Fortsetzung’, in Pippin der Jüngere und die Erneuerung des Frankenreichs, ed. by Patrick Breternitz and Karl Ubl (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2020), pp. 39–67 (pp. 55–57).
SACRAMENTAL KINGSHIP
version of the blood kingship as argued by David H. Miller.75 Moreover, Pippin’s royal anointing was not merely a liturgification of Frankish rites of inauguration, as postulated by other scholars.76 Christian ideas were already foundational for Merovingian political culture, including the perception of the royal office as a ministry, and it seems that various blessings had already accompanied Merovin‐ gian inaugurations of power, as suggested by the Continuation of Fredegar’s de‐ scription of the events of 751 (‘like the ancient ordo required’, ‘ut antiquitus ordo deposcit’).77 Therefore, it seems that Pippin’s royal unction was the expression of the already existing Frankish perceptions of kingship as marked with sacramental rites, yet it was placed in an entirely new form. The sacramental understanding of the ritual was based mostly on the origins of royal anointing from the sacrament of Christian initiation, linked with a belief in the sacramental powers of the holy oil, shared in the contemporary Frankish kingdom. Isidore of Seville, whose Etymologies were foundational for early medieval thought, counted the holy oil (chrism) alongside baptism and the Lord’s Body and Blood among the sacraments of the Church.78 But it is not only the object
75 Miller, ‘Sacral Kingship, Biblical Kingship, and the Elevation of Pepin the Short’, pp. 131–54. For a recent challenge to interpreting the long hair of the Merovingians as expressions of Germanic sacrality, see Goosmann, ‘The Long-Haired Kings of the Franks’, pp. 233–59. 76 Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 78: ‘with Pippin’s anointment the royal inauguration was shifted, once and for all, to the sacramental or at least liturgical sphere. […] Thus the inauguration of a king had been passed on, with certain restrictions, to the hands of the clergy’. Similarly, more recently Aurell, Medieval Self-Coronations, 127–46. For earlier literature, see references in the latter work. 77 Concilium Clippiacense (626/7), ed. by Friedrich Maassen, MGH Concilia, 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1893), p. 196: ‘Unde non mediogriter gratulamur in Domino, quod ea, quae vobis divinis vocibus nuntiantur, non solum precepta profertis, quin etiam a nobis dicenda prevenitis hac velut illi David et regni imperium gratia provide gubernantes et ministrationem propheticam adimpletis’. See also Gunthrami regis edictum (585), ed. by Alfred Boretius, MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum, 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), pp. 10–12. On this see Eugen Ewig, ‘Zum christlichen Königsgedanken im Frühmittelalter’, in Das Königtum: Seine geistigen und rechtlichen Grundlagen, ed. by Theodor Mayer (Lindau and Konstanz: Thorbecke, 1956), pp. 7–73 (pp. 18–24). An attempt to reconstruct Merovingian inauguration: Reinhard Schneider, Königswahl und Königserhebung im Frühmittelalter: Untersuchungen zur Herrschaftsnachfolge bei den Langobarden und Merowingern (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1972), pp. 187–239 (esp. pp. 226–39 on the presumable ecclesiastical input into the ceremony). On the supporting roles of clergy during the Merovingian inauguration: Nelson, ‘The Lord’s Anointed’, p. 101. On this see also Janet Nelson, ‘Inauguration Rituals’, in Nelson, Politics and Ritual, pp. 286–87, 291. On the Christian input into the Merovingian political culture with relevant liturgical sources, see Yitzhak Hen, ‘The Christianisation’, pp. 163–77, now Helmut Reimitz, ‘“Pax Inter Utramque Gentem”: The Merovingians, Byzantium and the History of Frankish Identity’, in East and West in the Early Middle Ages: The Merovingian Kingdoms in Mediterranean Perspective, ed. by Stefan Esders and others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 45–63 (pp. 47, 58). 78 Isidore of Sevilla, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. by Lindsay, l. 6, c. 19, v. 39–42: ‘Sacramentum est in aliqua celebratione, cum res gesta ita fit ut aliquid significare intellegatur, quod sancte accipiendum est. Sunt autem sacramenta baptismum et chrisma, corpus et sanguis [Domini]. Quae ob id sacramenta dicuntur, quia sub tegumento corporalium rerum virtus divina secretius salutem eorundem sacramentorum operatur; unde et a secretis virtutibus vel a sacris sacramenta
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itself, the holy oil, but also its usage that was believed to bestow sacramental powers on the recipient. The Missale Francorum, produced c. 700–25, describes the anointing of hands during the ordination of a presbyter, and the more or less contemporary Bobbio Missal mentions a pre-baptismal unction that accompanied the sacrament of baptism.79 The consecration of the holy oil itself in the Old Gelasian Sacramentary, copied presumably at Chelles around the time of Pippin’s unction, though preserving much earlier Roman tradition, explains the sacramen‐ tal logic concerning the usage of holy oil – the tangible act of anointing bestows God’s blessings.80 All the liturgical texts concerning the usage of holy oil mentioned above are set within an Augustinian-Isidorian sacramental framework – a visible, material object signifies/confers the invisible grace. All the texts relate biblical unction to kingship and occasionally they also specify the Old Testament king-figure – David. In all the sources it is not the Germanic sacrality, nor any other impersonal magical force, that is believed to work through the holy oil, but instead it is the Trinity. Thus, the unction of Pippin in 754 was set within the broader context of the usage of holy oil, which hinted at the sacramental nature of the king’s office. This sense was also expressed later by the Clausula de unctione Pippini regis which stresses the confection of the Holy Spirit’s grace and the working of the
dicuntur. Quae ideo fructuose penes Ecclesiam fiunt, quia sanctus in ea manens Spiritus eundem sacramentorum latenter operatur effectum’. 79 Missale Francorum (Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 257), ed. by Leo C. Mohlberg and others (Rome: Herder, 1957), no. 34, p. 10: ‘Unguantur manus istae de oleo sanctificato et crismate sanctificationis sicut uncxit Samuhel David in regem et prophetam, ita unguantur et consummentur in nomine Dei Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, facientes imaginem sanctae crucis salvatoris Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui nos a morte redemit et ad regna caelorum perducit. Exaudi nos, pie Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, et preaesta quid te rogamus et oramus: per’. Bobbio Missale, no. 242, p. 74: ‘Ungo te de oleo sanctificato sicut unxit samuhel dauid in rege et propheta’. 80 Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Aeclesiae Ordinis Anni Circuli (Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316/Paris Bibl. Nat. 7193, 41/56), ed. by Leo C. Mohlberg (Roma: Herder, 1960), no. 382, p. 61: ‘Emitte, quaesumus, domine, spiritum sanctum paraclytum de caelis in hac pinguidine olei, quam de uiride ligno producere dignatus es ad refectionem mentis et corporis. Et tua sancta benedictio sit omni unguenti, gustanti tangenti tutamentum corporis animae et spiritus, ad euacuandos omnes dolores, omnem infirmitatem, omnem egritudinem mentis et corporis, unde uncxisti sacerdotes reges et prophetas et martyres, chrisma tuum perfectum, a te, domine, benedictum, permanens in uisceribus nostris’. Compare also the prayer from the Gallican tradition in the eighth-century manuscript: Missale Gallicanum Vetus (Cod. Vat. Palat. lat. 493), ed. by Leo C. Mohlberg (Rome: Herder, 1958), no. 82, pp. 25–26: ‘Per hanc ergo te, domine, per quem omnes, licet indignorum, attamen credentium praeces placabili or exaudi, suppliciter oramus, ut huic, quod offeremus, unguento ex aromatibus orti tui et paradisi tui flore perpetuo odorem suauitatis inicias, accumolis insuper eam gratiam, eamque uirtutem, qua quondam reges, sacerdotes, profetas cornu a dilectione tua exundante perfusus, plenus officiorum suorum dignita tibi induisti; ut cum exinde noua tibi familiam unxerimus, super-/ueniens in eos, quooperatione (sic) spiritus tui sancti, aura gratiae caelestis adspiret, ut hii quoque uere Christi tui et fillio tuo sancti spiritus inlapsa uirtute efficiantur huius semper nominis coheredes: per dominum nostrum Iesum’.
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Triune God in the first two Carolingian royal anointings.81 The later development of liturgical inauguration of the Frankish kings stresses sacramental understanding of the royal office even further, similarly to other ordained ministers of the Church. From numerous sources that provide an insight into the Frankish royal inau‐ guration and its sacramental overtones, let us examine the Benedictional (B) of Freising (Munich, BSB, Clm 6430). Produced in the second half of the ninth century, the manuscript contains a formula for the anointing of hands during royal inauguration, which seems to stem from an earlier tradition than the production of the codex itself. Most probably the formula was already known before 824, per‐ haps even slightly earlier.82 The prayer for royal ordination commences similarly to the already mentioned formula for the anointing of hands from the Missale Francorum during the ordination of a presbyter.83 The same kind of holy oil was used in a similar fashion and accompanied with a similar oration during the two ordinations, both of which could be labelled sacramental. This amalgamation of rites increased even further in the subsequent Frankish ordines. In the Ordo of the Eleven Forms (also known as the Ordo of the Seven Forms), composed c. 900–50, alongside the explicit sacramental logic (visible sign – invis‐ ible grace), the royal and episcopal affinities were explicitly invoked in a prayer that accompanied the reception of the crown – the anointed ruler participates in the ministry of bishops.84 This oration was included in many later ordines coro‐ nationis, including the one inserted into the so-called Romano-Germanic Pontifical (hereafter PRG), a vast but quite variable collection of liturgical orations gathered together around the year 1000. These various collections, labelled in modern
81 Clausula de unctione Pippini regis, corrected edition of MGH in Alain Stoclet, ‘La “Clausula de unctione Pippini regis”: mises au point et nouvelles hypothèses’, Francia, 8 (1980), 1–42 (pp. 2–3). 82 Ordines Coronationis Franciae, vol. 1: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages, ed. by Richard A. Jackson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), p. 69. The earlier dating was extensively argued by Cornelius A. Bouman, Sacring and Crowning: The Development of the Latin Ritual for the Anointing of Kings and the Coronation of an Emperor before the Eleventh Century (Groningen: Wolters, 1957), pp. 2–5. 83 An edition of the formula from Munich, BSB, Clm 6430, fols 50v–51v in Ordines Coronationis Franciae, p. 70: ‘Unguantur manus iste de oleo sanctificato, unde uncti fuerunt reges et prophetę, sicut unxit Samuhel David in regem, ut sis benedictus et constitutus rex in regno isto, quod dedit tibi dominus Deus tuus super populum hunc ad regendum vel gubernandum. Quod ipse prestare dignetur qui vivit et regnat cum Patre et Spiritu sancto, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen’. 84 Ordines Coronationis Franciae, p. 161: ‘Accipe coronam regni, que licet ab indignis, episcoporum tamen manibus capiti tuo imponitur. Quamque sanctitatis gloriam et honorem et opus fortitudinis expresse signare intelligas, et per hanc te participem ministerii nostri non ignores, ita ut, sicut nos in interioribus pastores rectoresque animarum intelligimur, tu quoque in exterioribus verus Dei cultor strenuusque contra omnes adversitates ecclesie Christi defensori regnique tibi a Deo dati et per officium nostre bene+dictionis, in vice apostolorum omniumque sanctorum tuo regimini commissis, utilis executor regnatorque proficuus semper appareas, ut inter gloriosos athletas virtutum gemmis ornatus et premio sempiterne felicitatis coronatus cum redemptore ac salvatore Iesu Christo, cuius nomen vicemque gestare crederis, sine fine glorieris. Qui vivit et imperat Deus cum Deo Patre in unitate Spiritus sancti. Per omnia secula seculorum’.
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times PRG, were broadly disseminated outside of the Empire.85 This benefitted the spread of the Carolingian understanding of the royal office as one of the ordained ecclesiastical ministers in the post-Carolingian kingdoms. But it is not only the royal inaugurations that provide an insight into the perception of kingship as a sacramental office, which had already been noted by previous scholars.86 The ritual profile of the new dynasty was much richer than that assessed by Janet Nelson, who acknowledged solely the coronation ordines and Laudes Regiae – the new liturgical genre that combined royal acclamations with the litany of the saints, seminally elaborated by Ernst Kantorowicz.87 The latter prayer, which begs long life and victory for the pope, the king, and his circle, starts with the triune acclamation Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands. The invocation of Christ’s kingship was a reminder of the fundamental source of power granted to the officials mentioned in later parts of the laudes – the king, his family, bishops, officials, and the army. In a sense, earthly rulers signified the heavenly kingship of Christ.88 The intrinsic link between the heavenly and earthly kingdoms was also manifested in other Carolingian manuscripts and various liturgical genres. The Sacramentary of Gellone, from the last decade of the eighth century, contains various blessings over the ruler. One of the benedictions asks Christ, named as the source of royal power, to grant to the earthly kingdom the eternal peace that is universal in heaven.89 In the prayer, again, the exchange between the natural 85 Le Pontifical Romano–Germanique du dixième siècle, ed. by Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, 3 vols (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1963–1972), I, p. 257. On the recent challenge to the character and the spread of the PRG see Henry Parkes’s publications, particularly The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church: Books, Music and Ritual in Mainz, 950–1050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 183–211; Henry Parkes, ‘Questioning the Authority of Vogel and Elze’s Pontifical Romano–Germanique’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Helen Gittos and Sarah M. Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2016), pp. 75–101; and most recently Henry Parkes, ‘Henry II, Liturgical Patronage and the Birth of the Romano–German Pontifical’, Early Medieval Europe, 28/1 (2020), 101–41. 86 For example, Kern, Kingship and Law, p. 37; Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges, p. 195; Eichmann, Königsund Bischofsweihe, p. 26; Schramm, Kaiser, Könige und Päpste, IV, pp. 69–70; Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 78; Ullmann, Principles, pp. 89, 94; Yves Congar, L’Ecclésiologie du haut Moyen Âge: De saint Grégoire le Grand à la désunion entre Byzance et Rome (Paris: Le Cerf, 1968), pp. 293–304. 87 Nelson, ‘The Lord’s Anointed’, pp. 111–12, 130. Numerous other liturgies of political significance in the Carolingian period analyzes Garipzanov, The Symbolic Language, pp. 43–100. 88 Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, though see my previous reservations about the exaggerated reading of the genre as the example of Christian ruler worship. On Laudes Regiae from a different angle: McCormick, Eternal victory, pp. 356–57; Hen, The Royal Patronage, pp. 92–93. 89 An edition of Paris, BnF, MS latin 12048, fols 165r–166r in Ordines Coronationis Franciae, p. 54: ‘Christe, Deus oriens ex alto, rex regum et dominus dominantium, corona credentium, benedictio sacerdotum, qui regis gentes exaltas, reges respices, humilis ditas pauperis custodis veracis, benedic hunc clementissime regem illum cum universe populo suo, sicut benedixisti Habraam in milia, Isaac in victima, Iacob in pascua, da ęis de rore celi benedictionem de pinguidinem terre, ubertatem de inmicis, triumphum de lumbis sobolem regnatorem. Ut dum regales non defecit de sterpe successio, sed indeficiens amor in populo. Pax perennis in regno quod ipse pręstare digneris qui in cęlestia regna super cęrubin sedens universa, qui regna regis et regnas in saecula saeculorum’.
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and the supernatural orders is in action. These sacramental overtones of the early Carolingian period also include the transformation of the Exultet finale, an Easter Vigil chant containing a prayer for the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Around the year 800, the Sacramentarium Rhenaugiense was produced. It is the first extant manuscript containing an extraordinary invocation of the king alongside the pope and the local bishop in the final clause of the Exultet, contrary to earlier traditions. In most of the earlier Frankish and Beneventan versions of the Exultet, a clear distinction remained between the formula for a ruler, composed in the form of Memento/Memorare/Respice, and the preceding prayer for bishops.90 Exultet, performed at the Paschal Vigil, incorporated rulers into the history of salvation, who alongside the first man, Adam, the Israelites, Mary, and Jesus, took part in the chant praising the return of grace to the lapsed world. A couple of decades later, during the reign of Charles the Bald, a similar upheaval as that in the Exultet occurred within the liturgy of the Eucharist (in the Canon Missae), a text whose importance in the Middle Ages might rival that of the Bible. Two manuscripts extant from the reign of Charles the Bald reveal a liturgical revolution within the Canon Missae (Paris, BnF, MSS latin 1141 and latin 12051). Because the Canon Missae was essential in celebrating the Eucharist in nearly all of the Carolingian and post-Carolingian Latin West, it was so highly venerated that corporal punishments were prescribed for its incorrect performance.91 Paris, BnF, MS latin 1141, fol. 7r, presumably produced to mark the Lotharingian coronation of Charles the Bald in 869, contains the novelty that broke with the earlier practice of invoking rulers during the Eucharist both in eastern and western Chris‐ tianity. To the usual words of the prayer ‘together with your servant our pope N. and our bishop’ (‘una cum famulo tuo papa nostro illo et antistite nostro’), 90 Sacramentarium Rhenaugiense: Handschrift Rh 30 der Zentralbibliothek Zürich, ed. by Anton Hänggi and Alfons Schönherr (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg, 1970), pp. 131–32: ‘Praecamur ergo te domine: ut nos famulos tuos, omnem clerum et deuotissimum populum: una cum patre nostro beatissimo uiro illo, necnon et clementissimo rege nostro illo coniugeque eius ac filiis cunctuque exercitu francorum, quiete temporum concessa in his paschalibus conseruare dignetur. per dominum’. Dating of the manuscript in Sacramentarium Rhenaugiense, pp. 63–68. More on this issue in Thomas F. Kelly, The Exultet in Southern Italy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 302; Paweł Figurski, ‘The Exultet of Bolesław II of Mazovia and the Sacralisation of Political Power in the High Middle Ages’, in Premodern Rulership and Contemporary Political Power: The King’s Body Never Dies, ed. by Karolina Mroziewicz and Aleksander Sroczyński (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017), pp. 73–111 (pp. 90–97). 91 Paenitentiale Cummeani 11. 29 in The Irish Penitentials, ed. by Ludwig Bieler (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1963), p. 132: ‘Si titubaverit sacerdos super oratione dominica quae dicitur periculosa, si una vice L plagis emundatur, si secunda C, si tertia superponat’. About this text and its reference to the Canon of the Mass, especially the institution narrative, see Raymund Kottje, ‘“Oratio Periculosa” – Eine frühmittelalterliche Bezeichnung des Kanons?’, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft, 10 (1967), 165–68; Raymund Kottje, ‘Das älteste Zeugnis für das “Paenitentiale Cummeani”’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 61/2 (2005), 585–89; Balthasar Fischer, ‘“Oratio periculosa”: Eine altirische Bezeichnung für die Einsetzungsworte in der Messe’, in Prex Eucharistica, vol. 3: Studia, ed. by Albert Gerhards, Heinzgerd Brakmann, and Martin Klöckener (Fribourg: Academic Press, 2005), pp. 237–41.
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a scribe added in the main text ‘and our king’ (‘et rege nostro’). This slight change had an immense impact on the understanding of political power. The invocation of the ruler was moved from the general section for the commemoration of all members of the Church (Memento) and instead the royal title was placed in a new position, usually reserved for the ecclesiastical hierarchy (Te igitur). Moreover, the specific placement of the ‘and our king’ enabled the symbolic immersion of the royal office in the sacramental action performed by the priest in union with the pope, the local bishop and, last but not least, the king (‘we offer together […] with our king’). This Carolingian novelty was the breakthrough moment in the development of a sacramental perception of kingship that would mark later kingdoms in the European High Middle Ages, a story in and of itself.92 In sum, the Carolingian culture that created the innovative political liturgy paved the way for establishing the medieval tradition of kingship perceived as an inner-ecclesiastical office, like other sacramentally ordained ministers of the Church, signifying Christ’s heavenly kingdom. This view was later transmitted to other realms, far from the Carolingian centre.
Sacramental Kingship on the Peripheries of Latin Christianity Until the establishment of the Latin realms in the Near East by the crusaders, the medieval kingdom of Poland was the most eastern country of Latin Christianity. The Jewish traveller from the Caliphate of Cordoba to the Ottonians, Ibrahim ibn Yaqub (Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿḳūb al-Isrāʾīlī al-Ṭurṭūshī), described in the 960s the peripheral location of the future kingdom of Poland. According to Ibrahim, across the borders of the Slavic realm and beyond the land of the Prussians lay the leg‐ endary city of the Amazons. This mythical detail signifies the edge of the civilized world as described by the learned traveller. The first historically known ruler of the largest Slavic country, Mieszko, was labelled ‘king of the North’, a term denoting not only a geographical location but also (symbolically) a very serious threat.93 92 Paris, BnF, MS latin 1141, fol. 7r: ‘Te igitur, clementissime pater, per Iesum Christum filium tuum dominum nostrum supplices rogamus et petimus, uti accepta habeas et benedicas haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia illibata, in primis quae tibi offerimus pro ecclesia tua sancta catholica, quam pacificare, custodire, adunare et regere digneris toto orbe terrarum, una cum famulo tuo papa nostro illo et antistite nostro, et rege nostro, et omnibus orthodoxis, atque catholicae et apostolicae fidei cultoribus’. More on this issue, in connection to Charles the Bald coronation of 869 can be read in my PhD thesis: Paweł Figurski, ‘Modlitwy za króla w kanonie rzymskim Mszy. Studium z dziejów teologii politycznej wczesnego średniowiecza w łacińskim chrześcijaństwie’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Warsaw, 2016), pp. 184–214. 93 Relacja Ibrahima ibn Jakuba do krajów słowiańskich w przekazie al-Bekriego, ed. by Tadeusz Kowalski, MPH s. n., 1 (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1946), pp. 48–50. English translation in Dmitrij Mishin, ‘Ibrahim Ibn-Ya’qub at-Turtushi’s Account of the Slavs from the Middle of the Tenth Century’, Annual of Medieval Studies at the Central European University (1994/95), pp. 184–99 (p. 188) and Ibn Fadlān and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North, ed. by Paul
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Mieszko, labelled in the foreign sources as a dangerous barbarian, received the Christian faith around 966. Subsequently, missionaries started flowing into the land, along with the first bishops, and Christian places of worship began to be constructed. More effective in christianizing its realm was Mieszko’s son, Bolesław the Brave, who succeeded in establishing a Polish ecclesiastical province with the archbishopric in Gniezno and three episcopal sees in Kołobrzeg, Wrocław, and Kraków. The synod in Gniezno of 1000, which Emperor Otto III also attended, marked the beginning of the new ecclesiastical province and the new alliance of the Empire with the Slavic realm incorporated into the young emperor’s plan of spreading Christianity into the contemporary Barbaricum. Emerging me‐ dieval Poland, with more missionaries, churches, and new laws to convert the subordinates, was transforming itself into a post-Carolingian kingdom, adopting Frankish institutions, including models of government, and, of course, the theory of kingship.94 The awe toward Carolingian political ideas mediated via the Ottonian Empire emerges in the very first extant sources providing an insight into Polish monarchi‐ cal power. The reconstructed court annals of the local Piast dynasty placed an emphasis on the Carolingian rulers and their achievements. Although the texts from Poland were based on the already existing imperial annals, they lack local or miraculous events, and focus instead on the Carolingian deeds narrated in the Polish annals since the eighth century.95 Not only the Piasts’ self-consciousness, as derived from the Polish annals, but also the writers dealing with the Slavic kingdom envisioned the link between the Piasts and Carolingians. Bruno of Querfurt explicitly equated Bolesław the Brave’s deeds with Charlemagne’s initia‐ tives regarding Christianization.96 Adémar of Chabannes narrated the opening of Charlemagne’s tomb by Otto III after the synod in Gniezno. According to this Lunde and Caroline Stone (London: Penguin Classics, 2012), p. 166. About Ibrahim’s account on Mieszko’s realm as symbolically peripheral: Andrzej Pleszczyński, The Birth of a Stereotype: Polish Rulers and their Country in German Writings, c. 1000 a.d., East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 15 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 14–41. On Ibrahim ibn Yaqub: André Miquel, ‘Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿḳūb’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. by Peri J. Bearman and others, Reference Works: Brill Online, [accessed 5 April 2016]. 94 Roman Michałowski, The Gniezno Summit: The Religious Premises of the Founding of the Archbishopric of Gniezno, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 38 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), esp. pp. 74–222; Andrzej Pleszczyński, ‘Kryzys i upadek wczesnych państw słowiańskich oraz ich odbudowa (IX–XI wiek). Zarys problemu’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 25/2 (2018), 263–302. 95 Najdawniejsze roczniki krakowskie i kalendarz, ed. by Zofia Kozłowska-Budkowa, MPH s. n., 5 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978), pp. 32–40. Recently on this issue: Zbigniew Dalewski, ‘W poszukiwaniu poprzedników – pierwsi Piastowie i ich wizja własnej przeszłości’, in Przeszłość w kulturze średniowiecznej Polski, ed. by Jacek Banaszkiewicz and others, 2 vols (Warszawa: IH PAN, 2018), I, pp. 23-58 (p. 54). 96 Bruno of Querfurt, Vita altera Sancti Adalberti, ed. by Jadwiga Karwasińska, MPH s. n., 4/2 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1969), c. 10, pp. 9–10; Bruno of Querfurt, Epistula ad Henricum regem, ed. by Jadwiga Karwasińska, MPH s. n., 4/3 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1973), p. 104. More on this issue Miłosz Sosnowski, ‘Boleslaw Chrobry
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Chronicle, the throne of the Carolingian ruler was sent to Bolesław the Brave.97 The very first extant Piast official narrative/dynastic propaganda, composed by the anonymous author, so-called Gallus, painted Piast military efforts in the Prussian region with ideas resembling Charlemagne’s conquest of Saxony. More‐ over, the so-called Gallus created an explicit origo story of the Prussians as the former Saxons who had escaped Charlemagne’s sword.98 However, they did not escape the iron of the Piasts, when the so-called Gallus composed his Gesta in the 1110s and many campaigns were launched against the northern non-Christians by Bolesław the Wrymouth and his sons.99 In sum, the Piast mythology of power as reconstructed from the sources composed within or outside of the Polish kingdom was forged with the Carolingian ideals, not least when it comes to the sacramental understanding of monarchy. The so-called Gallus provides a few examples of the Piasts’ sacramental understanding of their power. The author narrates the divinely inspired turn of government from the legendary, horrendous duke Popiel to Siemowit, one of the Piasts’ ancestors. The author emphasizes: ‘the king of kings and the duke of dukes ordained him as the duke of Poland with accord’. So-called Gallus, instead of using the traditional phrase ‘king of kings and lord of lords’, referred to Christ in the Bible (‘rex regum, dominus dominantium’, cf. 1 Tim. 6. 15; Rev. 1. 16), used instead the title that would stress the intrinsic affinities between Christ’s power and that of the Piasts’. At the time of Gesta’s composition, the Polish rulers were not anointed, but this did not prevent the author from painting Piast power with the image of Christ’s apparent ducal office. Here the earthly and heavenly lordship refer to the other, reflect the other, and flow over into the other, to use Kantorowicz’s phrase from the beginning of this paper. More explicit regarding the sacramentality of Piast power was so-called Gallus’ narration of the conflict between the unnamed bishop (future St Stanislaus) and the anointed king Bolesław the Generous. The anonymous author considers the royal and episcopal offices as being equal, and both adversaries are described with the term ‘christus’, which not only denotes the anointing of the bishop and the king during their respective ordinations, but also hints at Christ – the source of power and the model of conduct that should have been at the forefront of both actors.
i Karol Wielki – Legitymizacja między kultem a imitacją’, Historia Slavorum Occidentis, 11/2 (2016), 122–48 (pp. 130, 143–45). 97 Ademari Cabannensis Chronicon, ed. by Pascale Bourgain, Richard Landes, and Georges Pon, CCCM, 129 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 1. III, c. 31, pp. 153–54. More on this problematic passage: Sosnowski, ‘Bolesław Chrobry’, pp. 136–43. 98 Galli Anonymi Cronicae et Gesta Ducum sive Principum Polonorum, ed. by Karol Maleczyński, MPH s. n., 2 (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1952), l. 2, c. 42, pp. 111–12. Recently on this origo story: Sosnowski, ‘Bolesław Chrobry’, pp. 126–28. 99 Recently on the Piast military expeditions of the twelfth century: Darius von Güttner-Sporzyński, Poland, Holy War, and the Piast Monarchy, 1100–1230, Europa Sacra, 14 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), esp. pp. 77–106, 161–86.
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So-called Gallus in the above and other passages envisions Piast rulers as an earthly reflection of the divine power that rests in heaven.100 Although Gesta marks an already developed Piast tradition of power from the beginning of the twelfth century, there are sources providing insight into an earlier perception of the government in medieval Poland. One of the earliest is Codex Mathildis, a gift offered to the Polish king, Mieszko II, by Mathilda, Princess of Swabia, presumably sent shortly after the first Piast anointings took place around 1025. Whereas most imperial sources judge the raising of the Piasts to royal dignity as a usurpation, Mathilda’s letter and the now lost miniature, once preserved in the manuscript, praised the Polish dynasty and their hallowed status.101 In the dedicatory illumination, the princess transfers her gift with veiled hands, while the ruler receives it directly with his bare palm (fol. olim 3r). Leaning more in the direction of sacramental kingship, however, is the dedicatory letter, in which Mathilda explicitly states that King Mieszko II is the head of the local Church in Poland, ‘chosen by divine judgment to rule over the holy people of God’. Therefore, it is the king and no other hierarch who receives the treatise on how Roman liturgy should be properly celebrated, as stated in the final passages of the letter. The main text preserved in the manuscript is nothing less than the liturgical treatise of Pseudo-Alcuin, Liber de divinis officiis, extant on fols 4r–83r. The ruler, who had built so many places of worship, which Mathilda reverently ac‐ knowledged in her letter, is responsible not only for raising external structures that enable the worshipping of the Christian God in his realm. Mieszko’s call of duty also concerns the inner form of that cult. Even though Codex Mathildis lacks the clear analogy of the so-called Gallus (the earthly Piast rulership reflecting Christ’s
100 Galli Anonymi Cronica, l. 1, c. 3, p. 12: ‘rex regum et dux ducum eum Poloniae ducem concorditer ordinavit’, and l. 1, c. 27, pp. 52–53: ‘Qualiter autem rex Bolezlauus de Polonia sit eiectus, longum existit enarrare, sed hoc dicere licet, quia non debuit christus in christum peccatum quodlibet corporaliter vindicare. Illud enim multum sibi nocuit, cum peccato peccatum adhibuit, cum pro traditione pontificem truncationi membrorum adhibuit. Neque enim traditorem episcopum excusamus, neque regem vindicantem sic se turpiter commendamus, sed hoc in medio deseramus et ut in Vngaria receptus fuerit disseramus’. On this passage see Zbigniew Dalewski, ‘Vivat Princeps in Eternum! Sacrality of Ducal Power in Poland in the Earlier Middle Ages’, in Monotheistic Kingship: The Medieval Variants, ed. by János M. Bak and Aziz Al-Azmeh (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004), pp. 215–30 (pp. 224–26). 101 Codex Mathildis, Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS C. 91. Partial edition and reconstruction of the manuscript: Kodeks Matyldy: Księga obrzędów z kartami dedykacyjnymi, ed. by Brygida Kürbis and others (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 2000). Recent studies on the manuscript: Pleszczyński, The Birth of a Stereotype, pp. 254–85; Zbigniew Dalewski, ‘Sakralność władzy królewskiej pierwszych Piastów’, Historia Slavorum Occidentis, 14/3 (2017), 43–57. The negative assessment of the first Piast coronations in Annales Quedlinburgenses, Wipo’s Gesta Chuonradi, and Annales Hildesheimenses. The analysis of this issue and references to relevant sources in Pleszczyński, The Birth of a Stereotype, pp. 286–95.
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heavenly lordship, and vice versa), the manuscript still suggestively illustrates the perception of Piast kingship as an inner-ecclesiastical office.102 A similar conclusion flows from the specific placement of prayers of a political character embedded in the eleventh-century Pontifical of Kraków.103 The benedic‐ tions over the banner, the weapons, and the prince (fols 35v–37v) were placed between the text for other sacramental ordinations (fols 37v–39v marked with the rubric: ‘ordo qualiter sacri ordines eligendi et congregandi sunt’), and the texts that served during church dedications (fols 1r–35r). Such placement, if deliberate, would stress the inner-ecclesiastical character of Piast power as the manuscript was composed for performance in the Kraków bishopric.104 Many scholars have even suggested that the set of five blessings was an abridged version of the ordo for the Piast inauguration of rulership, but I have extensively argued elsewhere as to why such an interpretation is far-fetched. The five texts of the Pontifical of Kraków belong rather to the Piast liturgy of war than to any ordines coronationis.105 In any event, the blessings beg for God’s grace to be bestowed over the ruler and the material objects that the prince would utilize with his army in combat, so that God’s grace would be present and favor the Piasts’ warriors during the earthly military struggle. Thus, in the Pontifical of Kraków even weapons used by the Piast ruler and his army would incarnate the divine grace in a similar fashion as when the world was created from chaos, and the Logos made flesh.106
102 The letter in Codex Mathildis, Düsseldorf, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS C. 91, fols 2volim 3r. The quote on fol. 2v: ‘non adeo humano quam diuino iudicio electum ad regendum populum sanctum dei’. 103 Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, MS 2057. The edition: The Cracow Pontifical (Pontificale Cracoviense Saeculi XI), ed. by Zdzisław Obertyński, Henry Bradshaw Society, 100 (Manchester: The Philips Park Press, 1977). The manuscript is digitized [accessed 28 November 2020]. 104 On the manuscript’s usage in and its production for Kraków see Władysław Abraham, Pontificale biskupów krakowskich z XII wieku (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1927), p. 3; Zbigniew Dalewski, Władza, przestrzeń, ceremoniał: Miejsce i uroczystość inauguracji władcy w Polsce średniowiecznej do końca XIV w. (Warszawa: Neriton, 1996), pp. 112–15; Henryk Wąsowicz, ‘Litania do Wszystkich Świętych z najstarszego pontyfikału biskupów krakowskich’, in Peregrinatio ad veritatem: Studia ofiarowane Profesor Aleksandrze Witkowskiej OSU z okazji 40–lecia pracy naukowej, ed. by Urszula Borkowska and others (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, 2004), pp. 557–70 (p. 567, n. 56). 105 Paweł Figurski, ‘Liturgiczne początki Polonii: Lokalna adaptacja chrześcijańskiego kultu a tworzenie polskiej tożsamości politycznej w X–XI wieku’, in Oryginalność i wtórność polskiej kultury politycznej i religijnej (X–XIII w.), ed. by Roman Michałowski and Grzegorz Pac (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2020), pp. 724–95 (pp. 774–93). 106 For example ‘The Blessing over the Weapons’ in Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, MS 2057, fols 36r–v, edited in The Cracow Pontifical, ed. by Obertyński, p. 58: ‘Benedictio armorum. Deus omnipotens, qui hunc mundum ex informi materia fecisti et unicum Filium tuum tibi coeternum pro generis humani redemptione Spiritu sancto cooperante incarnari iussisti, concede quęsumus, ut in hęc arma, gladios videlicet vel lanceas sive loricas aut galeas + benedicere digneris atque per virtutem potentię tuę ab hostibus contra nos dimicantibus invicta permaneant et quicumque ex hiis pugnaverint, incolomitatem tam corporis quam animę te adiuvante percipiant. Per’.
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The Piast liturgy of war still requires meticulous analysis as an increasing number of overlooked sources are coming to light.107 Here, however, the main concern is with the sacramental understanding of Piast power and the reception of Carolingian political liturgy that construed the image of an earthy kingdom as intermingled with the heavenly one. One of the most instructive examples for the perception of monarchy as an inner-ecclesiastical office similar to other sacramentally-ordained hierarchs is the Pontifical of Wrocław, Chapter Library, MS 149 (olim: 150). The exact provenance of the codex remains unclear.108 In any event, this composite eleventh- and twelfth-century pontifical(s) contain(s) – among various votive blessings – the formula that was incorporated by Hincmar of Reims during the 869 Lotharingian coronation of Charles the Bald.109 The
107 In February 2020, just before the global pandemic, I found the hitherto overlooked Pontifical in Wrocław, Chapter Library, MS 148, which had been wrongly dated to the fifteenth century but should be dated to the twelfth century. Because of the misdating, the manuscript has scarcely received any scholarly attention: See Wincenty Urban, ‘Rękopisy liturgiczne Biblioteki Kapitulnej we Wrocławiu’, Archiwa, Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne, 6 (1963), 154–90 (p. 166); Józef W. Boguniowski, Rozwój historyczny ksiąg liturgii rzymskiej do soboru trydenckiego i ich recepcja w Polsce (Kraków: Unum, 2001), p. 171; Wojciech Niedźwiecki, ‘Pontyfikały przedtrydenckie używane w Polsce: Wykaz rękopisów’, in Dariusz Kotecki and others, Drogi nadziei (Toruń: Toruńskie Wydawnictwo Diecezjalne, 2015), pp. 215–42 (pp. 238–39); Andrzej Suski, Alessandro Toniolo, and Manlio Sodi, Pontificali Pretridentini (secc. IX–XVI): Guida ai manoscrritti e concordanza verrbale (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2019), p. 530. There is no mention of this pontifical in Richard Kay, Pontificalia: A Repertory of Latin Manuscript Pontificals and Benedictionals (Lawrence: The University of Kansas, 2007), online publication available [accessed 10 January 2021]. In fact, it is a twelfth-century manuscript, produced in an emerging scriptorium, presumably in Central Europe. It contains two blessings of the sword directly accompanied with the blessings of the sandals and the crook. This set of four prayers, if used together, might have been a liturgy of the pilgrimage combined with the liturgy of war performed in Central Europe, where the first campaigns modeled on the crusades started precisely in the twelfth century. There will be more on this pontifical in my forthcoming publications. For the paleography consultation I am very grateful to Prof. Theresa Webber, Prof. Susan Rankin, Prof. David Ganz, Dr Erik Niblaeus, Dr Henry Parkes, and Dr Nicolas Bell. 108 I have dealt with this issue in Paweł Figurski, ‘Beyond the “Monarchical Church” Model: Liturgy, Manuscripts, and Bishops in the Kingdom of Poland: Case Studies from the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in Bishop and Diocese in the Early and High Middle Ages: The ‘Episcopalization of the Church’ in European Comparison, ed. by Andreas Bihrer and Hedwig Röckelein (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), pp. 361–404 (pp. 396–99). 109 Wrocław, Chapter Library, MS 149 (olim: 150), fols 88v–89r: ‘pro rege et pro populo. Clerum ac populum quem sua uoluit opitulatione tua sanctione congregari, sua dispensatione et tua administratione per diuturna tempora faciat feliciter gubernare. Amen’. Compare with ‘Ordo of Charles the Bald of 869’, in Ordines Coronationis Franciae, ed. by Richard A. Jackson, 2 vols (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), I, pp. 107–08: ‘Clerum ac populum, quem sua voluit opitulatione tuae subdere ditioni, sua dispensatione, et tua administratione, per diuturna tempora te faciat feliciter gubernare, quo divinis monitis parentes, adversitatibus omnibus carentes, bonis omnibus exuberantes, tuo ministerio fideli amore obsequentes, et in praesenti saeculo pacis tranquillitate fruantur, et tecum aeternorum civium consortio potiri mereantur. Amen’. About the history of the text: Ordines Coronationis Franciae, ed. by Jackson, I, pp. 87–97.
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prayer asks God to subdue the clergy and laity under the government of a ruler. Moreover, the oration asserts the intermingling of God’s and the ruler’s manage‐ ment of the Church. If the manuscript travelled to the Piast lands earlier than suggested in the scholarship (in the thirteenth century according to Tadeusz Silnicki), it would have been an important witness of the sacramental conception of rulership in the late eleventh-/twelfth-century kingdom of Poland.110 The tenuousness of the conclusion about the Pontifical of Wrocław, MS 149 (olim: 150) is understandable for anyone who has dealt with the high medieval history of Poland, marked in the eleventh and twelfth century by an appalling scarcity of sources. The political liturgy that construed sacramental kingship in the Carolingian period was present in the Piast realms, though in a much more limited form. However, the extant scraps are witnesses of the understanding of sacramental kingship. One has to plough through a shaky field to reconstruct political liturgy in medieval Poland. The evidence for the Piast Laudes Regiae is not firm, as far as I am concerned, for there is no Laudes Regiae extant in any early or high medieval manuscripts used in the Piast realm. The presumable practice of this specific theological-political litany is hinted at in the Gesta of the so-called Gallus, who occasionally mentions the laudes with which the court praised Piast rulers.111 Moreover, it is even more arduous to establish whether in the high medieval kingdom of Poland the ruler was invoked in the Te igitur prayer of the Canon of the Mass, alongside the pope and the local bishop, because we know of no fully extant Canon of the Mass that was used in the Piast Church before the thirteenth century. The so-called Gniezno Missale plenarium of the late eleventh/early twelfth century lacks the relevant folio with the Te igitur prayer.112 Moreover, the eleventh-century Sacramentary of Tyniec, once acclaimed as the royal/ducal gift for the newly established monastery near Kraków, has recently been reconsidered and today it is difficult to claim that the book was used in high medieval Poland. The Sacramentary of Tyniec, thus, is no proof of the Piast political liturgies.113
110 Tadeusz Silnicki, Dzieje i ustrój Kościoła na Śląsku do końca w. XIV (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1953), pp. 129 and 328, n. 3. More references to other authors dealing with MS 149 (olim: 150) in Figurski, ‘Beyond’, pp. 396–99. 111 The hypothesis of the Polish Laudes Regiae based on the Gesta has been proposed by Brygida Kürbis, ‘Polskie “laudes regiae” w Kronice Anonima Galla’, in Cultus et cognitio: Studia z dziejów średniowiecznej kultury, ed. by Stefan K. Kuczyński and others (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1976), pp. 299–311 (pp. 310–11). There references to relevant passages. 112 Gniezno, Archdiocesan Archive, MS 149, fols 80r–82v starting with the ending phrase of the Memento section. The analysis of the manuscript: Missale Plenarium, Bibl. capit. Gnesnensis MS. 149: Musicological and Philological Analyses, ed. by Krzysztof Biegański and Jerzy Woronczak, Antiquitates Musicae in Polonia, 11 (Warszawa and Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt & Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1972). Recently on the codex: Jan Gajur, ‘Mszał gnieźnieński z Nideraltaich: Missale Plenarium Ms. 149 vetusque antiquissimus’, Colloquia Theologica Ottoniana, 1 (2018), 279–300, though one has to be cautious with the conclusions offered in this paper. 113 More on this in Paweł Figurski, ‘Political Liturgies, Cologne’s Manuscript Culture, and Historical Myths, or: The Provenance of the Sacramentary of Tyniec’, in Das Sakramentar aus Tyniec: Eine
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Similarly, at present, we do not know what text might have been used for the first Piast coronations around 1025. Earlier scholarship, following the traditional view of the PRG as the imperial project of the 960s from Mainz, claimed that the famous Ottonian ordo coronationis was certainly used during the anointing of Bolesław the Brave and Mieszko II.114 Today, after Henry Parkes’s analysis, which re-dated the composition of the PRG with its ordo coronationis, this conclusion is not so certain.115 Although the very first ordo coronationis preserved in the Piast realm is the Ottonian text, it is embedded in a much later manuscript dated to the late twelfth/early thirteenth century.116 The eleventh-century Pontifical of Kraków (mentioned above), especially the benedictions over the ruler, share their liturgical tradition with the selected European ordines coronationis, specifically the so-called Ratold Ordo, but this fact alone is insufficient to argue for Ratold Ordo as the basis for the abridged Piast ordo coronationis.117 From many texts which might have been used for the 1025 anointings of the Polish rulers, there remains the so-called Early German Ordo, which around the year 1000 was broadly dissemi‐ nated and found in remote places of the Ottonian government such as Ivrea.118
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Prachthandschrift des 11. Jahrhunderts und die Beziehungen zwischen Köln und Krakau in der Zeit Kasimir des Erneuerers, ed. by Klaus Gereon Beuckers and Andreas Bihrer (Cologne: Böhlau, 2018), pp. 66–91. For example, Dalewski, Władza, przestrzeń, ceremoniał, p. 106; Zbigniew Dalewski, ‘Ceremonia inauguracji władcy w Polsce XI–XIII wieku’, in Imagines potestatis: Rytuały, symbole i konteksty fabularne władzy zwierzchniej, Polska X–XV w., ed. by Jacek Banaszkiewicz (Warszawa: IH PAN, 1994), pp. 9–30 (p. 21); Michał Sołomieniuk, ‘Koronacja królewska jako akt liturgiczny: Tekst źródłowy i komentarz’, in Gniezno – miasto królów, ed. by Stanisław Pasiciel and others (Gniezno: Muzeum Początków Państwa Polskiego, 2012), pp. 105–23 (pp. 106, 118). Parkes, ‘Henry II, Liturgical Patronage’, pp. 101–41. Pontificale Plocense I, Płock, Seminary Library, MS EPl. 4 (olim: MS 29), fols 80v–89v. Editions: Antoni Podleś, Pontyfikał Płocki z XII wieku [Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München Clm 28938; Biblioteka Seminarium Duchownego Płock Mspł. 29]: Studium Liturgiczno-źródłoznawcze. Edycja Tekstu (Płock: Płockie Wydawnictwo Diecezjalne, 1986), pp. 111–16 and recently Pontificale Plocense I, vol. 2: Textus et in linguam Polonam translatio, ed. by Leszek Misiarczyk (Warszawa and Pelplin: Bernardinum, 2020), pp. 141–53. Recently on the provenance of the manuscript: Paweł Figurski, ‘Marginalia w “Pontificale Plocense I”: Przyczynek do rozpoznania dziejów rękopisu’, [accessed 10 July 2020]; Studia nad Pontificale Plocense I XII–XIII w., ed. by Henryk Seweryniak and Weronika Liszewska (Warszawa and Pelplin: Bernardinum, 2020), especially the papers by Weronika Liszewska, ‘Badania materiałów w analizie kodykologicznej i paleograficznej “Pontificale Plocenese I”’, pp. 312–44 (pp. 339–41) and Jacek Tomaszewski, ‘Analiza kodykologiczna i paleograficzna “Pontificale Plocenese I”’, pp. 255–308 (pp. 296–97). See Figurski, ‘Liturgiczne początki’, pp. 774–93. The edition and the analysis of the Early German Ordo in Carl Erdmann, Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frühmittelalters, ed. by Friedrich Baethgen (Berlin: Akademie, 1951), pp. 54–70. The text from Ivrea in Sacramentary of Warmund, Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS LXXXVI, fols 2r–8r. Christiane Prestel and Pierre-Allain Mariaux argued that the quire with the ordo coronationis was not originally bound with the rest of the extant Sacramentary. In any event, the northern Italian script might be dated to around 1000. See Christiane Prestel, Das Sakramentar des Bischofs Warmundus,
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More research, however, should be undertaken to identify the Piast coronation ceremony of the eleventh century. More certain is the performance of the Exultet finale with the title of the ruler alongside the pope and the local bishop in the medieval kingdom of Poland. The Piast ruler was certainly immersed in the liturgical celebrations of the Paschal Vigil in Płock, where the twelfth-century Evangelistarium contains the Easter chant with the title of the ruler (fol. 100r), the first example of such a practice from Poland.119 A later example from the Mazovia region provides additional proof for the importance of this ritual. The name of the local duke, Bolesław II, was inscribed at the beginning of the fourteenth century in gold and red ink in the majuscule script to the local gradual.120 The invocation of a Piast name within the Exultet can also be compared to earlier periods, because this practice is commonly attested in high medieval liturgical books throughout Latin Europe.121 Thus, the Piasts received their proper place in the history of salvation beside other sacramentally ordained hierarchs. Their names were invoked during Easter liturgical celebrations during the redemption story narrated in the Exultet. Here, I will not delve further into other examples of political liturgies from the Piast realm that were similar to Carolingian practices, thus underpinning the theory of sacramental kingship on the peripheries of Latin Christianity. The study of this subject is still far from being completed, both for the Carolingian and Piast realms.122 In respect to Poland alone, there are still dozens of manuscripts that contain numerous examples of political liturgies.123 I hope, nonetheless, that
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Ivrea, Bibl. Cap., Cod. LXXXVI (unpublished PhD thesis, Heidelberg, 1993) pp. 27 and 189–90; Pierre-Allain Mariaux, Warmond d’Ivrée et ses images: Politique et création iconographique auteur de l’an mil (Bern: Lang, 2002), pp. 67–72 and 245–46. More on this manuscript Paweł Figurski, ‘Das sakramentale Herrscherbild in der politischen Kultur des Frühmittelalters’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 50 (2016), 129–61 (pp. 150–55). The Exultet chant extant in the last original quire of the Evangelistarium, Płock, Seminary Library, MS EPl 3 (olim: 140), fols 99r–100r. The edition with the facsimile: Ewangelistarz Płocki z XII wieku: Krytyczne wydanie tekstu łacińskiego z kodeksu ‘Perykopy Ewangeliczne’ Archiwum Diecezji Płockiej, ed. by Leszek Misiarczyk and Bazyli Degórski (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UKSW, 2016), p. 421. More on this issue in Figurski, ‘The Exultet of Bolesław II’, pp. 73–111. The studies of the practice, e.g., Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘A Norman Finale of the Exultet and the Rite of Sarum’, Harvard Theological Review, 34 (1941), 129–43; Gerard B. Ladner, ‘The “Portraits” of Emperors in Southern Italian Exultet Rolls and the Liturgical Commemoration of the Emperor, Speculum, 17/2 (1942), 181–200; Figurski, ‘The Exultet of Bolesław II’, pp. 92–98. There more references. Numerous other examples from the Carolingian period, not mentioned in this text, are offered by Biehl, Das liturgische Gebet; Hen, The Royal Patronage; Garipzanov, The Symbolic Language, pp. 43– 100; Choy, Intercessory Prayer, pp. 131–61, among others. Among the most interesting manuscripts, I would like to mention the Kraków Benedictional, Kraków, Archives of the Cathedral Chapter, MS 23 (olim: 40) with numerous blessings for the feasts of saintly rulers and votive blessings for kings, fols: 11r (David), 21r (Helena), 69v (Emperor Constantine), 92v (Oswald), 126r (Lucius King), 186v–187v (for a king during a synod), 189r–190r (for a king whenever one desires), 193r–v (during the times of war), 193v (for warriors), 199v
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this brief and, at times necessarily, sketchy overview has already demonstrated that the ritual attire, woven out of various liturgical traditions in the Carolingian period, also clothed rulers at the peripheries of Latin Christianity, though in much humbler form. Still, the examples of the political liturgy in the Polish kingdom provided here have been sufficient to forge our understanding of Piast rulership as an inner-ecclesiastical office, similar in character to other sacramentally ordained hierarchs of the Church. The earthly kingdom of the Piasts signified the heavenly one of God. The Piast ruler mirrored Christ, as hinted at by the so-called Gallus and other sources.
Conclusion In these few examples, selected from the first hundred years of Carolingian rule, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the liturgical construction of an idea that earthly rulers were perceived as signs of Christ’s kingship and sharers in certain sacramental features with the ordained ministers of the Church. It has also offered an overview of the Carolingian model attested at the peripheries of Latin Chris‐ tianity: in the high medieval Polish kingdom. As to how this kingship theory influenced broader societal strata and governmental practice remains beyond the scope of this paper. I hope to address these issues in my future monograph. In any event, based on the provided examples, both in the Carolingian centers and post-Carolingian peripheries, there are many attestations of the belief that kingship was perceived as part of the professed world’s sacramentality. Therefore, this chapter proposes the use of the term of sacramental kingship to denote the character of the royal office as encountered in the sources analysed above. Within the proposed sacramental framework there was no harsh opposition between the natural and the supernatural, between Ullmann’s ascending and de‐ scending principles of government, or between Nelson’s liturgified and consensual elements of political ideology. The approach presented in this paper offers another perspective for debating early and high medieval royal power, one that represents more closely the views of medieval authors rather than modern ones. It seems that modernity’s approach to premodern political power has, for the most part, succeeded in using the theory of secularization to normalize its political orders and concepts over and against premodern systems and ideas of rulership. The writing of this erroneous account has come about in two primary ways.
(Queen Adelaida). I hope to edit this manuscript in due course. Also worth mentioning is the iconography of royal power embedded in many Piast codices. These and other manuscripts are analysed in my project funded by the Polish Science Center (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), Sonatina grant no. 2018/28/C/ HS3/00464, entitled: Neglected Sources: A Socio-Political History of Poland (until ca. 1300) Based on Liturgical Manuscripts. I hope to launch in the very near future a website of the project with the results, the list of the manuscripts, and the short descriptions of the most interesting codices.
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Firstly, there has been an evident trend toward mystifying premodern political culture and presenting it as the radical other: magical, non-rational, pre-scientific, sacral, like the Nacirema people. Secondly, there were attempts to project emerg‐ ing normative elements of modern political systems onto premodern culture. Thus, scholars started creating linear and unilateral narratives about premodern Europe in which secular civic power was either failing or emerging, yet all moving towards secular dominance in modernity. According to this narrative, the process of secularization was inevitable, just as in Frazer’s narrative, in which knowledge proceeds from magic via religion to science. By looking into the rituals of power and Christian liturgy in premodern society, this chapter has drawn attention to the sacramental vision of kingship as envisioned by selected medieval sources. This approach moves beyond the modern binary division of the sacred and the secular that misrepresents premod‐ ern realities. In the sacramental theology of Augustine, Isidore, Carolingian and post-Carolingian theologians, there was an interconnection between humanity and divinity, an immanence and transcendence, a visible sign and an invisible grace. Moreover, natural elements were indispensable if God’s grace was to be represented on earth. It did not, however, mean that medieval authors and users of the liturgical prayers believed that they had already lived in the fully realized eschatological kingdom of God. They awaited that kingdom, which would come at the Last Judgement. They professed that only in the eschatological kingdom after the second coming of Christ would the world be transformed into the ultimately sacred one. Until then, the anticipated eschatology had to suffice for them, provided by the sacraments that were gradually transforming the world with all of its institutions. Medieval kingship, as attested in the sources mentioned in this paper, participated in this belief of mutual earthly-heavenly exchange.
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The Lord of the Liturgy * Political Theology in the Byzantine Liturgies
Introduction The Byzantine liturgies, or more properly speaking the liturgies of the Christian Roman Empire, express a specific relationship between the faithful and God. Beyond the mystery of the salvific sacrifice of Christ, the liturgies stress His Lordship, as well as the monarchy of God: Christ, and through Christ the Trinity, ruling over the history of mankind as the ultimate triune sovereign. Lordship and sovereignty are attested specifically in the many and various liturgical formulae, which clearly manifest political relations. Beyond the obvious ‘Lord’, ‘king’, and ‘kingdom’, such formulae also include ‘peace’, ‘philanthropy’, ‘power’, or ‘glory’, which create a consistent vision of the relationship of the ‘people of God’ and Christ, who is their ultimate Lord and Judge. ‘Master’ and ‘judge’ are both obvious political titles. While these two anaphoras analyzed in this essay present a later stage in the development of the liturgies, they retain the political character of the relationship between God and His people which had been already present in early Christian liturgical fragments hearkening back to Scriptural foundations. The task set forth by this essay is to call attention to this latent aspect of the liturgies of the Middle Byzantine period (from the ninth to eleventh centuries) by mapping out a complex web of politically charged liturgical terms. The precise meanings of the political vocabulary of the liturgical anaphorae is presented in the Appendix to this essay, and the body of the text overviews these findings. It seems to border on the trivial to say that when Christ is addressed as Lord, God as King, or when the Kingdom of God is invoked, it has a political undertone. However, such phrases are mostly considered either as obvious ele‐ ments of the liturgical language which hardly deserve mentioning, or they are simply passed over when focusing on symbolic or mystical understandings. Since
* I would like to express my gratitude to the editors and my reviewers for their corrections and for the numerous helpful suggestions. All remaining mistakes are my responsibility. Two disclaimers, however, are in place: first, that the author is not an ex professo liturgist, but a historian of political ideas in Late Antiquity. This essay is therefore more philosophical in nature. Second, that this paper was written up during the Covid–19 pandemic which brought about a very limited availability of library materials, which explains why in some cases the online available older editions had to be used. György Geréby • Central European University
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Christian rites have contained politically significant formulae from the earliest traces of liturgical development, these terms are passed over as if their theological significance would ‘go without saying’. The preponderance of the mystical and the sacramental in traditional spiritual approaches has indeed set the significance of the political terms aside. Modern historical studies, on the other hand, direct their attention mostly to the branchings and variations in the versions and arrange‐ ments of these liturgies, and are content with the spiritual interpretation.
Byzantine Liturgies The spiritual interpretation of the Byzantine liturgies primarily hinges on the mys‐ tagogical understanding, for which the great protagonist was Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (about 470) in his Ecclesiastical hierarchy. This was in turn ‘can‐ onized’ by the Mystagogy of Maximos Confessor (about 630) and followed by later commentators.1 The mystagogical interpretation remained dominant among modern theologians, historians and liturgists, too, like the Orthodox Alexander Schmemann,2 the Catholic historian Hans-Joachim Schulz3 and the Jesuit Robert Taft.4 The Catholic Dom Odo Casel (1886–1948) developed the influential approach that Christianity was a spiritual and mystery religion.5 Casel’s view was challenged by Erik Peterson (1890–1960). According to Peterson: One could call the Christian ekklesia the assembly of the rightful citizens of the city of heaven gathered for the performance of certain rites. The cult celebrated by the church is a public cult and not a mystery celebration, and what the worship of the Church celebrates is a public worship and not a mystery celebration. It is a dutiful public performance, a leitourgia, and not an initiation dependent on voluntary discretion. The public-legal character of Christian worship reflects the fact that the Church is far closer to political
1 For a detailed history of the Byzantine commentary tradition of the liturgy see René Bornert, Les commentaires byzantins de la divine liturgie du VIIe au XVe siècle (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1966). 2 Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Bangor, ME: The Faith Press, 1966) and Petrus Hendrix, ‘Der Mysteriencharacter des byzantinischen Liturgie’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 30 (1929/30), 333–39. 3 Hans-Joachim Schulz, Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, trans. by Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo, 1986), an extended version of Die byzantinische Liturgie. Vom Werden ihrer Symbolgestalt (Freiburg im Breisgau: Lambertus-Verlag, 1964). 4 Robert F. Taft, ‘The Spirit of Eastern Christian Worship’, in Robert F. Taft, Beyond East and West. Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Roma: Edizioni Orientalia Christiana, 1997), pp. 143–60. 5 Odo Casel, Die Liturgie als Mysterienfeier (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1923). See also Theodor Filthaut, Die Kontroverse über die Mysterienlehre (Warendorf: J. Schnell, 1947); André Gozier, Odo Casel. Künder des Christusmysteriums (Regensburg: Pustet, 1986).
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entities such as the empire and the polis than to voluntary associations and societies.6 In the following, I would like to develop Peterson’s point further. The hieratic reading of liturgical language, based on the undeniable symbolic and mystical aspects, easily directs the attention away from latent political structures. On closer inspection, however, not only the above-mentioned terms, but also dozens of other liturgical expressions carry a political dimension expressing a public-legal relationship between the Triune God and God’s people. The extent to which such terms are employed implies a different character not only underlying but also underpinning the spiritual character. The emergence of a tightly knitted network of politically charged terms refers less to the high theology of the theologians than to the nature of the rulership of God present both in the Old Law (that is, the Old Testament, a term often used in patristic texts) and the New.7 Let me offer two characteristic examples for this aspect of liturgical language: For You are far above all principality (‘ἀρχή’), and power (‘ἐξουσία’), and might (‘δύναμις’), and dominion (‘κυριότης’), and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. (cf. Eph. 1. 21) Round You stand ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands of holy angels and hosts of archangels, thrones, principalities, dominions and powers, the two seraphim.8 In this doxology of the Liturgy of St Mark (Egyptian rite) the significant terms are shared with the imperial titulature.9 The term ‘principality’ means rule, like in the case of the ‘Roman rule’ (‘ἡ ἀρχὴ ἡ Ῥωμαϊκή’). ‘Power’ is a classic political term for exercising the legal right to rule, like the Roman tribunicia potestas (‘δημαρχικὴ ἐ ξουσία’), implying sacrosanctity, that is, personal inviolability (for the period in office), which was later claimed by Roman emperors.10 ‘Might’ belongs to the formulae of the imperial cult, expressing the exhibition of power which is respected and worshipped, being a sign of the divine.11 The clause ‘not
6 Erik Peterson, ‘Die Kirche’, in Theologische Traktaten, ed. by Barbara Nichtweiss (Würzburg: Echter, 1994), p. 253. The English translation was unavailable for me: Erik Peterson, Theological Tractates, ed. and trans. by Michael Hollerich (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). If not indicated otherwise, all translations in this essay are mine. 7 Athanasius, Quaestiones in scripturam sacram, PG, 28 (Paris: Migne, 1857), col. 752C: ‘αἱ δύο Διαθῆκαι, ὁ παλαιὸς νόμος καὶ ὁ νέος’ and John Chrysostom, De Eleazaro et septem pueris, PG, 63 (Paris: Migne, 1862), col. 528B. 8 Frank E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, vol. 1: Eastern liturgies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1896), p. 131, ll. 21–23. See also p. 112. 9 Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, trans. by Lionel M. R. Strachan (New York-London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), p. 368, n. 6. 10 Dio, Historiae 54, 28, 1. Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiarum Romanarum quae supersunt, ed. by Ursulus P. Boissevain, 3 vols (Berlin: Weidmann, 1895–1901), II, p. 468. 11 James H. Moulton, George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914–1929), p. 81.
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only in this world but in that which is to come’, has an eschatological meaning but in another sense it also implies God’s eternity.12 This divine eternity, is juxtaposed to the Roman claim to eternity (Roma aeterna, and see ‘aiōnios’).13 Finally, the overall image described in the doxology invokes the court of the ruler, who is celebrated by immense hosts, in accordance with the throne-room descriptions of Rev. 4–22. The Book of Revelation, however, is well known to have deliberately adopted the language of the ceremonies of the imperial court.14 The second example could be the introductory words of the priest to the Lord’s Prayer: And make us worthy, Master, with confidence and without fear of condemnation, to dare call Thee, the heavenly God, Father, and to say: […] Our Father.15 The vocative ‘Master’ (‘δέσποτα’) implies a lord and slave relation. The address ‘Father’, apart from the implication of parental care, also alludes to the standard title of the Roman emperors in vogue since Augustus who was called pater patriae, father of the fatherland. On the other hand, the term ‘with confidence’ (‘parrhēsia’, q.v.) is a specific term meaning the favour allowing for the boldness of speech in the presence of the ruler. This particular grace exempts the speakers from being condemned for their reckless daring in addressing the Ruler. These examples invite a more attentive analysis of the politically significant terms in the liturgical language. The many-faceted terms and expressions and their interconnected use form a cluster, and thereby they create an overall image. This image, manifested in groups of formulae help the participants in the liturgy to ‘construct themselves’ in a particular way, as participants of a specific biblical model.16 The liturgies of the Great Church of the capital (the Hagia Sophia of Constan‐ tinople) were built from the textual blocks quoting or hearkening back to central ideas inherited from early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism.17 The Septuagint
12 The expression ‘the world to come’, a version of the Hebrew expression ‘olam ha-ba’, first occurs in Enoch 71. 15, dated to the first century bce. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. by Robert Henry Charles, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), II, p. 237. Dating of the source on p. 171. 13 For more detailed lexicographic notes see the Appendix to this essay. 14 David E. Aune, ‘The Influence of Roman Imperial Court Ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John’, Biblical Research, 18 (1983), 5–26; Steven J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John, Reading Revelation in the Ruins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and Kenneth Cukrowski, ‘The Influence of the Emperor Cult on the Book of Revelations’, Restoration Quarterly, 45 (2003), 51–64. 15 Brightman, Liturgies, p. 339, ll. 20–22. 16 Derek Krueger, Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), p. 187. ‘Construction’’is a key term in Krueger’s interpretation of the liturgy. 17 I use the term ‘Hellenistic’ in the wide, cultural sense which includes the Roman imperial period, too.
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and the New Testament provided the intertextuality for liturgical formulae.18 While the precise origins of the Christian liturgy remain unknown, even the surviving early fragments and faint traces show the stable presence of certain central ideas, like the Lordship of Christ, or the Kingdom of God.19 There had been, of course, many changes and developments in the history of the liturgies. Still, as a highly conservative genre, it can be hardly doubted that certain central aspects had always formed the core of Christian services devoted to God. It is, of course, a triviality that the post-iconoclastic liturgies of Constantinople are different from the earliest Christian liturgies. However, they do share basic terms and theological ideas. The words of the Septuagint or the New Testament were born in a different age, but their legacy, the shared political usage of the Old Law and the New remained embedded and thereby preserved also in later liturgical texts. These scriptural building blocks are sometimes longer pieces (like the Psalms or the Lord’s Prayer), but even the short phrases, sometimes even single words, allude to extended and complex Scriptural passages. The liturgical texts thereby qualify to be termed as a kind of cento (‘κέντρων’), a late antique term for the literary patchwork woven together from pre-existent excerpts of texts.20 This continuity comes naturally since the earliest fragments of Christian liturgy shared basic elements with the Jewish synagogal liturgy, and had devel‐ oped on the scriptural basis of both the Old Testament and the New. These elements were passed on, even in modified form, to the later, more complex services.21 Of course, the Christian liturgy differed from the Hellenistic Jewish an‐
18 The Scriptures in the context of the Greek liturgies are the Septuagint (LXX) and the Byzantine textform of the New Testament. Septuaginta: id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX interpretes, ed. by Alfred Rahlfs, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935). English translation: A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. by Albert Piertsma and Benjamin G. Wright (New YorkOxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); The New Testament in the Original Greek. Byzantine Textform, ed. by Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont (Southborough Mass: Hilton Book Publishing, 2005). For an English translation I will rely on the New King James version, with indicated occasional changes. 19 For a Hellenistic-Biblical example of political terminology see 3 Maccabees 2. 2–3: ‘Lord, Lord, king of the heavens and sovereign of all creation, holy among the holy ones, sole ruler, almighty […] governor of all, just ruler’ (‘Κύριε κύριε, βασιλεῦ τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ δέσποτα πάσης κτίσεως, ἅγιε ἐν ἁγίοις, μόναρχε, παντοκράτωρ, […] καὶ τῶν ὅλων ἐπικρατῶν δυνάστης δίκαιος εἶ’). Beyond these terms one can find e.g. ‘omnipotent master’ (see ‘despotēs’ and ‘pantokratōr’ in the Appendix) or ‘bowing their heads to you’ (see ‘klinō’) in the eighth book of the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions (8. 15. 9): Les constitutions apostoliques, ed. by Marcel Metzger, Sources Chrétiennes, 320, 329, 336, 3 vols (Paris: Le Cerf, 1985–1987), III, p. 214. 20 For instance, a wonderful collection of Christian poetry woven together from Homeric terms: Centons homériques: Patricius, Eudocie, Optimus côme de Jérusalem, ed. by André-Louis Rey, Sources Chrétiennes, 437 (Paris: Le Cerf, 1998). 21 George S. Bebis, ‘The Influence of Jewish Worship on Orthodox Christian Worship’, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, (22) 1977, 136–42; Bernhard Klaus, Antikes Erbe und christlicher Gottesdienst. Eine kulturgesichtliche Spurensuche (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1998), pp. 1–21. Still useful: William O. E. Oesterley, The Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925).
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cestor in the texts included from the New Testament and in substantial interpreta‐ tive changes reflecting Christian theology (manifested in such seemingly minor changes, like the addition of ‘heaven and’ to the Sanctus). The liturgical texts carry on the meanings of these earlier phrases in a renewed form, ‘reinterpreting by sublation’, even if the interpretative tradition could take on different directions over their long history. The terms adopted by the translators and writers of the Greek scriptures (both in the LXX and in the New Testament) had to rely on terms which had an already complex contextual meaning in the Hellenistic environment. The Quellenforschung of the nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship has documented this context. By taking over the terms, however, the early Christian authors created a new usage. What was used to formulate the mysteries of power in the Hellenistic context now was adopted to show the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
The Political in a Liturgical Context What does political mean in the liturgical context? According to the classic conservative definition of Carl Schmitt, politics is the fundamental distinction between friend and foe.22 This distinction is present in theology. The friends of God, that is, his people who follow His commandments, who perform the liturgy of the ruler around His throne, are antagonistic to those, who reject God, and his commandments.23 The foes are the powers of this world, and their peoples, the gentiles who worship them. The people of God express their loyalty and allegiance by acclamations to the person of the only legitimate ruler, God, and thereby unite themselves in the people of God (‘laos’), the Church (‘ekklēsia’). Hence politics is by no means reserved only to the secular realm. God is called ‘king’ twenty-six times in the Chrysostom liturgy.24 The Cherubic hymn sings ‘that we may receive the King of all’. God is the King of Israel (e.g. Is 7. 1; Mt 27. 42; J 12. 13). An important prophetic text says that ‘Your God shall reign’ (or according to the LXX: ‘is ruling as a king’, ‘βασιλεύσει σου ὁ θεός’) (Is 52. 7). Since the Church (in the normative sense) is the New Israel, this relationship is transitive to the new People of God, too. The divine nature of Christ is manifested by Him being the Lord, especially the Lord of His people. Lordship, however, is always a lordship over subjects, and this relationship defines the connection between God and humanity. Creation 22 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political. Expanded Edition, trans. by George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Schmitt’s ominous personality is irrelevant from the theoretical point of view. 23 György Geréby, ‘The Angels of the Nations. Is National Christianity Possible?’, in Across the Mediterranean – Along the Nile. Studies in Egyptology, Nubiology and Late Antiquity Dedicated to László Török on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday, ed. by Tamás A. Bács, Ádám Bollók, and Tivadar Vida, 2 vols (Budapest: Akadémiai, 2019), II, pp. 819–48. 24 Counting is based on Brightman’s edition.
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defines the laws of nature, and the divine legislature defines human government and conduct. The legislation of the whole creation is by God, from spiritual beings down to all creatures, including humans. The realm of the inhabited world (the oecumene, οἰκουμένη) is also created by God, and therefore it belongs to God. What is more, there is a special relationship between God and humanity, since humanity was created ‘in the image and likeness of God’ (cf. Gen. 1. 16).25 While humankind is given the power to rule over the creatures, humanity’s ultimate real task is to join in the celebration of God’s glory around His throne. Despite the many revolts of humankind against the Lord, He has special care for humanity and has the ultimate power to accomplish it, expressed in covenants, from the promise to Noah to the sacrifice of his ‘only-begotten Son’, the uniquely generous offer to humanity. God’s munificence is acclaimed by the recurrent liturgical praise of divine philanthropy, ‘φιλανθρωπία’. (See ‘philanthrōpia’). Therefore these liturgies represent an overarching vision connecting the two courts of God, the one in heaven and the other on earth. The Cherubicon Hymn admonishes the faithful that they ‘mystically represent’ the highest-ranking heav‐ enly powers surrounding the throne of God, the cherubim. (More about this text below). The earthly court thereby joins in a privileged way the celebration of the divine largesse bestowed on God’s people by the wonderful acts of the Creation and the Incarnation of the Word. Both courts, the heavenly and the earthly perform a freely offered service acknowledging the holiness and greatness of God by a thoroughly organized commemoration and praise of His rule and actions in acclamations, praises, and supplications.26 As mentioned above, the model for these court ceremonials can be found in great and mysterious detail in the Book of Revelation, which employs a fusion of legal language and ritual, including the acclamations of the Roman imperial courts, together with the great visionary accounts of the Scriptures (primarily the visions of the prophets Isaiah and Ezechiel).27 The Book of Revelation seems to have intentionally adopted the well-known elements in order to show who the real ruler is, as opposed to the mystified image of the Roman emperor. By the fusion of the Hellenistic-Roman ritual terminology with biblical visions there emerges a unique image of the service around the person of the real Ruler, the Triune Deity. This service, the liturgy, evinces thereby a thoroughly political relationship in the many assorted ex‐ pressions, gestures and actions, which are, however, sanctioned both by references to the Old Law as to the New. 25 Brightman, Liturgies, p. 313, ll. 12–13. 26 Erik Peterson, ‘Himmlisiche und irdische Liturgie’, Benediktinische Monatschrift, 16 (1934), 39–47. English: Erik Peterson, The Angels and the Liturgy: the Status and Significance of the Holy Angels in Worship, trans. by Ronald Walls (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964). Reworked in Erik Peterson, ‘Von den Engeln’, in Theologische Traktate, pp. 195–243. Also, Klaus, Antikes Erbe, p. 7. 27 Deissmann, Light, p. 367 points out that the confession of the Kingdom of Christ in the Book of Rev. (17. 14; 18; 19. 16) over any other kings conveyed a ‘tense polemical feeling against the Caesars’. Hans-Ulrich Wiemer, ‘Akklamationen im spätrömischen Reich. Zur Typologie und Funktion eines Kommunikationsrituals’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 86 (2004), 27–73.
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A methodological remark is necessary. Early Christianity distilled liturgical terms mainly from the Scriptures, more precisely from its Greek form, the Septu‐ agint (LXX) as they were legitimized by the New Testament, but also combined them with adopted Hellenistic terms, which were apt to represent theological ideas.28 The appropriation served a double purpose: partly to convey Scriptural ideas to a gentile audience, but also to expropriate imperial terminology. The semantic complex resulting from this adaptation then became a kind of heirloom, which was handed down, re-engineered and expanded from generation to gener‐ ation from Early Christianity onwards in the liturgical usage of the mainstream Church. An example of this is the Great Doxology, which reaches back to the seventh chapter of the Apostolic Constitutions from the fourth century.29 As it was mentioned above, many liturgical terms discussed in this essay over‐ lapped with the terminology known and used in the Greek-speaking Hellenistic environment. Instead of new coinages, they were re-interpreted and adapted to ex‐ press specific Christian theology. In Christian Greek terminology, therefore, these terms acquired a new sense. As Adolf Deissmann put it ‘the power of Christianity to form “new” words was not nearly as large as its effect in “transforming” the meaning of the old words’.30 Consequently, there emerged a good case for the Wittgensteinian adage that ‘meaning is use’.31 A new context and a new usage converted well-known and widely used legal and political terms and phrases and then helped to establish and convey the specific Christian message following the strategy of a ‘polemical parallelism’.32
An Image in Liturgical Terms For a terminological analysis of the politically significant terms of the two major liturgies included in the Appendix, I have been able to rely on solid lexicographic evidence. Of course, these terms all have other possible interpretations. How‐ ever, their joint presence points towards a distinctive image. In this section, I would like to describe the great image emerging from the dense use of these interrelated liturgical expressions. The conjunction and repetition of the closely related terms serve a purpose: to shape the ‘liturgical self ’ through ceremonial.33
28 For such a take-over without Biblical precedent see Erik Peterson, ‘Die Bedeutung von “ΑΝΑΔΕΙΚΝΥΜΙ” in den griechischen Liturgien’, in Festgabe für Adolf Deissmann zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. collective (Tübingen: Mohr, 1927), pp. 320–26. 29 Constitutiones Apostolorum in Les constitutions apostoliques, ed. by Metzger, III, pp. 52–56. On the history of the Great Doxology: Fergus M. T. Ryan, ‘The Gloria in excelsis Deo: Sources, Theology and Significance for the Roman Rite’, Ephemerides Liturgicae, 113 (2019), 222–37. 30 Deissmann. Light, p. 73. Emphasis in the original. 31 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. by Gertrude E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958), 1. 43, p. 20e. 32 Deissmann, Light, p. 353. 33 Krueger, Liturgical Subjects, p. 5.
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These re-interpretive adaptions defied their contemporary usage. The transposi‐ tion emerged during the early Christian period, of which a primary example is the Book of Revelation. The scriptural formulae then crystallized into a residue which served as a conceptual frame of reference over the centuries despite all the subsequent liturgical changes. The essence of the grand image is the courtly service and celebration of the person of God by His people, the people of God’ (‘λαὸς τοῦ θεοῦ’), the Church. God’s name, however, is the Trinity. ‘Hallowed and glorified is Thy sublime and wondrous name, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’ [337a,b22– 3].34 The various phrases all stress that the Triune God is the only monarch, addressed with vocatives ‘Lord’ and ‘Master’ (‘Κύριε’ or ‘Δέσποτα’, see ‘kyrios’ and ‘despota’ in the Appendix). While the term itself is not mentioned explicitly, the liturgy celebrates God’s sole rule, that is, His monarchy (and not monotheism).35 Monarchy is a key theological idea expressing the sole providence of God as the ‘Lord of history’. As a Hellenistic opponent of Macarius Magnes towards the end of the fourth century formulated it sharply: it is not God’s existence, which matters, but His rule: ‘The monarch is not the one who alone is, but the one who alone rules’.36 The ‘heavenly king’ is the only holy one (monos hagios, ‘μόνος ἅγιος’) [318a19], and to Him only belong all doxa, timē and basileia. He is powerful (krataios see ‘kratos’), whose mighty presence (dynamis q.v.) extends everywhere. He is the all-powerful ruler, pantokratōr. God sits on the throne (‘thronos’), surrounded by the heavenly court, the archai, the exousiai and the kyriotētes and the other angelic orders. [318a15–20; 323a12–18] Therefore, He is called sabaōth, Lord of hosts. God’s irresistible power is always victorious. The heavenly hosts ‘cry aloud’, that is, acclaim day and night the victory hymn, the ‘epinikion hymnos’ (see ‘hymnos’). The supreme divine power is celebrated by exalted acclamations (ekboēsis q.v.), like in the Sanctus (cf. sabaōth) or by the repeated ‘dynamis’ or ‘amen’. The acclamations of both the heavenly powers and the people convened for the service around the King declare the holiness and might of the ruler, who is the sole sovereign: ‘One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ’ [341a,b17]. The heavenly hosts are blessed (‘makarioi’) [324a5–6] since they can attend to the presence of God. However, to serve God is ‘frightful and awesome even for
34 Henceforth the numbers in the brackets refer to Brightman’s edition of the Byzantine liturgies. In the brackets the first number indicates the page, then the letter ‘a’ the Liturgy of St Basil in the left column, while ‘b’ refers to the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom in the right column, the last number indicates the verse. 35 The term ‘monotheism’ is of early modern coinage by Henry More in 1660, in his An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, or a True Representation of the Everlasting Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Only Begotten Son of God and Sovereign over Men and Angels (London: Flecher, 1660), 3. 2. 5, p. 62. The pseudo-Greek term was unknown in Antiquity. 36 Macarius Magnes, Apocriticus, ed. by Charles Blondel (Paris: s.e., 1876), 4. 20, 3, p. 199.
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the heavenly powers’ [318a8–9]. Similarly, the judgement seat (‘bēma’) of Christ is fearsome (‘phoberon’) for the subjects [339a7–8; 343a4–5].37 God rules over His kingdom (‘basileia’, q.v.), but especially over his lot, His ‘klēronomia’. He is the King of Israel [318a19], His very own people and property. God is good and a lover of mankind (‘philanthrōpos’), of which the people are reminded and for which He is praised all along with the liturgy.38 God is a benefactor (‘euergetēs’) of his creation. He saves His people (‘sōzei’) which is manifested in sending Christ [315b16–18] and in His freely given mercy (‘eleos’) and compassion (‘oiktirmos’). He is the one who gives peace and eternal life [312a1–2]. God’s providential actions in history are secretive and mystical, but there is no doubt that the Trinity is the Lord of history. The liturgical texts of the period speak about God as legislator (‘nomothetēs’, ‘νομοθέτης’) by giving the Law (‘entolai’ q.v.) and issuing commands (‘tagmata’ q.v.) to His army (‘stratia’ q.v.), that is, to the hosts under His rule.39 The relationship between God and His people, however, is a lord – bondser‐ vant (doulos) relationship. The people in humility (‘tapeinōsis’ q.v.) express their worship of God as adoration by prostration, ‘bowing down’ (‘proskynēsis’ q.v.) and ‘bowing the head’ (‘klinein tas auchenas’ see ‘klinō’). As God is the only ruler, submission ought to be to Him alone and ‘not before flesh and blood but unto thee’. It is God to whom His people bow their head and offer their submission and worship (‘latreia’ q.v.) since these are the duties to God (cf. Gen 20. 5). He is the one to whom prayer (‘euchē’, εὐχή) is due. The people implore the One who can fulfill their needs. They send embassies of the priests and the saints for intercession in their name (‘presbeia’), led by the Holy Mother of God. Therefore, the people entreat (‘deēsis’ q.v.) their benefactor 37 The hymn replacing the Cherubicon on Black Saturday expresses the same idea:‘Let all mortal flesh keep silent and stand with fear and trembling (cf. Habakkuk 2. 20), and in itself consider nothing earthly (Σιγησάτω πᾶσα σὰρξ βροτεία, καὶ στήτω μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου, καὶ μηδὲν γήϊνον ἐν ἑαυτῇ λογιζέσθω); for the King of kings and Lord of lords cometh forth to be sacrificed, and given as food to the believers; and there go before Him the choirs of Angels, with every Dominion and Power, the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, covering their faces, and crying out the hymn: Alleluia’. The Orthodox Liturgy, trans. by the Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 110. The Greek text: Jacobus Goar, Euchologion sive rituale Graecorum (Venice: Typographia Bartholomaei Javarina, 1730; repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1960), p. 145. Silence was another important gesture when reading out an imperial decree and silence was to be kept in the imperial palace. Also, silence used to honour the presence of God: A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, third edition (BDAG), ed. by Frederick William Danker, based on Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, 6th edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000 – henceforth BDNT), s.v. σιγή. 38 It occurs about eighteen times in the Liturgy of St Basil, and somewhat fewer in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. 39 Not all of these terms occur in the main liturgies but they are mentioned in other texts in the same liturgical collections. God as nomothetēs: L’eucologio, nos 157 (p. 209); 277 (p. 303); 189 (p. 209); entolai: nos 90 (p. 80); 114 (p. 98); stratia: no. 247 (p. 269).
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who hears their prayer (Lk 1. 13). The supplications to the Lord all end with the acclamation ‘Lord, have mercy’ (‘Κύριε ἐλέησόν’, see ‘kyrios’, ‘eleeō’). As God bestows His largesse on the people, hence as He is blessed (‘eulogētos’, cf. Gen. 14. 20), so is His Kingdom [310a,b12] blessed, too. As the Sovereign, He and nobody other receives the gifts and the sacrifices. The people of God in their service (‘diakonia’) are joining in the choir of the heavenly court.40 They serve together (‘sulleitourgein’, ‘συλλειτουργεῖν’) and praise together (‘syndoxolo‐ gein’, ‘συνδοξολογεῖν’) God ‘with one mouth and one heart’ (‘μιᾷ καρδίᾳ καὶ ἑνὶ στόματι’) [312a22–23]. The people are allowed to approach God (prosenenkein, prosengizein) [319a18; 319b13], and they are given the permission to address God directly and freely (en parrhēsia) even if they are lowly (‘akhreioi’), unworthy (‘anaxioi’) and sinful (‘hamartōloi’) slaves, or bondservants of God (‘douloi’). The people approach God as a community (‘koinōnia’) [338b20]. The baptized, that is, the full members of the people of God stand in the ‘royal courts’ (‘basilikai aulai’, ‘βασιλικαὶ αὐλαί’).41 The faithful are united to each other [330a15], as they pray to God in first person plural for their unity [315b26– 8] (cf. J 11. 52), and ask for divine help to form the Church (‘ekklēsia’) as a body. The faithful confess the clauses of the Creed ‘with one mind’ (‘en homonoia proschōmen’), and implore God as a nation in the litanies, or peti‐ tions (deēthōmen), and send their glorification up to the throne of God (‘anapem‐ pomen’) in the first-person plural ‘with one mouth and one heart’ [337a,b20]. The unity of the people of God is expressed by the terms ‘let us pray in peace, or with one mind’ (‘en homonoiā’), or in mutual agreement (‘symphōnōs’) [311a23–25]. The prayers and acclamations are in the plural, not in the singular.42
How Does All This Reflect on the Relationship to Secular Rule? From the interconnected use of politically significant terms emerges the consis‐ tent image of a scripturally founded polity. For this unique Jewish form of polity, the Old Testament’s political vision, Flavius Josephus minted a new word ‘theoc‐ racy’.43 Theocracy does not mean the rule of a priestly class, but rather it expresses
40 Otfried Hofius, ‘Gemeinschaft mit den Engeln im Gottesdienst der Kirche. Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Skizze: Peter Stuhlmacher zum 60. Geburtstag’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 89/2 (1992), 172–96. 41 John Chyrostom, In 2 Corinthios, PG, 61 (Paris: Migne, 1862), col. 399C. 42 There is a very interesting oscillation in the recitation of the Creed between ‘I believe’ (‘pisteuō’) instead of ‘we believe’ (‘pisteuomen’) or credo instead of credimus. In baptismal context the firstperson singular seems appropriate while in the liturgical context the plural might represent the community. 43 Flavius Josephus über die Ursprünglichkeit des Judentums (Contra Apionem), ed. by Folker Sieger, 2 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2008), II, pp. 164–65, 177. Josephus makes it clear that he is introducing a neologism: ‘Our legislator took no notice of any of these [the contemporary political
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the concrete and real rulership of God, as the Lord of the world and of the Elect Nation. Theocracy is not an abstract idea of power, but is it is a clear and present exhibition of rulership, which always carries awe.44 The people are reminded of this force by the constant inclusion of ‘dynamis’ in the acclamations. The powers on earth (in the saeculum) are therefore subordinated to God’s supreme power (cf. Ps. 23. 7 [LXX]: ‘Lift up your gates, ye princes, … the king of glory shall come in’). Hence secular power is not based on a cosmic analogy; that is, the legitimacy of earthly rule is not dependent on a similarity to a heavenly paradigm. One cannot praise God by praising the emperor. If God’s power is present, the secular rule is subordinate. Only God can be praised for his glory. The liturgy reminds the participants that they are attending the service of the only legitimate Ruler. Celebrating God’s glory in the liturgy means joining in the heavenly liturgy, as it is voiced in the Cherubicon.45 Divine providence allows the secular rulers to govern, but they do not possess independent ontological legitimacy. Two early Christian examples might illustrate the exclusive meaning of theoc‐ racy, a fundamental idea behind the liturgical formulae. While these texts belong to a different historical period, they did survive in the hagiographic literature, in the minea and the synaxaristes.46 In a passage in the Martyrium Polycarpi the po‐ lice chief asks: ‘Now what harm is there for you to say “Caesar is Lord (kyrios)?”’ For a Christian, however, confessing to the lordship of Caesar, would deny the sole lordship of Christ. According to the Act, at this point Polycarp refuses, and then to the governor’s question answered that ‘How can I blaspheme against my king and saviour?’ Polycarp, however, could have equally answered: ‘One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ’ (cf. 1 Cor. 8. 6).47 The author of the Martyrium goes even as far as to flout the customary practice of dating by the reign of the
44 45
46 47
types], but instituted the government as what one might call – to force an expression – a “theocracy”, ascribing to God the rule and power’. Translation after Flavius Josephus Translation and Commentary, ed. by Steve Mason, vol. 10: Against Apion, trans. and comm. by John M. G. Barclay (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2007), pp. 260–62. (‘ὁ δ’ ἡμέτερος νομοθέτης εἰς μὲν τούτων οὐδοτιοῦν ἀπεῖδεν, ὡς δ’ ἄν τις εἴποι βιασάμενος τὸν λόγον θεοκρατίαν ἀπέδειξε τὸ πολίτευμα θεῷ τὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τὸ κράτος ἀναθείς’). (emphases mine). Barclay in his commentary hints at a similar interpretation on p. 261, n. 635. Steven Runciman, The Byzantine Theocracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) alludes to the idea of theocracy. He, however, does not explain the concept, and mentions it only once in the book in a very loose sense (at p. 4). John Chrysostom, In sanctum pascha, PG, 52 (Paris: Migne, 1859), col. 766 C: ‘Today the humans mixed up with the angels, and those who are enveloped by body offer up the hymnody by the side of the bodiless powers’. (‘Σήμερον ἄνθρωποι τοῖς ἀγγέλοις ἀνεμίγησαν, καὶ οἱ σῶμα περικείμενοι μετὰ τῶν ἀσωμάτων δυνάμεων λοιπὸν τὰς ὑμνῳδίας ἀναφέρουσι’). The same idea can be found in Maximus Confessor, Mystagogy 19. Maximi Confessoris Mystagogia una cum latina interpretatione Anastasii Bibliothecarii, ed. by Christian Boudignon, Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca, 69 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), p. 47. Most manuscripts of these martyr acts are dated between the ninth and twelfth centuries: The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, ed. by Herbert Musurillo (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) pp. xix–xx (Acta Polycarpi), p. xxii (Acta Scillitanorum). Polycarp’s manuscripts are described on pp. 302–03. As in the Euchologion, p. 40, n. 40 and p. 47, n. 48.
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emperors, by dating with the ‘eternal reign of Christ’ in chapter 21.48 Similarly, in another case, Speratos, the speaker for the Scillitan martyrs flatly declares that ‘I do not recognise the empire of this world’.49 Once the Empire became the Christian Roman Empire, such radical statements ceased to be required. The role of the secular rule now remained confined to the interim until the Second Coming, deprived of any possible pretension for a divine character.50 These examples belong to the early Christian period, however, these (and sim‐ ilar other martyr acts) were known and read as ‘role models’ by later generations.51 Another model was provided for the Christian Empire by the Old Testament kings, who ruled by divine approval (anointed by the prophets), but they were neither gods, nor even priests, and while they exercized power as granted them by God, they remained subject to God and they could also lose this favour by disobeying God. If the kingdom belongs to God, it cannot belong to emperors or kings. Rulers have their power only as a legitimate trust. According to Romans 13.1–7 the power wielded by the emperor is legitimate by divine assignment. In a normative sense the emperor of the universal Christian realm could claim rule over the oecumene, like the Old Testament kings could rule over Israel, but only by divine assignment. Its task is to secure the external wellbeing of the Church, but ultimately the emperor is another bondservant even if entrusted with a special task. Secular rulers, even the emperor, whenever they are mentioned in the liturgy, in the supplications or elsewhere, do not carry an independent role. The supplica‐ tions are voiced for the emperor and the empress [333b2–3; 333a6], but not to them.52 Neither do they receive any of the divine prerogatives, or the adjectives expressing divine might, power or sanctity.
48 Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd edn (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 328. 49 The Acts, ed. by Musurillo, p. 87. 50 It might be objected that Eusebius in the Vita Constantini, IV, 29, 4 says that Constantine imitates God in his governance, and in De Laudibus Constantini I. 6. that Constantine’s rule would be legitimized by an analogy to the cosmic paradigm of the monarchy of God. However, in both cases Eusebius stresses the supreme rule of God, who grants Constantine the rule which is therefore derivative and secondary as the result of divine providence. It has to be added that Eusebius’ authority was considered as tainted in Byzantium on three scores. He was charged with Arian sympathies, then with Origenist leanings and finally he had an iconoclast reputation. It is important that on the representations of the ecumenical councils in the period the empty throne of Christ is flanked by the emperor and the patriarch on the exact same level. See, e.g., https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Menologion_of_Basil_II#/ media/File:Menologion_of_Basil_024.jpg [accessed 7 April 2021] I dealt with these problems in my Isaiah Berlin lectures, now in preparation for publication. 51 Polycarp is commemorated on the 23 February, Speratos on the 17 July in the synaxaristes and the minea. https://saint.gr/%CE%A0/searchalphabet.aspx [accessed 7 April 2021]. 52 Juan Mateos, La célébration de la parole dans la liturgie byzantine. Étude historique (Roma: Pontificum Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1971), pp. 122–23.
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The same Euchologion Barberini of the ninth-century, alongside general liturgi‐ cal texts, contains also prayers for the inauguration of the emperors. One of the prayers begins with an address to God as ‘king of kings, lord or lords’ (cf. 1Tim 6. 15; Rev. 17. 14) who is ‘our lord’ (cf. Daniel 9. 15). Then the prayer recalls the anointing of David by Samuel and asks for power (‘dynamis’ q.v.) to be given to the emperor along with a long life. In the final clause the prayer once again addresses God and declares that ‘yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory’.53 The following prayer once again declares the true ruler by addressing God as ‘the only eternal king of mankind’.54 Concerning the emperor it is repeated that he ‘should bow the head’ to God, and then the ‘Lord of all’ is asked to preserve the emperor under his protection.55 The emperor is reminded that he is also a bondservant (‘doulos’ q.v.).56 The Book of Ceremonies from the same period describes the many and varied court rituals in painstaking detail.57 The protocols of imperial power are supposed to represent the care of the creator to preserve the harmony and movement of the world.58 The various processions, from visiting the Great Church, or returning from it on various feast days, were accompanied by strictly formalized acclama‐ tions. The long list of various acclamations, however, were all addressed to God, the Trinity, or the Mother of God to grant ‘long life’, ‘long reign’, ‘many years’ of rule, or asked for protection and well-being for the emperor.59 The empire is pious, and the emperors are elected by the Trinity.60 The furthest the acclamations go is when the people ask Christ in his philanthropy to command ‘that the imperial “dominion” (“kratos” q.v.) thrive and rule over the Romans for an interminable number of years’.61 The emperors of the Christian Roman Empire were representatives of the ‘mysteries of power’ on earth, but the origin of power came from God. The theological basis of their authority relied on the ultimate authority of the divine. The emperors wielded great power and often ruled the church in practical terms, but in every single liturgy they attended, even when they were invested with the crown and the authority, they were reminded that all power (‘exousia’) belongs
53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61
Euchologion, pp. 194–95, no. 171. Euchologion, pp. 196–97, no. 172. Euchologion, pp. 196–97, no. 172. Euchologion, p. 195, no. 171. Constantini Porphyrogenniti Imperatoris De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae libri duo, ed. by Johann J. Reiske, 2 vols (Bonn: Weber, 1829) [later: DCAB]. DCAB, p. 5, ll. 6–8. DCAB, p. 36, l. 22 ‘Πολλοὶ ὑμῖν χρόνοι’; p. 13, ll. 23–24: ‘Εἰς πολλοὺς χρόνους καὶ ἀγαθοὺς ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάγοι’; p. 36, ll. 3–4: ‘Πολλοὶ ὑμῖν χρόνοι, οἱ θεράποντες τοῦ Κυρίου’. DCAB, p. 30, ll. 22: ‘Πολλοὶ ὑμῖν χρόνοι, ἡ ἐκλογὴ τῆς Τριάδος’; p. 37, ll. 6–7: ‘Πολλοὶ ὑμῖν χρόνοι, ἡ ἔνθεος βασιλεία πολυχρόνιον ποιήσει ὁ Θεὸς τὴν ἁγίαν βασιλείαν ὑμῶν εἰς πολλὰ ἔτη’. DCAB, p. 36, ll. 15–17: ‘ὁ […] Χριστὸς φιλανθρωπίᾳ τὸ ὑμέτερον βασίλειον κράτος κατὰ σειρὰν ἀδιάδοχον κελεύῃ εὐτυχεῖν Ῥωμαίοις καὶ βασιλεύειν’.
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to God.62 The inscriptions of the palace of Emperor Basil I (867–886) testify to this relationship. ‘All that is good and pleasing to God has been accomplished and achieved in the days of our rule through this victorious symbol’. The other inscription testifies to the real ruler: ‘We thank Thee, O supremely good God and King of Kings’.63 The theological place of the emperor is symbolized by the very popular SyriacByzantine legend of the last emperor. According to the legend the Last Emperor will act as a kind of saviour of the Christian world, defeating its enemies. However, even he will not be able to resist the onslaught of the forces of the Antichrist, who will only be defeated by Christ. The emperor, therefore, will put down his crown on the Cross of Christ at the Second Coming, just as the twenty-four elders cast down their crowns before the throne of the Lamb (cf. Rev. 4, 10).64
Summary In the above analysis, accompanied with a more detailed appendix beneath, I show that a fundamental aspect of two Byzantine liturgies is the expression of the theocratic principle.65 This theological idea was not an innovation, though. For as early as Flavius Josephus, theocracy was meant to specify the peculiar polity of the Jews, a theologically grounded polity which centres around the service of the sole kingship of God, who rules over the world and over His own people by an exclusive relationship. This polity of theocracy, as a normative idea, was inherited by Christianity as well. The constitutive elements of the celebration of the Kingdom of God came to be present from the earliest relics of the Christian liturgy.
62 The role of the emperor of the Christian Roman Empire with respect to the church has been a matter of prolonged debates and it has been analyzed in great detail. I want to mention only three studies here: Otto Treitinger, Die oströmische Kaiser- und Reichsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im höfischen Zeremoniell ( Jena: Biedermann, 1938); Anton Michel, Die Kaisermacht in der Ostkirche (Darmstadt: Becker, 1959); and more recently Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest. The Imperial Office in Byzantium, trans. by Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). However, neither of these important studies look at the language of the liturgies. 63 Theophanis Continuati Liber V Vita Basilii Imperatoris ed. and trans. by Ihor Ševčenko (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2011), pp. 292–95. ‘διὰ τοῦδε τοῦ νικοποιοῦ συμβόλου πᾶν ἀγαθὸν καὶ φίλον θεῷ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τῆς ἡμετέρας βασιλείας διαπέπρακται καὶ κατώρθωται’ ‘εὐχαριστοῦμέν σοι, θεὲ ὑπεράγαθε καὶ βασιλεῦ τῶν βασιλευόντων’. 64 Pseudo-Methodius, in Die Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius. Die ältesten griechischen und lateinischen Übersetzungen, ed. by Willem J. Aerts and George Kortekaas (Louvain: Peeters, 1998), p. 186, 14, 2–3: ‘ἀναβήσεται ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἄνω εἰς Γολγοθᾶ […] καὶ ἀρεῖ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ῥωμαίων τὸ στέμμα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπιθήσει ἐπάνω τοῦ σταυροῦ καὶ ἐκπετάσει τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ παραδώσει τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί’. 65 Cf. similar conclusions by David Nicholls, ‘Addressing God as Ruler: Prayer and Petition’, The British Journal of Sociology, 44 (1993), 125–41.
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The later liturgies then developed and expanded this relationship in their formulae and terminology. Their main theme was spelt out in the celebration of God’s philanthropy as manifested in His benevolent governance, that is, His great acts throughout the history of salvation. In a similar manner as it is described in the fourth chapter of Revelation, the faithful join in the heavenly celebration of the glory of God.66 The other Byzantine celebrations also incorporate the language of the Late Antique imperial court in an elevated form.67 The true ruler to be offered the liturgy is not of ‘flesh and blood’, that is, it is not an earthly ruler but the Master of the Universe. Thereby the Middle Byzantine liturgies instill a unique relationship between the faithful and the Triune God. The concentrated presence of biblical phrases of rich political associations helped the faithful to understand themselves in this special relationship to God, as serving their Lord as his legally bound subjects. The words and gestures of the liturgical performance situate the faithful in a new community, the people of God. The ritual is not only a remembrance or a reenactment of scriptural events, nor an exclusively mystical anagogy, but an actual participation in the eternal uninterrupted heavenly service around the throne of God, celebrating His great acts by reciting and acclaiming them. The theocratic approach points out an image which has been rarely mentioned concerning the liturgies. The Byzantine commentary tradition, however, consis‐ tently stresses the mystagogical interpretation.68 The mystagogical has become indeed the dominant tradition in understanding the later liturgies, but it pushed the public-legal foundations into the background. The liturgies, however, despite all the changes, rearrangements, and additions over the centuries, retained the political intent. Even the changes and additions had to preserve the theocratic approach, since ultimately all of the new elements had to relate in some way to the Old Law and the New, preserving and transmitting the earlier political subtext. Another approach was proposed by Derek Krueger in his recent book on liturgical subjects. He aims at reconstructing how the Byzantines saw the liturgy ‘through their own eyes’.69 His methodology relies on the analysis of hymnog‐ raphy, ritual, and biblical narrative, and identifies the ‘Byzantine self ’ with the help of these texts.70 Concentrating primarily on the hymnography of Ro‐ manos the Melodist, Kassia, Andrew of Crete, and Simeon the New Theologian Krueger identifies the ‘liturgical self ’ as the penitent, contrite person. According to Krueger, Byzantine liturgical practice encouraged identification especially with 66 Cf. Erik Peterson, Offenbarung des Johannes und politisch-theologische Texte, ed. by Barbara Nichtweiß and Werner Löser (Würzburg: Echter, 2004), pp. 60–67. 67 André Grabar, L’empereur dans l’art byzantin: recherches sur l’art officiel de l’empire d’Orient (Paris: College de France, 1936), p. 204 (imperial presence), and p. 234 (the adventus), p. 267 (the Christian iconography absorbing the imperial art). 68 Bornert, Les commentaires, passim. 69 An expression I take from the title of Robert F. Taft, Through Their Own Eyes: Liturgy as the Byzantines Saw It (Berkeley, CA: InterOrthodox Press, 2006). 70 Krueger, Liturgical Subjects, p. 3.
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penitential patterns, since ‘the rites and offices of the church offered the forum where Byzantine Christians learned to apply a penitential Bible to themselves’.71 While Krueger’s attempt points out important aspects, like the mystagogical or the historical, here I suggest that this ‘self ’ is not only the self of a contrite individual, but that of a community, a people.72 This communal self emerging from the Byzantine liturgy is the New Israel which is attached to God, and answered by God on the model of the relationship between God and His people in the Old Law. While the celebrants are ‘unworthy servants’, still, they express the praise for their Lord. The celebration of the throne of the ruler is regulated by the Scriptures, and thereby it acquires a legal character. Even if the celebration is not legislated in the strict sense, it is still defined by the scriptural paradigms of courtly ceremonial, from the Temple service to the prophetic visions of heaven, as it also happens in the Book of Revelation.73 This character explains the creativity of the rhetorical and perlocutionary acts that fill the liturgy with a peculiar language, a peculiar mode of reasoning supplying it with a terminology common with the earthly rulers, but restricting their application solely to God. The above analysis might seem to direct the attention away from allegorical, mystagogical, or penitential understanding of the liturgy towards the political relations. However, it does not want to detract from the salvation-historical, the mystagogical, or the penitential aspects, but intends to show that the theocratic principle serves as the foundation for them. The historical, or more precisely, the salvation-historical interpretation depends on God as the pantokratōr and His philanthōpia. The mystery aspect is present both by the nature of God’s power, and by his inscrutable and mysterious actions involving the earthly realm. [310a16–20] These mysteries, however, are both abstract metaphysical secrets and actually present manifestations of the monarchy of God, appearing in histori‐ cal deeds and culminating in the unfathomable mystery of the incarnation and the sacrifice of His Only-begotten Son. This is what God’s people acclaim and celebrate in the liturgy here on earth. Even if the people of God ought to admit their sinfulness and imperfections, and ought to ask for forgiveness, their most exalted task is still the proclamation of His glory together with the heavenly hosts.
71 Krueger, Liturgical Subjects, pp. 18, 218. 72 Krueger, Liturgical Subjects, admits that the liturgical or hymnographic ‘selves […] tend toward a certain sameness, toward a generic vision of the Christian person’ (p. 9) or that ‘the self consists in an intertextual relationship to scripture’ (p. 37). 73 Peterson, Offenbarung des Johannes. Important aspects are also discussed in Erik Peterson, Der Brief and die Römer, ed. by Barbara Nichtweiß and Ferdinand Hahn (Würzburg: Echter, 1997).
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Appendix: A List of Liturgical Terms with Political Connotations The following list contains liturgical terms with political connotations found in two characteristic Byzantine liturgies, those under the names of St Basil the Great and St John Chrysostom (with additional references to other texts included in the ninth-century euchologies). The terms are drawn from the texts in Brightman’s still standard edition. However, I also looked at the text of Bright‐ man’s main manuscripts published recently, namely the famous Barberini and the Grottaferrata euchologies.74 Panaiotis Trempelas has also published the texts of the liturgies based on a number of further manuscripts.75 These two liturgical texts became dominant in the Middle Byzantine period between the end of the iconoclastic conflict and the standardization of the litur‐ gies in the twelfth century.76 Preferred by the Great Church of the capital, the use of these two liturgies had been adopted over time in the whole Byzantine realm, slowly supplanting local variants, a development often termed a ‘Byzantinization’, although, according to scholarly consensus, the rite of the Great Church in Con‐ stantinople also carries the influence of the Antiochene liturgy.77 Unfortunately, there is no room here to engage with the highly complex history of these develop‐ ments and modifications.78 What matters is that while there had been various changes in the history of the Byzantine liturgies, like reorganizations or additions (such as the Cherubic Hymn), some reflecting Christological and Trinitological debates (e.g. concerning the Trishagion, ‘Thrice holy’ or the Monogenes Hymn, ‘Only-begotten Son’), by the ninth century the liturgies had achieved a largely settled form. The next stage for their development during the Palaiologan period did not alter the main theological political idea that is the subject of my article.79 74 The main manuscripts used by Brightman are listed, Liturgies, p. 308. Since Brightman the two euchologia have been edited: L’eucologio Barberini Gr. 336. Seconda edizione riveduta, ed. by Stefano Parenti and Elena Velkovska (Roma: Edizioni Liturgiche, 2000). The extended list of the liturgical manuscripts are on pp. 43–52; Gaetano Passarelli, L’eucologia cryptense Γ.Β. VII. (sec. X) (Thessaloniki: Πατριαρχικον Ιδρυμα Πατερικων Μελετων, 1982). 75 Παναγιώτης Ν. Τρεμπέλας, Αι τρείς λειτουργίαι κατά τους εν Αθήναις κώδικας (Athens: Αδελφότης Θεολόγων ‘Ο Σωτήρ’, 1982). I thank Andra Juganaru for obtaining for me a digital version of this text. 76 The Barberini manuscript is dated to the end of the eighth century, while the Grottaferrata Euchologion to the tenth. For an overview Hans-Joachim Schulz, Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, trans. by Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo, 1986), pp. 77–99. 77 Robert Taft, The Byzantine Rite. A Short History (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1992), pp. 52–61, quote at 56. 78 Placide de Meester, ‘Les origines et les développements du texte grec de la Liturgie de St Jean Chrysostome’, in Chrysostomika. Studi e ricerche intorno à S. Giovanni Crisostomo a cura del comitato per il XVo centenario della sua morte 407–1907, ed. by collective (Roma: Pustet, 1908), pp. 245–357. More recently Daniel Galadza, Liturgy and Byzantinization in Jerusalem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 79 The Cherubic Hymn probably supplanted the singing of Ps 23 [LXX], which, however, has even stronger political connotations: Anton Baumstark, ‘Der Cherubhymnus und seine Parallelen’, Gottesminne, 6 (1911–2), 10–22.
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The terms are listed in transliterated alphabetical order. In this practice I follow Brightman, who defends such an approach by stating that ‘transliteration illustrates the degree in which Greek has supported the technical liturgical lan‐ guage of the Church, as many translations are simple transliterations of Greek’.80 After the transliteration, I enclose the original Greek in round brackets, and in square brackets their occurrences in Brightman’s edition. As indicated above, in the brackets the first number indicates the pages, then the letter ‘a’ indicates the Liturgy of St Basil in the left column, while ‘b’ refers to the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom in the right column. For the identification of political aspects of the liturgical terms, I draw on the immense amount of scholarly work that has been devoted to clarifying the meaning of Christian terms in the context of contemporary, that is Hellenistic usage, the source of the terms appropriated into Christianity. Since a large part of liturgical formulations was inherited from ancient Christianity, their significance and meaning were also bequeathed to the Middle Byzantine period even if in a ‘subconcious’ way. Dictionaries, however, have to be used selectively for the present task. The great lexica assemble all possible shades of meaning, but the wealth of data often blurs the focus. Therefore, in the following list, I collect only the political aspects of the terms, which carried on the contents from the Hellenistic era. For this selec‐ tive approach I turned for inspiration to the studies of Adolf Deissmann (1866– 1937),81 Erik Peterson (1890–1960),82 and the lexicographic notes of Ceslas Spicq (Sp, 1901–1992).83 I also checked, of course, the standard dictionaries, like the Liddle-Scott-Jones,84 Lampe’s A Patristic Greek Lexicon (1961)85 and the more recent Brill-Montanari Greek Lexicon (2015) since it includes Late Antique and Byzantine usage as well.86 To the more recent Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1999),87 and the new A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
80 Brightman, Liturgies, p. xii. 81 Gustav A. Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien. Sprachgeschichtliche Beiträge, zumeist aus dem Papyri und Inschriften zur Erklärung des Neuen Testaments (Marburg: Elwert, 1897); Gustav A. Deissmann, Bible Studies: Contributions chiefly from papyri and inscriptions, to the history of language, the literature and the religion of Hellenistic Judaism and primitive Christianity, trans. by Alexander Grieve (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1901); Adolf Deissmann, New Light on the New Testament from Records of the Graeco-Roman Period, trans. by Lionel R. M. Strachan (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1908); Gustav A. Deissmann, Light From the Ancient East. The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World, trans. by Lionel R. M. Strachan (New York-London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910). 82 For references see n. 73. 83 Ceslas Spicq, Lexique théologique du Nouveau Testament (Paris: Le Cerf, 1991). 84 Henry G. Liddle, Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon with a Revised Supplement, 9th edn (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982). 85 Geoffrey W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961). 86 Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2015). 87 Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 10 vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976).
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Other Early Christian Literature, third edition (BDAG) (2000),88 one can add the dictionary of Moulton and Milligan (1914–1929) which proved to be of specific help.89 For the English translation of the Byzantine liturgical terms, I will rely on the Stavropegic Monastery’s terminology which reflects the English-speaking Orthodox liturgical practice.90 aiōn (αἰών),91 aiōnios (αἰώνιος)92 [e.g., 310a,b12] – The noun, aiōn is a complex term, meaning the long but finite unit of world-time, or life-time, a duration coextensive with the given realm, as a totality.93 The liturgical acclamation: ‘into the ages of ages’ or ‘now and forever’ (‘εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων’) exalts God’s eternity as the ruler of all ages. As an adjective it means ‘everlasting’, or ‘eternal’.94 Deissmann warns of the interpretation of the term in solely biblical contexts.95 According to Moulton and Milligan, ‘it is a standing epithet of the Emperor’s power’.96 The ‘everlasting dominion of the lords of the Romans’ is attested in inscriptions.97 It also alludes to the idea of Roma aeterna. The LXX usage (Ps. 83. 5, Odes 1. 18, 8. 57–87, Dan. 3. 57–89) justifies appropriating the gentile usage for the ‘everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’. (1 Pet. 1. 11, probably alluding to Dan. 7. 27). anapempō (ἀναπέμπω)98 [312a7; 314a,b13; 314a,b13; 315a,b6; 317a,b7; 317a,b31; 318a37; 323a12; 343a,b7; 344a1; 344b16] – ‘to send up’, that is, to submit a case to a higher authority, like appealing to a prefect.99 The opposite is katapempō (καταπέμπω) [315a,b2], to send down, like mercy (oiktirmos, οἰκτιρμός). The term is used in Lk. 23. 7 when Pilate sends Christ over to Herod since he had jurisdiction over Galilee. Also, in Acts 25. 21, the governor Festus sends Paul over to Rome; that is, he submits the case to the Emperor. In the liturgies, the recurrent formula of submitting glory (δόξα) to the throne of God is used in the first person plural, since it happens in the name of the congregation, the people. arkhē (ἀρχή) [42a2 St James; 131, 21 St Mark] – rule, government.100 While the term in the singular does not occur in the St Basil or St John Chrysostom liturgies, the occurrences in the St James and St Mark liturgies show the signif‐ 88 For the BDAG, see n. 37. above. 89 Moulton and Milligan, see note 11. 90 The Orthodox Liturgy. This text serves as the standard translation in English liturgical use of the Orthodox liturgies. 91 Lampe, s.v. meaning F. and compare with meaning of αἰώνιος, meaning A. 92 Brill-Montanari, s.v. section c. and Deissmann, Bible Studies, pp. 360–63 [later: DBS]. 93 Brill-Montanari, s.v. 94 For example Ὁ Θεὸς ὁ αἰώνιος’, e.g. Ps-Chrysostom, Supplementum ad liturgiam, PG, 64 (Paris: Migne, 1860), col. 1061D. 95 Deissmann, Bibelstudien, p. 280, n. 3. 96 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 97 Deissmann, Light, p. 368, n. 6. 98 Lampe, s.v. 4th meaning. 99 Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 56; Moulton and Milligan, p. 37. 100 Cf. Lample s.v. section II, A.
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icance of the term which refers back to the Apostolic Constitutions (5. 16. 3; 6. 11. 10), probably based on (Is 9. 6). Of the many possible meanings of the term the liturgical usage employs the political sense to indicate the manifestation of rulership, that is, sovereign authority. Sovereignety implies also judicial authority. In this sense the plural term arkhai (ἀρχαί) [313b27–8; 318a9; 322b19–26; 323a14–18] means either a certain rank of the heavenly powers surrounding and serving God’s throne or, in an opposite sense, those sub-heavenly rulers of the gentiles who are the powers of evil (Eph 6. 12). The ‘ruler of this world’ ( J 12. 31) is the chief of the angels (the spiritual rulers) of the nations (Mt 20. 25).101 In all their manifestations, they are not ‘transcendent’, but inner-cosmic beings, even if they are spiritual (Colossians 1. 16).102 They are evil as they try to rival God as created beings. These beings are considered as opposed to the heis kyrios, εἷς Κύριος, the One Lord [341a,b17]. Again, in a fourth sense in the diptychs the plural the term can also refer to powerful people of the realm, that is, of the Empire. [333b2–3; 333a6] See also exousiai; dynameis; kyriotētes. basileia (βασιλεία), basileus (βασιλεύς)103 [310a,b12; 311a16; 312b21; 318a7; a19; 322b12; 330b17; 337a13; 339a,b31; 340b13; 344a7] – kingdom, king‐ ship in the sense of sovereignty and dominion.104 Central liturgical phrases include forms like the ‘kingdom of God’ (basileia tou theou, βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ), the kingdom of heaven (basileia tōn ouranōn, βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν), and ‘the kingdom of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit’. [310a,b12]. Kingdom means the absolute sovereign reign of God over the world, as Creator and Provider. As King of the universe, he is praised as the ‘King of glory’ [318a7 referring to Ps 23. 7–9, LXX]. As the heavenly ruler, God is the sole king (basileus, βασιλεύς).105 There is an important underlying reason why God is called king (βασιλεύς), and not emperor (in Greek also βασιλεύς). The significant difference between the two meanings of the equivocal Greek term is rarely noticed. Kings are the rulers of particular nations, or one city, while an emperor is the ‘king of kings’, a ruler of many nations.106 The Roman 101 Cf. György Geréby, ‘The Angels of the Nations. Is a National Christianity Possible?’, pp. 819–48. 102 For instance, there are no such powers, nor dominions, nor principalities, nor other created virtues that can apprehend God precisely. (Ὅτι οὔτε ἀρχαί, οὔτε ἐξουσίαι, οὔτε κυριότητες, οὔτε εἴ τις ἑτέρα κτιστὴ δύναμίς ἐστιν ἣ ἔχει τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν ἀκριβῆ κατάληψιν’). John Chrysostom, De incomprehensibili dei natura (= Contra Anomoeos), Homily 4 in Jean Chrysostome sur l’incomprehensibilité de Dieu, ed. by Anne-Marie Malingrey, Sources chretienne, 28 (Paris: Le Cerf, 1970), p. 236. 103 Deissmann, Light, pp. 367–68. 104 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 105 For the other complex meanings see Lampe, s.v. 106 Sometimes God himself is called ‘God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and fear-inspiring’ (‘θεὸς τῶν θεῶν καὶ κύριος τῶν κυρίων, ὁ θεὸς ὁ μέγας καὶ ἰσχυρὸς καὶ ὁ φοβερός’ Deut 10. 17) (cf. Ps 49. 1; 81. 1; 83. 8), echoed about Christ (the Lamb) in Rev. (‘ὁ ἄρχων τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς’ 1, 5; ‘κύριος κυρίων ἐστὶν καὶ βασιλεὺς βασιλέων’ 17. 14; ‘βασιλεὺς βασιλέων καὶ κύριος κυρίων’ 19. 16). These formulae mean the supreme sovereignty of God, ruling over any and every other spiritual or earthly power.
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emperor is not ‘king over Israel. ( J 19. 15).107 God is king because God rules over the only Elect Nation and his court is in one city, the heavenly Jerusalem. (The terminological use of ‘king’ is also in Lk 23. 1, among others; and Hebr 11. 33).108 The other nations (always in the plural) are the gentiles, and by definition, they were ‘far away’ instead of being ‘near’ and were not ‘fellow citizens’ of the One City of God before their salvation. (Eph 2. 16–17). They might join the ‘people of God’, however, and then they become full-fledged citizens of the Kingdom.109 In supplications, the term sometimes can mean earthly rulers [343a28]. bēma (βῆμα)110 [339a7–8; 343a4–5] – the raised platform for the seat of the magistrate, a tribunal. It is the judgement seat (the throne) of Christ at the Last Judgement. The petitions ask for ‘a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ’ [339a7–8; 343a4–5]. deēsis (δέησις)111 [329b15] – supplication, that is, a petition addressed to the prefect or to the emperor. It meant in the Hellenistic world an entreaty towards a god, an urgent request in the form of a prayer to meet a need, solely addressed to the divinity. In the Christian liturgical formulae, the supplications of the people of God are turned exclusively to God ‘Let us pray to the Lord’ (‘Τοῦ Κυρίου δεηθῶμεν!’) or ‘In peace, let us pray to the Lord!’ since only God can grant a supplication. despotēs (δεσπότης),112 despoteia (δεσποτεία) [310a20; 312a15; 313a26; 318a15; 16; 321a27; 322b1; a17(bis); 324a6; 324b6; 328a27; 329a12; 338b10; 340a13; b19; 342b16; 342a23] – lord, master, lordship. It is essentially a syn‐ onym for kyrios. God is Lord of the living and master of the dead [318a16–7]. Subjection is by legal control and authority, especially over servants, slaves, or things. Compare doulos. The vocative despota (δέσποτα κύριε) is the LXX term used to address God ( Jonah 4. 3 or Jer. 1. 6 or Josephus Ant. 20, 90)113 as the ruler of the world. diakonia (διακονία),114 diakonein (διακονεῖν), diakonos (διάκονος)115 [318a7–8] – service, office, ministry, attendance to a duty. In principle it means adminis‐ tration, service or performance of a public duty on behalf of the gods. Flavius
107 ‘Οὐκ ἔχομεν βασιλέα εἰ μὴ καίσαρα’, meaning ‘We have no king but emperor’. ( J 19. 15). 108 For instance, in Hebr 11. 33 the heroes of faith defeated many kingdoms (‘βασιλείας’) but no empires. 109 Geréby, ‘The Angels of the Nations’, pp. 817–45. 110 Lampe, s.v. B.2. 111 Moulton and Milligan, Dictionary, p. 137. 112 Deissmann, Light, pp. 359–61. 113 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities book XX. General index, Loeb Classical Library, 456 (London-Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 46: ‘ὦ δέσποτα κύριε’. Addressing God like in this respectful way occurs more than two dozen times in the Antiquities. 114 Lampe, s.v., entry A. 115 Moulton and Milligan, s.v.
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Josephus calls it ‘service to God’ (‘διακονία τοῦ θεοῦ’),116 also when he speaks about the sacrifice in the Ark or in the Temple (Ant 3, 155).117 Clement of Alexandria speaks in the same way about the service to the altar of God beyond the curtains of the Temple.118 doryphoroumenos (δορυφορούμενος)119 – a ruler escorted, or attended by spearbearers (bodyguards). The standard translation of the second part of the Cherubic hymn is ‘invisibly attended by the angelic orders’.120 The wording in the Greek is, however, more explicit in its imagery: ‘invisibly escorted by the armies of angelic bodyguards’, a military expression inwoking the procession of the commander.121 doulos (δοῦλος),122 douleia (δουλεία) [311a28; 315a19; 329a12–4; 324a7; 325a14; 343b28] – slave, bondservant; slavery, bondage. The ancient term should not be dulled by translating it as ‘servant’. In the usage of the period, it meant somebody in total subordination to an overlord, an authority, but also somebody who is committed as a servant by duty. In Hellenistic religious law the term also meant temple slaves, as properties of the temple god. For the Christians the Christ is the Lord, and the believers in Christ are slaves to the Lord Christ, that is, they are his ‘property’ (Rom 1. 1). Hence the term is not to be understood solely in the spiritual or in the moral sense, but as a commitment in sacral law, as a seal (σφραγίς)123 received in baptism. Meeting the commands of the Lord is difficult and while the faithful trust His mercy, they humbly (tapeinōs [316a14; 317a12]) speak about themselves as ‘sinners’ (‘hamartōloi’) [316a25; 317a12; 319b10] ‘unworthy’ (‘ἀχρειοῖ’ or ‘ἀνάξιοι’) [313a20; 318a22–3; 320a9; 329a13–4]. doxa (δόξα),124 doxazein (δοξάζειν) [310a15; 28; 311a17; 313a25; 314a,b13; 319a19; 322a6; 324b11; 339a,b31; 342a,b7] – magnificence, greatness, or splendour of the ruler, and celebrating these. Doxa is conjoined with timē and proskynēsis [310a28–9]. This is one of the terms among the titulature of the Roman emperors (originally Hellenistic), who claim to possess ‘exousia,
116 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities book IV–VI, Loeb Classical Library, 490 (London-Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), p. 314. 117 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities book I–III, Loeb Classical Library, 242 (London-Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 388. 118 Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata 5, 6, 34, 3. Clemens Alexandrinus Stromata I–VI, ed. by Otto Stählin (Leipzig: Heinrichs, 1906), p. 348. 119 Lampe, s.v. ‘attend as bodyguard, escort, esp. of emperors’. 120 The Orthodox Liturgy, p. 61. 121 The term only occurs in the LXX in 2 Macc. 3, 24; 28 and 4 Macc. 6, 1; 8, 13 in a very practical military sense. 122 Deissmann, Light, p. 323: ‘The stupenduous force of the dogmatic tradition, and the fact of the that the word slave and its satellites has been translated servant, to the total effacement of its ancient significance’. 123 For instance Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 18, PG, 35 (Paris: Migne, 1857), col. 1028D: ‘τῷ θείῳ βαπτίσματι κατεσφραγισμένον’. 124 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. F.
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kratos, ischys, dynamis, doxa, timē, philanthrōpia, aiōnios’.125 Every element of this list shows up in the LXX, and all these terms are mentioned in the liturgies referring to God. A doxology is the act of the exaltation or laudation of a ruler’s greatness. The heavenly court sings the magnificence of God. When the embolism ‘For Yours is the kingdom and the power, and the glory’ is added to the Lord’s prayer, it is a contradistinction to the secular imperial prerogatives. dynamis (δύναμις)126 [311a11; a16; 339a,b31] – power in the sense of being mighty ‘clear and present’. Power is the constitutive quality of a ruler. The significance of God’s incomparable power is not a metaphysical capacity, but the all-pervasive presence of His rule.127 In the plural dynameis, however, means the heavenly powers which belong together with the exousiai and other spiritual beings to the highest angelic orders in the heavenly court. dynasteia (δυναστεία)128 [322a18] – rule, power, lordship or domination, deriva‐ tive of dynamis. ecclesia (ἐκκλησία)129 [311a7; 312b17; 315a21; 315b28; 332b29; 333a21; 334a18; 336a5; 343a19] – the usual term ‘church’ should be taken in the sense of the a legally constituted public assembly or convention of citizens. Deissmann translates it as ‘convened assembly’.130 It means primarily the con‐ gregation of the baptized believers, who are counted among the citizens’ con‐ vention of the heavenly city. 131 (In the usage in the LXX it means the people of Israel, 1 Sam. 17, 47; 2 Chron. 29, 28. Neh. 5, 13, and passim). Hence it is the polity of the people of God, united and in harmony. [315b26–8; 315a15–7] (cf. homonoia and symphōnia). The physical place of the congregation is called naos (ναός) [338a26; 343a30] or oikos (οἶκος) [310a23; 332a8]. eirēnē (εἰρήνη)132 [311a8; 337a15; 336a5; 343a26] – peace, the greatest bene‐ faction of a ruler to the realm. The ultimate peace is the peace of God, which is only granted by divine power. The constant reminders in the liturgy represent the anticipation of this peace. A character of this peace is communion, koinōnia (κοινωνία) [330a17; b15; 338b20], acting ‘with one heart’ (μιᾷ καρδίᾳ) [337a,b20] and homonoia (ὁμονοία) [334a9; 336a15], that is, like-mindedness, unanimity and concord. A harmonious unity, concord, symphōnia (συμφωνία) [311a23–5]. ekboēsis (ἐκβόησις) [323a,b27] – acclamation, the public legal manifestation of approval, praise or legitimization of the community for a cause or a ruler. The Listed by Deissmann, Light, p. 368, n. 6. Deissman, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 19, n. 6. John Chrysostom, Precatio, PG, 64 (Paris: Migne, 1862), p. 1064. Lampe, s.v. Moulton and Milligan, s.v. Deissmann, Light, pp. 112–14. Erik Peterson, Ekklesia. Studien zur altchristlichen Kirchenbegriff, ed. by Barbara Nichweiss (Würzburg: Echter, 2010). 132 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 125 126 127 128 129 130 131
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introductory clause to the Sanctus ‘Singing the triumphal hymn, exclaiming, crying aloud and saying’ (‘Τὸν ἐπινίκιον ὕμνον ἄδοντα, βοῶντα, κεκραγότα καὶ λέγοντα’) describes the acclamation of the seraphim to God, to which the earthly liturgy joins in mystically.133 eleeō (ἐλεέω)134 [310a17; 319a20; 330a21; 339b16] – to have pity on, to show mercy to. Showing mercy is the privilege of a ruler, who is also the judge. Christ is the supreme Lord who at His Second Coming will judge ‘the quick and the dead’. Since the people of God on earth are sinners (see doulos), the recurrent phrase addresses the Lord asking for His grace: Lord, have mercy! Kyrie eleison! (Κύριε, ἐλέησον!)’.135 entolē (ἐντολή)136 [324a21; 344b5] – order, command, or a decree of a higher authority, like an imperial ordinance. As a legal term it implies that God is the supreme ruler, who issues commands to His subjects. euergetēs (εὐεργέτης) [309a13; 312b15; 322b18; 342b17; 342a21] – benefac‐ tor.137 An honorific title for distinguished men, who acted on behalf of their people or city. According to Moulton and Milligan it is common in late antique inscriptions regarding the emperors. exousia (ἐξουσία) [310a17; 330a21; 339b16] – freedom or liberty to act, in the sense of having the power to act freely of constraints.138 God’s absolute liberty to act expresses his absolute sovereignty. As it was mentioned above, this classic political term meant the legal right to rule, the Roman δημαρχικὴ ἐξουσία, tribunicia potestas, which was claimed by Roman emperors.139 In the plural, exousiai is a specific rank in the heavenly hierarchy. (cf. arkhai) hikesia (ἱκεσία)140 [316b21; 329b15; 342b26] – supplication, another element of the word-group meaning petition by a supplicant. This term also implies a lord-subject relationship since those in need turn to the one who can provide. The supplication, however, is only meaningful if the thing petitioned can be granted by the lord, that is, if all these things are within his power. The supplications presuppose that God is omnipotent, for example, by the supplication asking for ‘peace of the whole world’. The supplications are 133 The theological significance of the acclamations was first analyzed in depth by Erik Peterson, Heis Theos. Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur antiken ‘Ein-Gott’Akklamation. ed. by Christoph Markschies and Barbara Nichtweiß (Würzburg: Echter, 2012). See also the newer bibliography on acclamations in Robert Taft, A History of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. IV. The Diptychs (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1991), p. 2, n. 6. Recently Michael Jonas, Mikroliturgie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), pp. 9–11 and passim. 134 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 135 William Lockton, ‘Liturgical notes’, The Journal of Theological Studies, 16 (1915), 548–52 (pp. 548– 50). The author suggests an interesting parallel in 2 Macc. 3. 20–22, and interprets the acclamation as addressed to Christ as Lord. 136 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. Cf. Spicq s.v. 137 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 138 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 139 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 140 Lampe, s.v.
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submitted in fervent zeal to God (hence also called ekteneia (ἐκτένεια), like Jth. 9. 2 and Acts 26. 7). homonoia (ὁμόνοια)141 [334a10] – oneness of mind, unanimity, concord. It expressed the consent or the unity of mind of the citizens, the political like-mindedness required for the wellbeing of the city or the empire. It is an ideal of Christian society. It is related to symphōnia and eirēnē. It is also implied in the phrase ‘grant us with one mouth and one heart to glorify and praise thy sublime and wondrous name’. [337a,b20–21] hymnos (ὕμνος)142 [313a6; 313b24; 342a,b7] – ode in praise of gods. Another innocent-looking term which says very little if translated only as ‘hymn’. Hymnōdia (ὑμνῳδία) was the activity of the institution hymnōdoi theou (ὑμνῳδοὶ θεοῦ) a confraternity devoted to the praise of a deity or the Hellenis‐ tic rulers, often termed as gods. In the imperial period hymns were sung especially in celebration of the Goddess of Rome or the emperor.143 The victory hymn, epinikion (ἐπινίκιον) [323a,b27], was reserved for the emperors, since the emperor is always victorious, semper victor.144 However God is the only truly victorious one. [342a,b7] ischys (ἰσχύς)145 – strength, might, power. A common term to express the might of God included as an adjective (ἰσχυρός) in the Thrice-holy (Trishagion) hymn in the liturgy.146 This term also belonged to the imperial titulature. (cf. doxa) kathēmenos (καθήμενος)147 [322a21] – being seated, which implies the throne (see thronos). Being seated is a privilege of the Ruler while the court remains standing.148 God is seated in Is. 66. 1 and Rev. 4. 2, among others. In the liturgical context it means the seat of God as King (and of Christ as Lord seated on the right hand of the Father). It is also the judgement seat from
141 BDNT, s.v. 142 Deissmann, Light, p. 352. 143 Max Fränkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon. 2. Römische Zeit. – Inschriften auf Thon (Berlin: Spemann, 1895), p. 262, no. 374. 144 Peterson, Heis theos, p. 152. Cf. Michael McCormick, Eternal Victory. Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 131–88. 145 Deissmann, Light p. 368, n. 6. 146 The hymn is missing in Brightman. However, the Thrice Holy was certainly part of the liturgy after the sixth century. Jean M. Hanssens, Institutiones liturgicae de ritibus orientalibus, 2 vols (Rome: Apud edes Pontificalis Universitatis Gregoriane, 1930), III, pp. 110–18, nos 884–89. See also Sebastià Janeras, ‘Le Trisagion: Une formule brève en liturgie comparée’, in Comparative Liturgy Fifty Years after Anton Baumstark (1872–1948). Acts of the International Congress. Rome, 25–29 September 1998, ed. by Robert F. Taft and Gabriele Winkler (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2001), pp. 495–562. 147 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. κάθημαι. 148 Cf. John Chrysostom In Matthaeum hom. 9, PG, 57 (Paris: Migne, 1860), col. 285B: ‘τοσαύτην ἀπονέμομεν τοῖς τοῦ Θεοῦ νόμοις τὴν ἡσυχίαν, ὅσην τοῖς τοῦ βασιλέως γράμμασιν ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις οἱ θεαταὶ παρέχουσι τὴν σιγήν. Ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ τῶν γραμμάτων τούτων ἀναγινωσκομένων, καὶ ὕπατοι καὶ ὕπαρχοι καὶ βουλὴ καὶ δῆμος ὀρθοὶ πάντες ἑστήκασι, μεθ’ ἡσυχίας ἀκούοντες τῶν λεγομένων’.
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where God judges with righteousness (e.g. Ps. 9. 4). The term stresses God’s authority. The throne is surrounded by the heavenly court which sings praise and celebration ‘unceasingly’ [313b11; b17–8] saying ‘We sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You’ [329a,b19–20]. (cf. thronos) klēronomia (κληρονομία)149 [311a4–7; 314a,b18; 323a6; 338b21; 341a,b29] – inherited possession, inheritance. The liturgical use is complex. While occur‐ rences in the literal form are a quotation from Ps. 27. 9, this Psalm line refers back to Deut. 32. 9: ‘And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the allotment of his inheritance’ (καὶ ἐ γενήθη μερὶς κυρίου λαὸς αὐτοῦ Ιακωβ, σχοίνισμα κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ Ισραηλ).150 That is, God selected one nation, the descendants of Abraham for himself, separating them from all the other nations. This idea recurs in many forms and allusions from Jth 9. 12 to Is. 19. 5. The liturgical use centres on the idea that the Church is the heir to Israel, and what is more, she is the True Israel. By this expression the liturgies remind the faithful to consider themselves as the People of God. They ask the Ruler for His graceful care, expresed in the supplication ‘save thy people and bless your inheritance’ (σῶσον τὸν λαόν σου καὶ εὐλόγησον τὴν κληρονομίαν σου),151 humbly reminding God of His commitment. (cf. laos) klinō (κλίνω)152 [315a17–8; 315b20–21; 318a28; 340a15–6; 340b20–22] – to bow. The term gains political importance in the phrase ‘bow your heads unto the Lord’. The bowing of the head belongs to the physical gestures of submission, like standing, kneeling and prostrating which are expressions of loyalty and subordination to the ruler. This is an exclusive gesture since it is ‘not to flesh and blood’, that is, not to a rulers of this world. [340b21–2] The special gesture of crossing oneself is the seal of God on the faithful, received in the baptism. kratos (κράτος)153 [310a17; 311a15–7] – dominion and might not in the abstract sense but as active and efficient power. In the imperial period this was used for Roman power. Again, might is not taken in the abstract sense, but as active and efficient power as it is used in the Old Testament (‘the Lord strong and mighty’ e.g. Ex. 13. 3; Deut. 3. 24; Ps. 24. 8). The liturgies recall the ‘mighty hand’ of God [341a,b10] in the same sense, since ‘by the strength of hand the Lord brought you out’ of Egypt, which is a prefiguration of Christ saving humanity from the valley of death, or in the present defending the church from the onslaught of the barbarian (non-Christian) nations. [333a4–24;
149 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 150 That is, Jacob (standing for all his descendants). Ὁ λαὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ ποτὲ μὲν Ἰακὼβ καλεῖται, ποτὲ δὲ Ἰσραήλ· ὁ αὐτὸς γὰρ ἦν καὶ Ἰσραὴλ καὶ Ἰακώβ. Eusebius, Fragmenta in Lucam, PG, 24 (Paris: Migne, 1857), col. 532D. 151 Euchologion, p. 2, no. 3. 152 Moulton and Milligan, s.v. 153 Lampe, s.v., Moulton and Milligan, s.v., Deissmann, Light, p. 368, n. 6.
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333b1–9] Power is often conjoined with basileia, doxa and dynamis [311a15– 7]. kyrios (κύριος) [309b1; 309a10; 321a28; 322a18; 340a13] – lord, ruler, overlord. The term was claimed for the imperial titulature from Nero’s time.154 Adopted by the LXX for the unpronounceable divine name ‘Lord’ became the preroga‐ tive of God. He is addressed as ‘Lord and heavenly King’ or ‘Lord of heaven and earth and all creation’ [322a18–20].155 It stresses the divinity of Christ metonymically, like in the clause ‘Lord God and the Father of the Lord’.156 laos (λαός)157 [314b5; 319b24; 326a26–8; 333a21; 334a4; 335a5; 341a,b29; 343a16–8] – a body of people, or nation. It is a technical expression, hence never synonymous with ethnos, which is always used in the plural, ta ethnē (τὰ ἔθνη) [333a16; 337a9]. In the Scriptural context, people is used in the narrow sense of ‘the people of God’. This usage is based on two key lines, Ex. 23. 22 and Deut. 32. 9, conjoined in the liturgy as ‘a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a line of his inheritance’. [326a26–8; 343a16–8]. These addresses assign the special theologico-political meaning of the elect nation to the New People of God, the Church. A key verse in the New Testament speaks about those ‘who once were not a people but are now the people of God’, (1 Pet. 2. 10) which understands Ex. 23. 22 to refer to the New People, extending an invitation to the formerly antagonistic nations. The ‘calling’ is based on a theological (salvation-historical) idea. (cf. klēronomia)158 latreia (λατρεία)159 [314a3; 319a32; 320a7; 322a10; 323a11; 329b14; 331b13] – service, but in the unique sense of ‘divine worship’. Lampe quotes Augustine to show the precise meaning of the term as that kind of service which pertains to the specific cultivation or worshipping of God. Douleia (see doulos) is due to God as Lord, while latreia in a more distinct sense is the service rendered to God as God.160 leitourgia (λειτουργία)161 [312a19; 318a6; a13; 319a16; 320a12; 322b21; 329a15] – performing a service, especially public service for the ruler, used widely in the Hellenistic environment. It is a common term for the service of the 154 Deissmann, Light, p. 161, but also in Cassius Dio, Hist. 43, 44, 3 about Caesar. Dio Cassius Roman History books XLI–XLV, ed. by Herbert Baldwin Foster, Loeb Classical Library, 66 (Cambridge, MA-London: Harvard University Press, 1916), p. 288. 155 Deissmann, Light, pp. 353, 366. 156 ‘κύριε βασιλεῦ’ Odes 14, 10 (LXX); C 7, 47 Les constitutions apostoliques, vol. III, 7, 47, p. 112. 157 Moulton and Milligan, s.v.; S, s.v. 158 See more György Geréby, ‘The Nation, the Nations, and the Third Nation: The Political Essence of Early Christianity’, in Theology and World Politics Metaphysics, Genealogies, Political Theologies, ed. by Vassilios Paipais (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 181–209. 159 Lampe, s.v. 160 Lampe’s texts from Augustine are: Augustinus, De civitate dei, PL, 41 (Paris: Migne, 1845), 10, 1, 2, col. 278; Augustinus, Contra Faustum, PL, 42 (Paris: Migne, 1841), 20, 21, col. 385, and Augustinus, Quaestio 94, PL, 34 (Paris: Migne, 1845), col. 631. 161 Deissmann, Bibelstudien, pp. 140–01, also Deissmann, Light, p. 107. See also Friedrich Oerter, Die Liturgie (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912).
THE LORD OF THE LITURGY
priest around the Ark or the Temple, applied in the same sense to the duties of the priests at the altar of the church. This service is ‘frightening’ even to the heavenly powers. [313b14; 318a8–9] misthos (μισθός) [320a14] – hire, wage or reward for a service performed for a kyrios. The related terms, hireling (μίσθιος) and hired servant (μισθωτός) are connected to doulos.162 oiktirmos (οἰκτιρμός)163 [312b26; 329a20; 341a,b2] – mercy, pity, compassion of a lord. Important as a divine predicate, e.g. ‘The Lord God, pitiful and merciful, long-suffering and very compassionate, and true’ (Ex. 34. 6). pantokratōr (παντοκράτωρ) [313b26; 321a29; 323a,b29] – all-powerful, a predi‐ cate of God of central importance. Adopted by the LXX for sabaōth (σαβαωθ), ‘Lord of hosts’, which is often interpreted as ‘omnipotent’.164 ‘All-powerful’ is meant to mean that there is no other like God.165 The Ruler of the whole cosmos is juxtaposed to kosmokratōr (κοσμοκράτωρ), the world-ruler. The usual interpretation as omnipotence tends to shift the meaning of the term towards the metaphysical issue of unlimited capability, while in the liturgical context it implies rather the universal and absolute rule of God, there not being other rival agents of the same power.166 The logical issues concerning the notion of divine omnipotence, the fascinating subject of Latin scholastic theologians (and modern analytic philosophers of religion) is a much later development.167 parrhēsia (παρρησία)168 [330b17; 338b2; 339a,b22] – frank, plain speech, the privilege of the free citizens. This innocent-looking term is usually translated into English as ‘confidence’ which dulls its late antique political significance. Later it specifically meant freedom or boldness of speech in the presence of the ruler. Intimacy characterized the relationship between Adam and Eve and God, which was lost because of the original sin. Parrhēsia before God was restored by Christ by teaching the Lord’s Prayer to the apostles. Now the ‘faithful are allowed to approach (προσεγγίζειν) God’ [319a18]. This is a privilege, in contrast that the leitourgia is a ‘fearful thing even for the heavenly powers’ [318a8–10]. philanthrōpia (φιλανθρωπία)169 [309a19; 310a19; 312a4; 312b25; 313b31; 315a,b6; 318a10; 324a,b6; 338b10; 341a,b2; 343b18] – benevolence, lovingkindness, concern for humanity. This eminently political term in the Hel‐
162 163 164 165 166 167
Spicq, s.v. μίσθιος. Lampe, s.v. Title addressed to Caracalla, quoted by MM, s.v. John Chrysostom, Expositiones in Psalmos, PG, 55 (Paris: Migne, 1860), col. 184D. John Chrysostom, Interpretatio in Danielem prophetam, PG, 56 (Paris: Migne, 1860), col. 201D. For an overview of the later scholastic developmnents: William J. Courtenay, Capacity and Volition: A History of the Distinction of Absolute and Ordained Power (Bergamo: P. Lubrina, 1990). 168 Erik Peterson, ‘Zur Bedeutungsgeschichte von παρρησία’, in Reinhold-Seeberg-Festschrift, vol. 1: Zur Theorie des Christentums, ed. by Wilhelm Koepp (Leipzig: Scholl, 1929), pp. 283–97. 169 Deissmann, Light, p. 248 and Spicq, s.v., with further literature.
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lenistic realm meant the virtue of the good ruler. As high-mindedness and generosity, it is a property of a benign ruler who rules well.170 Often joined to goodness, agathos (ἀγαθός) [309a19; 312a4; 317b3], and kindness, liberal‐ ity, euergesia (εὐεργεσία) [309a13; 312b15], that is accomplishing good service to the state, of which the greatest case is divine philanthrōpia. politeia (πολιτεία) [326a20; 333a3; 332b30] – polity, constitution of a city or a realm. In the supplications the term refers to the special polity in which the Church lives. Similarly, God is asked to remember that the sacrifice is offered for the peace (eirēnē) and calm (galēnē, γαλήνη) [333a22] of the created realm, and also for the secular holders of power, like for the emperors or rulers and the empresses [333a6; 333b1–3], or the army [333a28; 333b4]. presbeia (πρεσβεία)171 [314a,b5; 344b8] – a standard term for the office of the ambassador, the political missionary who speaks on behalf of a city or a people. For the people of God this ambassador is primarily the Mother of God, but also the saints and martyrs (all those mentioned in the supplica‐ tions). proskynēsis (προσκύνησις)172 [312a27; 313a9; 313b15; 323a24] – veneration, de‐ votion or adoration. The Hellenistic form of submission is performed before the ruler. It can take various forms, from kneeling to prostration, but the essen‐ tial element is the bodily display of homage and submission. (Ps. 98, 5 LXX) All the angelic hosts perform the submission [313a9; 313b15]. (cf. latreia. However, the liturgical usage does not reflect the terminological distinctions resulting from the iconoclastic debates between worship, latreia, which is due only to God and reverence, proskynēsis which is due to icons). sabaōth (σαβαώθ) [323a,b29] – the transliterated Hebrew term, zevaoth, in Greek means ‘surrounded by hosts’ or ‘Lord of hosts, powers, or lordships’.173 God is not alone in the heavens since all the angelic hierarchies and ‘thousand thousands ministering to him’ are also present (Dan. 7. 10). The political aspect is clear from the Sanctus, which expresses the continuous acclamation of the heavenly powers to the Lord.174 (The formula is based on Is. 3. 6, but with the added ‘heaven’ which is a Christian extension, since the glory of God is manifested in the Son, too). (cf. pantokrator, politeia, throne and tagma)
Spicq, Notes, p. 922. Spicq, s.v. Moulton and Milligan, s.v. προσκυνέω. Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 30, PG 36 (Paris: Migne, 1858) 19, 1–6. (De filio): ‘Τῶν δ’ ἄλλων προσηγοριῶν αἱ μὲν τῆς ἐξουσίας εἰσὶ προφανῶς, αἱ δὲ τῆς οἰκονομίας, καὶ ταύτης διττῆς· τῆς μὲν ὑπὲρ τὸ σῶμα, τῆς δὲ ἐν σώματι· οἷον ὁ μὲν παντοκράτωρ, καὶ ὁ βασιλεύς, ἢ τῆς δόξης, ἢ τῶν αἰώνων, ἢ τῶν δυνάμεων, ἢ τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ, ἢ τῶν βασιλευόντων·καὶ ὁ κύριος, ἢ σαβαώθ, ὅπερ ἐστὶ στρατιῶν, ἢ τῶν δυνάμεων, ἢ τῶν κυριευόντων. Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 27–31 (Discours théologiques) ed. by Paul Gallay, Sources Chrétiennes, 250 (Paris: Le Cerf, 1978), p. 264. 174 Hanssens, Institutiones liturgicae, vol. III, 392–93, nos 1252–53.
170 171 172 173
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sōtēr (σωτήρ), sōtēria (σωτηρία), sōzō (σῴζω)175 [309a12; 311a4; 315b14; 322a27; 325a3; 327a20; 328a28; 330a5; 335a9; a20; 337a,b28; 338a9; 339b16] – the terms primarily imply safekeeping, preservation, protection. The well-attested Hellenistic adjective was applied to rulers who ‘saved their people’, like Ptolemaios sōtēr. Deissmann shows that in inscriptions the term is usually joined to euergetēs (εὐεργέτης), benefactor.176 stratia (στρατιά) [312a17] – army, a common phrase referring to the heav‐ enly hosts.177 (cf. politeia, tagma, doryphoroumenos), or the imperial army [333a29]. symphōnia (συμφωνία)178 [311a23; 25] – concord, harmonious unity, agreement. Another prerequisite of the peaceful polity. (cf. homonoia) tagma (τάγμα)179 [312a17; 326a21; 332b12; 343a2] – company, or group in the military sense. In 1 Cor. 15. 23 it refers to ‘every man in his own (military) order’. The related terms, epitagma (ἐπίταγμα) – injunction, command or the common prostagma (πρόσταγμα), command or edict [326a21] refer to the divine Law (ὁ παλαιὸς νόμος, the Old Testament, or the New),180 All three belong to the same group of military terms, like the related stratia (στρατιά) [333a29] and epinikion (ἐπινίκιον) hymn [323a,b27], which means a triumphal ode. tapeinōsis (ταπείνωσις)181 [317a11; 322a9] – humiliation, abasement. This term is connected to the concept of the doulos, one who is unworthy either because of his standing or because of his sins or failures, ‘transgressions, voluntary and involuntary, in word and deed, known and unknown’ to partake in the mysteries of God. It is a reasonable apology in the presence of the Lord, the Master. thronos (θρόνος) [318a17] – the term ‘throne’ is primarily used in scriptural context, meaning the throne on which God sits as ruler (cf. kathēmenos). He is the only one who can sit in the sovereign’s place of honour [322a21–2]. A commentary on Ps. 112 under the name of John Chrysostom spells that out addressing God as ‘dwelling on high’ meaning that ‘the Lord has His throne of the world in heavens, from where He watches over and controls the creation since He is the Maker, the King and the Master of everything’.182 The throne also means that God is sitting in judgement since sitting in court was a privilege of the ruler. While the ruler sits, the whole court is standing
175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182
Moulton and Milligan, s.v. σῴζω, σωτήρ. Deissmann, Light, p. 369. Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 45, PG, 36 (Paris: Migne, 1858), col. 624 A. Spicq, s.v. συμφωνέω. TDNT, s.v. with bibliography on the power of the rulership of God. Goar, 605a. Spicq s.v. ταπεινός. John Chrysostom (?), In Psalmos 101–07, PG, 55 (Paris: Migne, 1862), col. 645Α: ‘ἐν οὐρανῷ μὲν ἔχει τὸν θρόνον τῶν ὅλων ὁ Κύριος, ἐφορᾷ δὲ καὶ πρυτανεύει τὴν κτίσιν, ἅτε δὴ πάντων ὢν δημιουργὸς καὶ βασιλεὺς καὶ Δεσπότης’.
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or in prostration, or bowing. It is in this sense that Christ sits above the Cherubim: ‘You are seated on the throne of the Cherubim, the Lord of the Seraphim and the King of Israel’ [318a19] or ‘Blessed art thou on the throne of glory of Your kingdom’. [322a21–2] timē (τιμή) [310a28]183 – distinctive honour and dignity due to a magistracy or an office, that is, the esteem due to superiors.
183 Mοulton and Milligan, s.v.
jOHN f. ROMANO
Mass Riot in the Reign of Sylvester II *
Historians of the liturgy can only regard political and military historians with envy. While the latter study dramatic events and the machinations that led to them, the former must content themselves with studying unvarying traditions across centuries. Rather than storm the barricades in the course of a revolution, it seems that the medieval laity, at least in church, waited patiently at the altar rails. This state of affairs does not appear to be any different for the papacy, an institu‐ tion steeped in liturgy, because of the difficulty of integrating an understanding of papal leadership of the public cult and the government. Yet challenging this initial impression is no simple feat. At least some of our problems are rooted in the source base. The preservation rate of papal letters before the millennium is scanty, with the many epistles from Leo I (r. 440–461), Gelasius I (r. 492–496), and Gregory I (r. 590–604) providing a false impression of the gaps scholars normally confront for the vast majority of early papal correspondence.1 The liturgy is only one of the many themes that is badly served by this dearth. Our ignorance of the papal experience of liturgy can only to a limited degree be ameliorated by, for instance, entries in the Liber pontificalis that indicate the popes responsible for certain liturgical innovations.2 Frustration may also creep in among scholars of the liturgy when they attempt to tackle the period from the tenth to the early-eleventh * I would like to extend my gratitude to the editors and fellow contributors of this volume, as well as the anonymous reviewer; their suggestions greatly improved the final product. In particular Vedran Sulovsky discussed points of Sylvester II’s Latin with me. The project was a model of scholarly collaboration. The initial research and writing were completed at the American Academy in Rome, and I am thankful for the fellowship that allowed for my residence there. The archivist in Orte, Abbondio Zuppante, graciously oriented me in the local material, and I greatly appreciate his assistance. 1 For early-medieval papal letters, see Pietro Conte, Chiesa e primato nelle lettere dei papi del secolo VII (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1971); Pietro Conte, Regesto delle lettere dei papi del secolo VIII (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1984); and Detlev Jasper and Horst Fuhrmann, Papal Letters in the Early Middle Ages (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001). 2 Liber pontificalis, ed. by Louis Duchesne, 2 vols (Paris: Thorin, 1886–1892), I, pp. 118, 126, 127, 128, 129, 135, 137, 139, 158, 159, 168, 171, 202, 216, 218, 225, 227, 230, 239, 263, 312, 376, 402. For source criticism, see Rosamond McKitterick, Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber pontificalis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), and in particular for its references to the liturgy, pp. 133–45. John F. Romano • Benedictine College
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century, subsequent to the flourishing of texts on the liturgy during the Carolin‐ gian period, but before the reform papacy of the late-eleventh century inspired a new wave of documents that engaged with ritual.3 While it is unlikely that either source problem will be definitively resolved, it is imperative for scholars to exploit fully the papal letters we do have at our disposal to grasp thoroughly the papal relationship to the liturgy and to expand what little we do know about worship and its broader implications for this period. Doing so reveals that historians of the liturgy have a stake in the history of events, and what is more, that worship can at times provide as much excitement as anything else medieval history has to offer. The letter that will be at the focus of this inquiry issues from the pontificate of Pope Sylvester II (r. 999–1003).4 Its authenticity has not been questioned. Analysis of the phrasing of the letter in comparison with his pre-papal correspon‐ dence suggests that it is almost certainly from the hand of Sylvester II himself, not from anonymous members of the papal chancery.5 Like most of this pontiff’s letters, great care was exercised to convey his precise message to his addressees, and so it merits a close reading.6 It is brief and significant enough to the discussion to quote an English translation of it in full, with the most essential terms brack‐ eted in Latin: Sylvester, bishop, servant of the servants of God, [greets] his beloved Otto [III], always august (aug(usto)) Caesar, glory of the whole empire, and, in addition, [sends] the apostolic benediction. Many things carried to you by flying rumour (fama volans pertulit),7 I have entrusted to Gregory of Tusculum out of precaution for you. But I protest that what happened to us at Orte during the sacred solemnities of the Mass (inter sacra missarum solempnia) should not be accepted lightly. For the persons
3 Adolph Franz, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Liturgie und des religiösen Volkslebens (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1902), p. 407. One book that includes significant reflection on the liturgy in this period is Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders, trans. by Patrick J. Geary (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 30–49, 67–77, 210–16, 275–77. See below for the scholarship of Henry Parkes. 4 Regesta pontificum romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII, ed. by Philipp Jaffé, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Berlin: Veit, 1885–1888), I, no. 3913. Papstregesten, 911–1024, ed. by Harald Zimmermann, 2nd edn, Regesta Imperii, 2/5 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1998), p. 276 (nos 910–11). For the edition of the letter, see Papsturkunden 896–1046, ed. by Harald Zimmermann, 2 vols (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984), II, p. 744 (no. 387). For the previous edition, Œuvres de Gerbert, pape sous le nom de Sylvestre II, ed. by Alexandre Olleris (Clermont-Ferrand: Thibaud and Paris: Dumoulin, 1867), pp. 150–51 (no. 220). Also edited in Richer of Saint-Rémy, Historiae, ed. by Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH SS, 38 (Hanover: Hahn, 2000), p. 310. 5 Karl Pivec, ‘Die Briefsammlung Gerberts von Aurillac’, Mitteilungen des österreichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung, 49 (1935), 15–74 (pp. 71–72). 6 Hans-Henning Körtum, ‘Gerbertus qui et Silvester. Papsttum um die Jahrtausendwende’, Deutsches Archiv, 55 (1999), 29–62 (pp. 49–51). 7 ‘Flying rumour’ is a Virgilian reference that would become widespread in medieval poetry: Otto Schumann, Lateinisches Hexameter-Lexikon, 6 vols (Munich: MGH, 1979–1983), II, pp. 221–22.
MASS RIOT IN THE REIGN OF SYLVESTER II
who were presenting nothing to our service (servicio nostro nichil prębuerunt) incited a riot and a tumult in the church against those who were offering little Roman gifts to us (Romana nobis munuscula offerebant), shouting that they should be offered by others (offerrique debere ab aliis). Their anger burned hotter because a certain poor woman had dared to complain to us about their judge, as if that complaint had been made from a grudge against the count. And so, within the holy of holies (intra sancta sanctorum) swords were drawn, and we withdrew from that city among the swords of frenzied enemies. The first lodgings, which should have been ours, disappeared at our approach, although they had been standing the day before. The second suffered the same fate. But more of these details soon. Now I pray, if not on our account at least on yours and your followers’, that our rightful possessions in the Sabina region, controlled by others, will be restored to our authority through the representative of both of us in order that the present abundance of crops will relieve scarcity. Given on June 12th [1000].8 Before the specifics of this letter can be addressed, it will be useful to say something about its author Sylvester II, born Gerbert. This pope is hardly an unknown figure, but his fame is not rooted in any connection to the liturgy.9 In fact Sylvester enjoyed one of the most storied lives of his era. At various points he served as a monk, the abbot of Bobbio, a teacher in a cathedral school, and the archbishop of Rheims and Ravenna, before finally becoming pope late in life. He formed alliances with both the Capetians and the Ottonians. Among the other intellectual subjects he mastered, Sylvester was renowned for spearheading a revival in interest in mathematics in the late-tenth century; the success that he found in his career derived from his own intellectual gifts and was achieved in spite of his humble origins.10 After his death legends began to circulate that Sylvester’s studies strayed beyond legitimate fields of inquiry into magic. The most scandalous story that circulated about his mastery of the dark arts was featured most prominently in the history of William of Malmesbury (c. 1095–c. 1143).11 In it Sylvester created a statuary head, which because of his grasp of astral science, gained the capacity to predict the future. Supposedly Sylvester II asked the head 8 The translation is from The Letters of Gerbert, with his Papal Privileges as Sylvester II, trans. by Harriet Pratt Lattin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), p. 330 (no. 246), with modification. 9 For his biography, see Pierre Riché, Gerbert d’Aurillac: le pape de l’an mil (Paris: Fayard, 1987) and Massimo Oldoni, ‘Silvestro II’, in Enciclopedia dei papi, 3 vols (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 2000), II, pp. 116–25. 10 Alexander Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 157–65, 194, 207, 249. 11 William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. by Roger A. B. Mynors, Rodney M. Thomson, and Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998–1999), I, pp. 292–95. On this legend, see Elly Truitt, ‘Celestial Divination and Arabic Science in Twelfth-Century England: The History of Gerbert of Aurillac’s Talking Head’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 73 (2012), 201–22.
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if one day he would become pope. However, another of the head’s predictions proved trickier to puzzle out. When Sylvester divined that he would not die until he sang Mass in Jerusalem, he assumed that it meant the city of Jerusalem and so he felt no need to curb his heretical experiments immediately. As it turned out, the prophecy instead referred to the church Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, where he had already led the Mass; soon after he fell ill and died. Although the chronicler William claimed that there were three stational Masses said on Sundays at Santa Croce, he was no liturgical scholar and in fact there were only two, the Fourth Sunday of Lent and the Second Sunday in Advent.12 The other day when a stational liturgy was held at Santa Croce was Good Friday, which was neither on a Sunday nor was the Mass performed on it. Even though the liturgy figured into this legend, it carried no echo of any real occurrence of Sylvester’s celebration of the Mass. But there is no need to concoct fantasies of Sylvester’s life: the episode he communicated in his missive was compelling enough in its own right. The addressee of his letter was Western Emperor Otto III (r. 996–1002). Because, as the letter indicates, Otto III already had some advance knowledge of the events that had transpired, we are on safe footing in thinking that this was a real story and not a product of the pontiff’s imagination. The news contained in it would likely be of special interest to the Emperor. Like his grandfather and father he had been working to expand the reach of imperial power in the Italian peninsula.13 Otto had personally imposed two popes in a row, first Gregory V (r. 996–999) and now Sylvester II, on the city of Rome. Both men had been chosen because of their personal connections with the ruler: Gregory was a cousin and had served as his chaplain, whereas Sylvester II had been his tutor. Otto’s support for the men he had chosen had already led him to defend Gregory’s position against hostile local nobles. The Crescenzi clan had driven out the imperial Pope and put their own man the Antipope John XVI in his place, and Otto’s armies hunted down
12 Cf. Geoffrey G. Willis, Further Essays in Early Roman Liturgy (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1968), pp. 21–32. 13 For Otto III and his interaction with the city of Rome, see Gerd Althoff, Otto III, trans. by Phyllis G. Jestice (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), pp. 72–89, 108–31; Knut Görich, Otto III: Romanus Saxonicus et Italicus: kaiserliche Rompolitik und sächsische Historiographie (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1993), pp. 187–274; and Knut Görich, ‘“Aurea Roma”: Kaiser, Papst und Rom um das Jahr 1000’, in Rom – Nabel der Welt: Macht, Glaube, Kultur von der Antike bis Heute, ed. by Jochen Johrendt and Romedio Schmitz-Esser (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010), pp. 49–66. For political and cultural interchanges between the German and Italian areas of the empire, see Wolfgang Huschner, Transalpine Kommunikation im Mittelalter: diplomatische, kulturelle und politische Wechselwirkungen zwischen Italien und dem nordalpinen Reich (9.–11. Jahrhundert), 3 vols (Hanover: Hahn, 2003). For the relationship of the Ottonians and Romans, see Timothy Reuter, Germany in the Early Middle Ages, c. 800–1056 (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 274–86. For the city of Rome in this period, see Pierre Toubert, Les structures du Latium médiéval: le Latium méridional et la Sabine du IXe siècle à la fin du XII siècle, 2 vols (Rome: École française de Rome, 1973), II, pp. 998–1038; Chris Wickham, Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900–1150 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), esp. pp. 22–28, 181–83.
MASS RIOT IN THE REIGN OF SYLVESTER II
the replacement and mutilated him. As part of the containment of the rebellion, Otto had the urban prefect of Rome Crescenzio II, also a Crescenzi, executed. Otto more recently had yet another run-in with a member of the same family, and this one closer to the main action of the letter: he had staged a military campaign against Benedetto, who had despoiled Farfa Abbey in the Sabina. This constituted more than a vendetta against one family of aristocrats. Generally, the local nobility had no desire to see the Emperor from Germany achieve a power base in Italy or Rome and they actively fomented insurrection against him. Otto did not fold in the face of this resistance without a fight. As he was often depicted in the older literature, Otto had developed an impractical or even near-obsessive interest in Italy, and above all, in the Eternal City.14 He was said to have a program aimed at a renovatio of Rome, including its symbols and rituals, and he planned to make it the capital city in his Empire. Much of this portrait has been painstakingly challenged by Knut Görich.15 But it is fair to argue for an emperor with an unusually lively fascination with Rome. He for instance visited it several times, and he built a new palace on the Palatine Hill, the seat of the ancient emperors.16 It is also possible that he did subscribe to a limited form of renewal, inasmuch as these were frequently issued by medieval rulers, though primarily concerning moral and spiritual betterment. Although he shared this tendency with other Ottonian emperors, Otto III employed ancient impe‐ rial titulature such as Romanorum imperator augustus, in part reflected in the letter under consideration here.17 Otto sought to pattern his own court and its external policies on the ideals of antiquity, which Sylvester II promoted and publicized.18 Furthermore, the name Sylvester assumed by the Pope may have been a programmatic decision. As has long been argued, the pope and emperor as representatives of the spiritual and secular spheres were meant to cooperate much the way that the first pope with the same name worked with Emperor Constantine I, as detailed in the infamous Donation of Constantine.19 More recent scholarship has suggested that the choice may have been dictated by the medieval image of Sylvester I, which stressed his promotion of the authority and reform of the Church.20 Whatever Otto’s ultimate plans with Rome were, none came to fruition, since a more serious rebellion against his rule in early 1001 forced
14 Percy E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio: Studien zur Geschichte des römischen Erneuerungsgedankes vom Ende des karolingischen Reiches bis zum Investiturstreit (Leipzig: Teubner, 1929), pp. 87–187. 15 See his works cited in n. 13. For discussion, see David A. Warner, ‘Ideals and Actions in the Reign of Otto III’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999), 1–18. 16 Althoff, Otto III, pp. 81–89. 17 Reuter, Germany, p. 274. 18 Heinrich Dormeier, ‘Die “Renovatio Imperii Romanorum” und die “Außenpolitik” Ottos III. und seiner Berater’, in Polen und Deutschland vor 1000 Jahren, ed. by Michael Borgolte (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), pp. 163–91 (pp. 168, 170, 176). 19 Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio, pp. 115–16, 131–32. 20 Körtum, ‘Gerbertus’, pp. 29–37.
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the Emperor to flee from the city and travel to Ravenna with Sylvester. There he contracted malaria and died a young death. With his passing, the plans for Rome by Ottonian emperors were also abandoned in the face of local resistance. While the Ottonian presence was disruptive for Italy, their incursion and particularly Otto III’s rulership represented a brief interlude.21 After all, Otto was not there long enough to be incorporated into the Italian balance of power, only to generate resentment.22 That tension existed between the noble families of Rome and the Emperor is well understood, but the event Sylvester described has never been adequately explained. Although this letter was preserved in his papal register, the few histori‐ ans who mention it have not made sense of why the Pope’s opponents chose the liturgy as the setting to voice their complaints. Ferdinand Gregorovius accurately cited the Latin of the third sentence of the letter, but he neglected to mention in his main text why it might be significant that this took place in a Mass; he only remarked that after it happened, Otto defended the rights of the Church.23 The modern biographer of Sylvester II, Pierre Riché, provided a French translation, but without supplying any analysis of the event.24 He merely commented ‘le pape, venu dire la messe à Orte en Sabine, s’est heurté à quelques groupes d’opposition’ (‘the pope, who had come to say the Mass at Orte in the Sabina, encountered some opposition groups’).25 Sebastian Scholz drew on this letter to stress the impotence of the pope to exercise his rights over the Sabina without calling on the emperor’s assistance, but without any reference to the liturgy.26 In my view the chief interpretative hindrance has been unfamiliarity with worship and a disinclination to identify the interconnected nature of liturgy and politics in the Middle Ages. My aim in this chapter is to demonstrate how a reading of this source with sensitivity to the public cult can treat the incident as a revolt and explain why this moment in the Mass was chosen for it, as well as in a more global sense to argue for the potential the liturgy had to foster protest. On its face the papal visit to the city of Orte, which is 70 kilometres to the north of the city of Rome, made sense. Orte had since at least the Carolingian period been in the sphere of influence of the papacy. This hold, however, had been threatened since the mid-tenth century by the proliferation of local lords who erected small, fortified settlements known as castra as part of a process normally referred to as incastellamento.27 In spite of this tendency the papal representatives known as rectores still looked to the pope for leadership until the 1040s, though 21 Paolo Cammarosano, Nobili e re: L’Italia politica dell’alto medioevo (Rome: Laterza, 1998), pp. 310–21. 22 Warner, ‘Ideals and Actions’, pp. 10–11. 23 Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, trans. by Annie Hamilton, 4th edn, 8 vols (London: Bell & Sons, 1903), III, p. 482. 24 Riché, Gerbert d’Aurillac, pp. 219–20. 25 Riché, Gerbert d’Aurillac, p. 219. 26 Sebastian Scholz, Politik – Selbstverständis – Selbstdarstellung: die Päpste in karolingischer und ottonischer Zeit (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006), pp. 373–74. 27 Toubert, Les structures du latium médiéval, pp. 1267–74, for the Sabina.
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not without interruption; most of them resided in the Eternal City.28 Though the realities of which noble families controlled some areas is obscure, the central Italian region of the Sabina had long been the centre of power of the Crescenzi.29 With the new wind of the imperial might at his back, Sylvester II might well have wanted to celebrate Mass there to broadcast papal power. Just as the pope felt free to hold Mass in churches in Rome, a city under his control, so too should he have been free to do the same in an area that was a papal dependency. The Pope had chosen a date that was a relative liturgical dead time in the city of Rome: 9 June 1000,30 the Third Sunday after Pentecost.31 This meant that Sylvester II did not have to risk missing any of the standard round of Masses that he led as part of the Roman stational system, and potentially slighting the clergy of the churches that hosted them; this was offense that he could ill afford to give, in consideration of the widespread view that he was a French, ‘foreign’ pope under the thumb of the German emperor. We have no information about which church in Orte was chosen to host the Mass, and what we know about the city until the later Middle Ages is meagre. The most likely option would have been the cathedral Santa Maria Assunta, the largest and most prestigious church in the city, which had been founded in the seventh century and was located at the centre of the town in its main piazza.32 Santa Maria Assunta was incorporated into a complex of buildings overseen by the bishop at Orte; at one point, it was one of the two cathedrals in the city (the other dedicated to San Lorenzo), but by c. 1000, it had eclipsed the other cathedral and would in time be considered the city’s only cathedral. The proper liturgical texts employed in the Mass are uncertain. There were not even standard prayer or musical texts used for the Third Sunday of Pentecost. The
28 Wickham, Medieval Rome, pp. 27–28. 29 Toubert, Les structures du latium médiéval, p. 1030. 30 This is the most logical date for the liturgy, which must have taken place before the date the letter was written (12 June 1000), but at a festal and well-attended Sunday celebration. Both Riché, Gerbert d’Aurillac, pp. 219, 287; and Gerbert D’Aurillac (Silvestro II), Lettere, 983–97, trans. by Paolo Rossi (Pisa: PLUS, 2009), p. 18, give Monday, 10 June 1000, but without providing any rationale. 31 Only one source cites a stational church for the Third Sunday of Pentecost, i.e. Santi Giovanni e Paolo (Willis, Further Essays, p. 31). If this was indeed the stational church in 590–91, rather than merely a church where Gregory Ionce preached (PL, 76 (Paris: Migne, 1878), col. 1246), it ceased to serve in this capacity afterwards. 32 The modern cathedral was built in the eighteenth century. For the city and its cathedral, see Luigi Paglialunga, Orte preromana, romana e del primo medio evo (Orte: Tipografia Menna, 1963), pp. 88, 92; Per una storia di Orte e del suo territorio, ed. by Abbondio Zuppante (Orte: Tipografia Ceccarelli, 2006), there esp. the contribution by Stefano Del Lungo, ‘L’abitato di Orte dalle origini all’XI secolo: aspetti topografici ed archeologici’, pp. 25–55; Fabrizio Moretti, Viaggio nell’antico patrimonio urbano della città di Orte (Orte: Tipografia Menna, 2015). In a personal communication on 12 April 2019, Zuppante told me that Sylvester’s visit had been lost to local memory: ‘la visita di Silvestro II a Orte nell’anno 1000 è assolutamente sconosciuta’.
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likely Gospel reading was Luke 16. 19–31, the rich man and Lazarus,33 and at least in one manuscript reflecting Roman norms, the epistle was 1 Pet. 5. 6–11.34 Why was the liturgy the platform on which Otto III’s Roman opponents opted to stage a protest? The first reason is simply one of practicality: during the course of the liturgy, his opponents could be certain where the pope would be. What this meant was that the pope could be attacked while fulfilling his liturgical duties. This is the reason that, centuries earlier, the representative of the Byzantine emperor the exarch had planned to assassinate Pope Martin I (r. 649–653) during his distribution of Communion.35 It was why Leo III (r. 795–816) had been attacked while leading the Major Litany, the long procession that snaked through the city of Rome.36 The advantage for the planner of such an attack was the theoretical impossibility of a priest’s departure from the Mass once he had started it. A canon from the Roman council of 743, for instance, expressed the ideal that once a bishop or priest had initiated a Mass he was obligated to complete it and another cleric could not substitute for him under penalty of excommunication.37 What this meant was that the pope, while he was celebrating Mass, was a sitting duck. That the uprising described in the letter happened during the papal Mass seems to me undeniable. Sylvester II is explicit that it happened during Mass (‘inter sacra missarum solempnia’). One might be tempted further to translate servicium as ‘liturgy’, since like officium or ministerium the term often has this force in medieval texts.38 This rendering does not fit this context, however. In Sylvester’s other writings, servicium refers to one of two things: some form of ‘feudal’ service owed to one’s lord and, more specifically, required financial exactions.39 It may then be understood that the guilty parties were either neglecting their service 33 Das römische Capitulare evangeliorum, ed. by Theodor Klauser, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 28 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1935), p. 156 (no. 182). 34 Antoine Chavasse, Les lectionnaires romains de la messe au VIIe et au VIIIe siècle: sources et dérivés, 2 vols, Spicilegii Friburgensis Subsidia, 22 (Fribourg: Éditions universitaires, 1993), II, p. 16. It only appears in the late-eighth-century Paris, BnF, MS latin 9451. If this was the reading, it surely would have appeared ironic after the fact, since it urges resistance – albeit against the devil rather than against the pope! 35 Liber pontificalis, I, pp. 336–38. 36 Liber pontificalis, II, pp. 4–5; Annales regni Francorum, ed. by Frederich Kurze, MGH SRG, 6 (Hanover: Hahn, 1895), p. 106. 37 Concilia aevi Karolini, ed. by Albert Werminghoff, 2 vols, MGH Concilia 2/1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1906–8), I, pp. 8–32 (p. 18): ‘XIIII. ut episcopus aut presbyter, dum ingressus fuerit ad missarum sollemnia celebranda, nullo modo audeat data oratione recedere, ut ab alio episcopo aut presbytero suppleatur missarum sollemnia, sed scriptum est: “Qui perseveraverit usque in finem, hic salvus erit”’. Cf. Matthew 10. 22. 38 Albert Blaise, Le vocabulaire latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques (Turnhout: Brepols, 1966), p. 99; Irénée H. Dalmais, Principles of the Liturgy, trans. by Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1987), p. 230. 39 Service: Die Briefsammlung Gerberts von Reims, ed. by Fritz Weigle, MGH Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1966), p. 28 (no. 5); p. 42 (no. 20); pp. 188–89 (no. 160). Financial exactions (servicium fiscale): Papsturkunden 896–1046, pp. 767–79 (no. 404).
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to their lord the pope or that they were not giving him some money owed him. The meaning in this case appears to be a fee regularly provided to one’s lord in exchange for something – regularly for the use of land, but in this case, for the celebration of Mass.40 Because some ambiguity remains, I have retained the amorphous ‘service’ in the English translation of the letter. In this epistle the Pope wanted to express his displeasure not only with the opposition to his authority, but with the sacrilegious opportunity chosen for a protest; this is the reason that the Emperor was not supposed to take it lightly. The noble families of Rome already found other opportunities to protest against the emperor and would again in the future. None of these involved sacred worship and all of them compelled the emperor’s intervention, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Of course it is doubtful that Sylvester II would have hesitated to ask for his help if the events had occurred at a more ‘appropriate’ moment. It is significant not only that the ringleaders of this riot chose the Mass, but the part of the Mass when they chose to rise up. Clear from the description is that this was the offertory , the point at the Mass in which the bread and wine for the sacrifice were offered, after the collect prayer but before the preparation of the altar.41 Two aspects of the letter make this a near certainty. Sylvester referred to the primary movers of the riot being those who contributed nothing to the service, implying that offering something was the normal expectation. Even more directly in the next sentence, the Pope stated that there were those who were offering ‘little Roman gifts’, although there was some question as to who was supposed to be offering those gifts. The term munus, albeit not as a diminutive, is often used in liturgical sources to refer to the gifts offered for the sacrifice of the Mass.42 Although the letter does not state it directly, it is likely that Sylvester II heard the complaint of a woman during the procession to the church where he celebrated the Mass, since it was standard procedure in Rome for the pope to hear petitioners as he made his way to a stational church.43
40 Charles du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae Latinitatis, 2nd edn, 10 vols (Niort: Favre, 1883–1887), VII, pp. 448c–449b. 41 For the offertory rite, see Arnold Angenendt, Offertorium. Das mittelalterliche Messopfer (Münster: Aschendorff, 2013); Joseph Dyer, ‘The Roman Offertory: An Introduction and Some Hypotheses’, in The Offertory and its Verses: Research, Past, Present and Future, ed. by Roman Hankeln (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2007), pp. 15–40; David Ganz, ‘Giving to God in the Mass: The Experience of the Offertory’, in The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Wendy Davies and Paul J. Fouracre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 18–32; Josef A. Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia: Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe, 5th edn, 2 vols (Vienna: Herder, 1962), II, pp. 5–34. For the offertory antiphon, see Joseph Dyer, ‘The Offertory Chant of the Roman Liturgy and its Musical Form’, Studi musicali, 11 (1982), 3–30; and Rebecca Maloy, Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and Transmission (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 42 Blaise, Vocabulaire latin, p. 74. 43 See the First Roman Ordo: OR I, c. 12–13, in Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen âge, ed. by Michel Andrieu, 5 vols, Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, Études et documents, 11, 23, 24, 28, 29 (Louvain, 1931–1961), II, p. 71; The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby, ed. and trans. by Bertram Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 114.
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This interaction is described as an impetus for the crowd’s anger, not some‐ thing that occurred proximate to the other elements of the liturgy. Nowhere in the letter is it described which of the local people in Orte was either slated to or actually attempted to give the gifts, and it is doubtful that Sylvester II would have known their identities in any case. In fact, even the name of the family who were the instigators is omitted, though it was surely the Crescenzi. Sylvester II would not want to commit their names to writing in case the letter were intercepted; this is exactly the kind of secretive information with which his emissary Gregory of Tusculum, from a rival family to the Crescenzi, would be entrusted. Gregory was well-known to and respected by the Emperor: he had been named the Emperor’s praefectus navalis by Otto III, though he was the naval commander of a fleet that never had any ship at sea!44 Although the moment of the Mass when the riot broke out was the offertory, at least one phrase is puzzling to interpret. The question that remains elusive is why were these Romana munuscula, i.e. little Roman gifts?45 Does this imply that Otto III was unaccustomed to the offertory as it was practiced in Rome or that this part of the rite was unfamiliar to those in the Empire? Why is munus in the diminutive rather than the more anticipated form munera? Answering these questions requires a brief digression into the history of the offertory and its particular manifestation here. One explanation in reading Sylvester II’s letter is that as a foreigner, he may still have viewed the offertory rite as practiced in Rome as something alien. A similar situation had already occurred earlier in his life. While he was abbot of Bobbio, the future pope complained to Emperor Otto II about the local charters of lease that had been issued previously by the monastery, which were something he had never before encountered.46 The possibility is strengthened when one considers that in the Gallican rite once dominant in Gaul the offertory rite was confined exclusively to the clergy.47 The laity contributed the bread and wine, but they did so before the service started.48 During the liturgy, only the clergy would bring up the gifts to be used later in the Mass. The nobility was present at the Mass, but they did not touch the gifts or hand them over to the clergy. But two difficulties immediately confront this understanding. The first concerns the
44 Althoff, Otto III, p. 122. 45 As Pivec, ‘Briefsammlung’, p. 71, n. 4 argues, the phrase munuscula offerebant may be a variation of the Biblical munera […] obtulerunt (Matthew 2. 11), but if so, the parallel is not obvious. 46 Antonio Sennis, ‘Documentary Practices, Archives and Laypeople in Central Italy, Mid Ninth to Eleventh Centuries’, in Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Warren C. Brown, Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Adam J. Kosto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 321–35 (pp. 321–22). 47 Expositio antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, ed. by Edward C. Ratcliff (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1971), pp. 10–12; Yitzhak Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, a.d. 481–751 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 68–69. 48 Georg Nickl, Der Anteil des Volkes an der Messliturgie im Frankenreiche von Chlodwig bis auf Karl den Grossen (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1930), pp. 36–44.
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addressee of this letter, Emperor Otto III. The original heartlands of the Empire were in Saxony, an area that had never adopted the Gallican liturgy. The deeper problem is that the Gallican liturgy had long ceased to exist in anything like its earlier, ‘pure’ form. As I will demonstrate, at the time when Sylvester II was writing, the Roman tradition of the offertory had spread throughout Northern Europe. It is unclear at what point the offertory was introduced as a part of the Roman Mass. A letter of Innocent I (r. 401–417) reveals that the names of those who had given offerings (oblationes) were recited within the Canon, but the letter did not indicate at what point the laity provided the gifts.49 It could well have been, as in the Gallican rite, that certain members of the laity gave the gifts before, but not during, the service. It has been argued that there would have been little point in the fifth century of voicing the names of the donors out loud inasmuch as everyone had already seen them give the gifts publicly.50 One might just as well posit that in addition to the societal recognition that the donors had already gained through making the offerings initially, they also wanted the special spiritual blessing accorded to those whose names were read in the Canon, akin to a burial ad sanctos. Another possible allusion to the offertory appears to be more firmly situated at some point in the Mass. In a terse formulation from the Roman vita of the pope and martyr Clement from c. 450, a female character promises to offer the bread or wine in the course of a Mass.51 The first incontrovertible evidence for the presence of the offertory in the city of Rome comes in the late-seventh-century First Roman Ordo.52 A close reading of the Roman rite of the offertory contained in it is instructive. In this source bread and wine are offered not only by the clergy, but also by the laity. By the laity we should not imagine the laity as a whole, but only a small noble subsection of them. Representatives of both men and women presented them in order of their dignities. Other than their rank and gender, the First Roman Ordo provides no idea of which nobles would give offerings, which is typical of documents that do not focus on the laity or supply proper names. Even though both the clergy and laity supply the gifts, the clerical author of this text used two different Latin terms to indicate the difference between the offerings the two groups contributed: only the laity would consume the consecrated bread and wine that they themselves had
49 La lettre du pape Innocent Ier à Décentius de Gubbio, 19 mars 416, ed. by Robert Cabié (Louvain: Publications universitaires de Louvain, 1973), pp. 22–23. 50 Dyer, ‘Roman Offertory’, p. 19. 51 Boninus Mombritius, Sanctuarium seu Vitae sanctorum, 2 vols (Paris: Fontemoing, 1910), I, p. 342: ‘Sed offerens hostiam domino expletis mysteriis prosequar vos’ (‘But offering the sacrificial gift to the Lord, after the Eucharistic mysteries are completed, I will follow you’). On this life, see Michael Lapidge, The Roman Martyrs: Introduction, Translations, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 165–79 (p. 172). 52 OR I, c. 69–77 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 91–92).
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originally donated (and so too with the clergy).53 Although scholars occasionally speak of an offertory ‘procession’, the hand-off of gifts here is too simple to rise to the level of a procession but rather resembles a simple donation. It remains unclear from the First Roman Ordo how often the offertory would be carried out, with its emphasis on Easter Sunday and the days immediately following. The ostensible model it establishes must have held for Sundays and major feast days. It is difficult to gauge to what degree the offertory in Rome changed over the centuries between the composition of the First Roman Ordo and the millennium owing to a lack of similar systematic descriptions of Mass for the intervening pe‐ riod. It does seem, however, that this is one of the customs that endured until our sources for the Roman liturgy begin to appear again. In the mid-twelfth-century liturgical compendium by the canon of San Giovanni in Laterano Bernard, the author provided evidence of the Roman offertory during the Easter Vigil: ‘When the cantor intones the offertory antiphon, the bishop supported by the priest and the deacon and with the miter placed on his head goes to receive the offering in the normal place with the mansionarius preceding him. But after the offering is received, the bishop returns to the chair’.54 I agree with Josef A. Jungmann’s reading of this passage that it refers to the persistence of the offertory at least at certain points in the Roman calendar, although the evidence is frustratingly terse.55 As in the First Roman Ordo, the bishop performs the sustentatio, has another clergy member ready to receive the gifts, and after it is over, he returns to the chair.56 In this case, however, the clergy who do all of these tasks is distinct, and strangely, there is no indication who is providing the offering, but since all of the specific clerical positions are spelled out, the only logical other party who could be involved is the laity. At this point as described in Bernard’s ordo, what was offered at Mass was still bread and wine intended for use in the liturgy; the offering had not yet been commuted to coinage. Based on this, in c. 1000, the offertory was still alive and well in the city of Rome when Sylvester II celebrated Mass in Orte. During the period in which the Carolingians were dominant in Western Europe, papal liturgy was idealized and exported. While true of so much of Roman liturgy, the offertory was a component of the package that was slowly, unevenly, and only partially disseminated North of the Alps. The influence of the papal rite in Francia may already be present in the eighth-century Gelasian
53 John F. Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medieval Rome (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), p. 97. Oblationes for the faithful and oblata for the clergy. 54 Bernhardi cardinalis et Lateranensis ecclesiae prioris, Ordo officiorum ecclesiae Lateranensis, ed. by Ludwig Fischer (Munich and Freising: Datterer & Cie, 1916), p. 82: ‘Cum autem cantor offertorium inceperit, episcopus sustenatus a presbytero et diacono et mitra imposita uadit ad accipiendam oblationem in consueto loco mansionario ante eum precedente. Oblatione uero accepta postquam episcopus ad sedem reuersus fuerit’. 55 Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, II, pp. 9–11. 56 Cf. the sustentatio in OR I, c. 69, the clergy receiving the gifts in OR I, c. 70, and the return to the chair in OR I, c. 76 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 91–92).
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Sacramentary: ‘After that the people offer, and the sacraments are consecrated’.57 This can be seen more clearly in the ordines, the liturgical scripts copied by Frank‐ ish travelers to Rome and later adapted to their needs. The First Roman Ordo became a bestseller in Francia, and in addition five other ordines contain variations of the offertory rite as described in it, all of them modifying the language of the original while preserving the idea that the laity offered the bread and wine to the clergy in the Mass.58 Not all of these documents can be taken at face value as representing liturgies as they were actually performed, but they still got the word of the offertory out to those who copied and read them. In similar fashion liturgical commentaries in the Carolingian Age both demon‐ strate knowledge that the Roman ideals of the offertory were being transmitted and they served as the means to do so. Amalar of Metz (c. 775–c. 850) more than once handled the Roman offertory, although characteristically in a style so allegorical that it can be difficult to discern the actual practices underlying his discussion. In at least two passages, however, he is more direct: ‘The people give its offerings, that is the bread and wine, according to the order of Melchisedech’.59 Here is one instance in which the Old Testament figure Melchisedech served as a typological figure for a donor in the offertory. Amalar also interpreted the sym‐ bolism of why men offered before women in the offertory, with the implication that the practice was already known to his readers: ‘That men indeed offer first signifies the primitive Church suffering many injuries under the emperors who were not yet Christian. After that women offer, indicating the more tranquil life the Church is now leading’.60 Walahfrid Strabo (c. 808–849) in passing alludes to the practice of the offer‐ tory, if only to criticize the behaviour of some of the laity who were more interested in being acknowledged publicly for their generosity than any deeper religious values; they offered bread and wine but then departed before the gifts were consecrated by the priest:
57 Liber sacramentorum romanae aeclesiae ordinis anni circuli (Cod. Vat. Reg. lat. 316/Paris Bibl. Nat. 7193, 41/56) (Sacramentarium Gelasianum), ed. by Leo C. Mohlberg, 3rd edn (Rome: Herder, 1981), p. 59 (no. 368): ‘Post haec offert plebs, et confitiuntur sacramenta’. 58 OR IV, c. 38–48 from Francia, c. 780–90 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 161–63); OR V, c. 43–54 from the Rhine region, c. 850–900 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 218–20); OR IX, c. 21–25 from Francia, c. 880–900 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 332–33); OR X, c. 38–45 perhaps from Mainz, 900–50 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 358–59); and OR XV, c. 28–32 from Francia, 775–800 (Les Ordines Romani, III, pp. 101–02). For a recent discussion on the reception of ordines, see Arthur Westwell, ‘The Ordines Romani and the Carolingian Choreography of a Liturgical Route to Rome”, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia, 31 (N.S.17) (2019), 63–79. 59 Amalar of Metz, Liber officialis, in Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, ed. by Jean M. Hanssens, 3 vols (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1948–1950), II, p. 317: ‘Populus dat oblationes suas, id est panem et vinum, secundum ordinem Melchisedech’. 60 Amalar of Metz, Ordinis missae expositio, in Amalarii episcopi opera, III, p. 306: ‘Quod primum quidem masculi offerunt, significat primitivam ecclesiam sub imperatoribus nondum christianis multas iniurias passam. Exhinc enim offerunt mulieres, ecclesiam designantes nunc tranquilliorem vitam ducentem’.
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You must realize, however, that some people make offerings improperly. There are those who care more about the number of offerings they make than about the power of the sacraments; they often make offerings hastily and then leave the Mass. For it certainly makes more sense to make an offering there where you wish to stay: you who have offered a gift to the Lord should offer at the same time the devout request that your gift be accepted. It is said with good reason in the ‘action’, ‘Those who are offering to you’, not ‘those who have offered’; let us understand that they must remain at the offering until the gifts are consecrated.61 It is impossible that Walahfrid Stabo is referring to the clergy here, who as the ministers did not have the option of departing in the middle of the Mass. Lest it be seen only as an antiquated model of the offertory when the incident addressed in the letter occurred, the Roman form of the offertory appears in one liturgical commentary that circulated popularly throughout the Ottonian realm in the early-eleventh century. This was the text known as the Liber de divinis officiis, once attributed to ‘Pseudo-Alcuin’, but now believed to be penned by Remigius of Auxerre (d. 908); in addition to writing it, Remigius further incorporated it into his more extensive compilation Expositio missae.62 What is useful for our purposes is that in this source people are said to provide offerings – first the generic terms oblationes and munera, but then he was careful to specify that as part of the gifts, the wine given would have to be mixed with water.63 The author further anticipated that the people who gave offerings would have their names read in the Memento, Domine in the Canon.64
61 Walahfrid Strabo, Walahfrid Strabo’s Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarundam in observationibus ecclesiasticis rerum, ed. and trans. by Alice L. Harting-Correa (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 138–41: ‘Sciendum autem quosdam inordinate offerre, qui attendentes numerum oblationum potius, quam virtutem sacramentorum saepe in illis transeunter offerunt missis, ad quas persistere nolunt. Rationabilius siquidem est ibi offerre, ubi velis persistere, ut qui munus Domino optulisti, offeras pariter pro eodem munere suscipiendo postulationem devotam. Non enim frustra in actione dicitur: “Qui tibi offerunt”, non dicitur: “Qui optulerunt”, ut intellegamus eos persistere debere in offerendo, donec oblata ad hoc perveniant, ad quod oblata sunt’. The reference to the Canon (i.e. the ‘action’) is in the Memento, Domine: L’ordinaire de la messe: texte critique, traduction et études, ed. and trans. by Bernard Botte and Christine Mohrmann (Paris: Le Cerf, 1953), p. 76. On Walahfrid’s understanding of the liturgy, see Christina Pössel, ‘“Appropriate to the Religion of their Time”: Walahfrid’s Historicisation of the Liturgy’, in Writing the Early Medieval West: Studies in Honour of Rosamond McKitterick, ed. by Elina Screen and Charles West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 80–97. 62 On this text, see Michel Andrieu, ‘L’ordo romanus antiquus et le Liber de divinis officiis du PseudoAlcuin’, Revue des sciences religieuses, 5 (1925), 642–50; Jean-Paul Bouhot, ‘Les sources de l’Expositio missae de Remi d’Auxerre’, Revue des études augustiniennes, 26 (1980), 118–69; and Jean-Paul Bouhot, ‘Pour une édition critique de l’Expositio missae de Remi d’Auxerre’, in L’école carolingienne d’Auxerre: de Murethach à Rémi, 830–908, ed. by Dominique Iogna-Prat, Colette Judy, and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991), pp. 425–34. 63 Liber de divinis officiis, PL, 101 (Paris: Migne, 1863), cols 1246C–1271B (cols 1246D, 1251C–52B). 64 Liber de divinis officiis, col. 1258B–D.
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As always with liturgical sources, it is easier to observe which ones were available to contemporaries rather than when, where, and to what degree they were imitated. The First Roman Ordo is often thought to have played a part in shaping the way that the Mass was celebrated in Western Europe, even if it is rare to find specific elements implemented directly from the text.65 Although it is difficult to gauge, the spread of the parts of the papal Mass likely played out in a way similar to that of the papal baptismal rite, as Susan A. Keefe has expertly studied.66 When it came to that liturgy, Franks regularly borrowed from the papal liturgy without necessarily importing wholesale the entire rite even as they claimed that they were following the Roman method of celebration. This might lead to a somewhat chaotic mixture of old and new practices on the ground, not a papal liturgical model sweeping away all in its path.67 Ottonian liturgical sources, although not as informative as we might like, do confirm the impression that the Roman standard of the offertory had penetrated the Ottonian realm. We can get some sense of this from what are viewed as the two great liturgical monuments of the Ottonian age, the sacramentaries produced at the powerful imperial monastery of Fulda and the formulas that constitute what was once known as the ‘Romano-German Pontifical’.68 Among the former I will take as representative the luxuriously illuminated manuscript Göttingen, Staatsund Universitätsbibliothek, MS theol. 231 from c. 975, a composite sacramentary that weaves together various Roman (both from the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries), Frankish, and local strands of liturgy for the use of Fulda’s Bene‐ dictine monks.69 Its initial ordo missae at the beginning of the pontifical states that some form of offertory was being held (offertur), but not whether or not the laity were involved.70 The same verb offertur is used later in the sacramentary to describe an offering that is completed by many, although it is subsequently consecrated as one body of Christ.71 The exact ‘many’ intended here is obscure in the text, but it is likely to extend beyond the circle of the clergy. What makes it more likely that the offertory in this sacramentary was being performed by
65 John F. Romano, ‘The Fates of Liturgies: Towards a History of the First Roman Ordo’, Antiphon, 11 (2007), 43–77 (pp. 70–73). 66 Susan A. Keefe, Water and the Word: Baptism and the Education of the Clergy in the Carolingian Empire, 2 vols (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), esp. I, pp. 116–31. 67 Yitzhak Hen, ‘When Liturgy gets out of Hand’, in Writing the Early Medieval West, pp. 203–12. 68 Sarah Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, 900–1050 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), p. 136. 69 The edition is Sacramentarium Fuldense saeculi X, ed. by Gregor Richter and Albert Schönfelder (Fulda: Der Fuldaer Actiondruckerei, 1912). Most extensively on this sacramentary, see Christoph Winterer, Das Fuldaer Sakramentar in Göttingen: Benediktinische Observanz und römische Liturgie (Petersberg: Imhof, 2009), and for a study of its iconography, see Éric Palazzo, Les sacramentaires de Fulda: étude sur l’iconographie et la liturgie à l’époque ottonienne (Münster: Aschendorff, 1994). 70 Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 1: ‘Postmodum legitur euangelium. Deinde offertur et dicitur oratio super oblata’. 71 Sacramentarium Fuldense, pp. 38–39, formula 50, no. 316 (Preface): ‘Et tibi hanc hostiam offerre, quae salutifero et ineffabili diuinae gratiae sacramento offertur a plurimis et unum Christi corpus sancti spiritus infusione perficitur’.
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the laity can be found in the similar formulation of three prayers in particular: ‘haec […] oblatio famuli tui “ill.” ’,72 ‘haec oblatio famuli tui “ill.” ’,73 and ‘haec oblatio famulos tuos “ill.” ’.74 In the context of a sacramentary, the implication appears to be that the specific offering given in Mass, that is the bread and wine, was being provided by the lay donor whose name would be publicly pronounced. Two of the prayers were orationes super oblata and the other the final prayer of the Mass. By this point, it is likely that the Canon would be silent, and so if donors wanted public recognition, they could not rely on the older location in the Memento, Domine to hear their names out loud.75 The other major source of Ottonian liturgy, the ‘Romano-German Pontifical’, is only now undergoing a significant scholarly re-evaluation, and so my use of this source will remain somewhat limited. This source had once been seen as a unified pontifical produced in the monastery of Saint Alban in Mainz in c. 950, and one that was widespread and highly influential for the liturgy of the city of Rome.76 Recent publications have called into question nearly every aspect of that characterization, leaving us with serious doubts as to whether or not it was viewed as a single collection, how broadly it spread, and where its texts originated.77 Most recently, the major texts in it are argued to have been cultivated and brought together in royal circles during the early part of the reign of Emperor Henry II of Germany, c. 1002–1009. If this is the case, its formulas were circulating through Ottonian Germany at around the same time as the Pope’s Mass in Orte, and so they merit inclusion in this discussion. Yet the first evidence from these texts is negative. A version of the First Roman Ordo was included in this collection, one that omitted not only the offertory but the vast majority of the Mass after the opening procession and before the distribution of the Eucharist.78 In another for‐ mula, however, there is positive evidence of a blessing given over those offerings
Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 220, formula 339, no. 1933 (Ad complendum). Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 259, formula 401, no. 2236 (Super oblata). Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 274, formula 427, no. 2334 (Super oblata). For the silent Canon, see Robert F. Taft, ‘Was the Eucharistic Anaphora Recited Secretly or Aloud? The Ancient Tradition and What Became of It’, in Worship Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East, ed. by Roberta R. Ervine (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press and New Rochelle, NY: St Nersess Armenian Seminary, 2006), pp. 15–57 (p. 40). For the role of the Memento, Domine, see Geoffrey G. Willis, Essays in Early Roman Liturgy (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1964), pp. 34–36. 76 Le Pontifical Romano–Germanique du dixième siècle, ed. by Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, 3 vols (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1963–1972). 77 See Hamilton, Practice of Penance; and three works of Henry Parkes: ‘Questioning the Authority of Vogel and Elze’s Pontifical romano-germanique’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 75–101; The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church: Books, Music and Ritual in Mainz, 950–1050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); and ‘Henry II, Liturgical Patronage and the Birth of the Romano–German Pontifical’, Early Medieval Europe, 28 (2020), 104–41. For discussion, see James Borders’ review of the book by Henry Parkes, in Plainsong and Medieval Music, 26 (2017), 206–15. 78 Pontifical Romano–Germanique, II, pp. 114–15, formula XCIX, nos 405–07.
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to be consecrated in the Mass: ‘Receive from the hand of your servants the gift offered, which blessed by your mercy, may remain consecrated for the use of this sanctuary’.79 Later in this benediction reference was made again to Melchisedech as the model of a Biblical donor, and along similar lines, to Abel. The upshot of the discussion is that the evidence suggests that Otto III and others in the Ottonian realm would have been aware of the practice of the Roman offertory, and so that would not have been a mystery to the Pope’s audience. Given the familiarity that its audience would have had with the Roman offertory and the association between Rome and ideal liturgical practice, it is possible that ‘Roman’ in this letter was calibrated to be little more than a byword for ‘according to Roman/papal norms’ or even ‘correct, appropriate’.80 This adjective may have been inserted to stress the habitual nature of the gift, the kind of offerings the people regularly gave in Rome, in contrast to the abnormal chaos that erupted during the Mass in Orte. It might have had the added benefit of creating a strong impression on his audience. Otto III’s interest may well have been piqued by bringing things Roman into discussion, if not enflaming his anger at a perversion of how offerings ought to be made at Rome or in cities adhering to its practices. One other possibility to entertain is that the confusion stemmed from a ques‐ tion of which items were being offered: that is, that people were offering other foodstuffs instead of bread and wine, which may have been viewed as illegitimate. This was a custom with ancient roots, but by this point the Church’s campaign in the ninth and tenth centuries to ensure that only bread and wine were normally offered at the altar had largely proved successful.81 A single special prayer for blessing grapes and beans was included in the Göttingen manuscript, after the Nobis quoque but before the Per quem haec omnia, and it seems that it was something limited to the commemoration of St Xystus’s day on 6 August.82 It is hard to believe that this practice unique to one day was enough to confuse his readers such that Sylvester II would have to specify that bread and wine and not grapes and beans were intended when speaking about offering. To understand what Sylvester II meant we must rather focus on the term munuscula. The terms munus and munera were used in the Ottonian era just as in the rest of the Middle Ages to refer to the bread and wine given in the offertory. They appear repeatedly in the Göttingen manuscript in orationes super oblata along with the request to transform them into the Body and Blood of Jesus.83 It is
79 Pontifical Romano–Germanique, I, pp. 180–81, formula XLVIII: ‘Benedictio super munus quod quis ecclesie offert honori: “Suspice de manu famulorum tuorum munus oblatum, quod, a tua clementia benedictum, in usum huius sanctuarii maneat consecratum”’. 80 For the connotation of the word Romani in this period, see Walter Ullmann, ‘On the Use of the Term “Romani” in the Sources of the Earlier Middle Ages’, Studia patristica, 2 (1957), 155–63. 81 Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, II, pp. 21–22. For an example of distancing other offerings, see Wahlafrid Strabo, Wahlafrid Strabo’s Libellus, pp. 106–09. 82 Sacramentarium Fuldense, pp. 134–35, formula 178, no. 1168 (Infra [actionem]). 83 Munus: Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 26, formula 30, no. 210; p. 38, formula 49, no. 309; p. 59, formula 76, no. 494; p. 76, formula 101, no. 648; p. 91, formula 111, no. 756; p. 114, formula 142, no. 980;
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impossible to exclude that the offertory in this case was confined to bread and wine, however, and if the term servicium is to be understood as a fee for executing the Mass, this is when it would be handed over. The offertory could be exploited to pay dues or revenues to one’s ecclesiastical lord.84 Among the things that could be handed over included gold and silver, charters that transmitted gifts, or even child oblates to monasteries.85 Without any more explicit indication, it cannot be stated with any certainty that anything beyond bread and wine were delivered in this case, but some form of dues may well have been presented alongside the bread and wine, and if this is the case, it would make this episode a financial loss for the Pope too. Naturally, Sylvester II may have intentionally phrased this in vague fashion in the letter to keep the focus on the sacrilege committed against the Mass rather than to seem to be complaining about his failure to collect revenues owed to him. Another aspect that remains unresolved is why the term is in the diminutive here. One tempting solution is that in Rome one was accustomed to having plenty of small offerings instead of fewer but more concentrated gifts by the nobles in the offertory in the Ottonian realm. Yet at least if the literal wording of some of the orationes super oblata can be trusted, the Ottonians did not find it strange
p. 115, formula 144, no. 989; p. 118, formula 149, no. 1015; p. 128; formula 165, no. 1099; p. 143, formula 193, no. 1245; p. 153, formula 212, no. 1340; p. 167, formula 238, no. 1457; p. 183, formula 265, no. 1606; p. 187, formula 272, no. 1649; p. 209, formula 309, no. 1813; p. 242, formula 379, no. 2126; p. 261, formula 404, no. 2250. Munera: Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 7, formula 4, no. 41; p. 8, formula 5, no. 48; p. 11, formula 7, no. 74; p. 12, formula 8, no. 84; p. 13, formula 9, no. 94; p. 14, formula 11, no. 107; p. 15, formula 12, no. 112; p. 15, formula 13, no. 116; p. 19, formula 17, no. 146; p. 20, formula 20, no. 157; p. 24, formula 27, no. 190; p. 24, formula 28, no. 196; p. 26, formula 30, nos 204–05; p. 27, formula 31, no. 213; p. 33, formula 43, no. 267; p. 36, formula 47, no. 297; p. 54, formula 68, no. 440; p. 58, formula 75, no. 488; p. 62, formula 80, no. 518; p. 62, formula 81, no. 524; p. 64, formula 84, no. 545; p. 68, formula 89, no. 579; p. 75, formula 99, no. 640; p. 92, formula 112, no. 766; p. 98, formula 118, no. 838; p. 103, formula 126, no. 882; p. 106, formula 131, no. 906; p. 110, formula 137, no. 943; p. 113, formula 141, no. 968; p. 118, formula 150, no. 1019; p. 119, formula 151, no. 1022; p. 124, formula 161, no. 1068; p. 126, formula 163, no. 1089; p. 130, formula 168, no. 1123; p. 134, formula 177, no. 1161; p. 135, formula 179, no. 1171; p. 138, formula 185, no. 1202; p. 139, formula 187, no. 1210; p. 144, formula 195, nos 1256–57; p. 145, formula 196, no. 1263; p. 145, formula 196, no. 1263; p. 145, formula 197, no. 1267; p. 152, formula 211, no. 1335; p. 155, formula 215, no. 1358; p. 166, formula 235, no. 1444; p. 166, formula 236, no. 1448; p. 169, formula 241, no. 1476; p. 171, formula 244, no. 1487; p. 178, formula 257, no. 1559; p. 179, formula 259, no. 1571; p. 180, formula 261, no. 1583; p. 181, formula 262, no. 1589; p. 190, formula 276, no. 1674; p. 198, formula 295, no. 1746; p. 200, formula 298, no. 1763; p. 204, formula 305, no. 1800; p. 207, formula 311, no. 1822; p. 211, formula 320, no. 1862; p. 212, formula 322, no. 1868; p. 212, formula 323, no. 1872; p. 214, formula 327, no. 1885; p. 214, formula 328, no. 1889; p. 219, formula 337, no. 1922; p. 231, formula 360, no. 2021; p. 239, formula 376, no. 2088; p. 257, formula 399, no. 2223; p. 307, formula 440, no. 2488; p. 312, formula 448, no. 2527; p. 319, formula 460, no. 2582; p. 335, formula 472, no. 2655; p. 363, formula 489, no. 2758; p. 382, formula 515, no. 2866; p. 382, formula 517, no. 2872. 84 Susan Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 479, 486, 492, 513, 517–18. 85 Angenendt, Offertorium, pp. 170–72, 184–87, 192–95.
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to have more than one person jointly give the bread and wine in the offertory as in Rome.86 Instead I would argue that the Pope’s meaning can only be resolved when this passage is compared with another of his writings, this one from 995. While Gerbert was still archbishop of Rheims he sent legates to Pope John XV (r. 985–996), who was the candidate of the Crescenzi family; their treatment inspired a condemnation from the future pope, which he first delivered at the Synod of Mouzon. Gerbert’s ambassadors were worthily received, but they were given no response, nor even any little gifts (munuscula).87 The implication of the passage is that although they would happily have accepted humble, small gifts, they were rather met with nothing at all, and in this way they were slighted. Along similar lines, two near-contemporary poems pair the word munuscula with vilia (worthless), with the understanding that this was the proper disdain to assume towards the items when presenting gifts to one’s superior.88 I suspect that a comparable sense in reverse holds in the letter under our examination as well. Some nobles of Orte were appropriately offering humble little gifts to their lord, of which in contrast with the behaviour of the Crescenzi, the Pope approved. Interpreting the terminology of Sylvester II in the letter is only half the battle. Why did controversy arise when some people attempted to complete the ceremony of the offertory, so much so that it would lead to a violent outbreak? To comprehend the disruption here, however, we need to have some sense of the initial rationale behind the Roman offertory. Joseph Dyer has argued compellingly that the intention behind the offertory was to forge relationships between the military aristocracy of the city of Rome and the pope’s clergy.89 It granted a sense of prestige to those in a position to provide the bread and wine, just as they gave charity to the poor in the urban diaconiae. The entire congregation had ample opportunity to admire them as the schola cantorum chanted the lengthy offertory antiphons. This would have been particularly important during a time period in which the reins of governmental power were slipping out of the hands of the secular nobility into those of the clergy. The offertory as it had originally been conceived in Rome allowed the nobility who had lost secular power in favour of the pope to express their support for the pope’s assumption of leadership of the city. Through these means the nobility stayed close to the new ruler of the city and contributed in some small measure to the religious ceremony that was one of the supports undergirding his power. We can only hazily sketch how this process must have been transferred to a smaller, provincial area like the city of Orte. But from 86 Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 58, formula 75, no. 488: ‘deuotorum munera famulorum’; p. 204, formula 304, no. 1796: ‘munera seruorum tuorum’; and p. 274, formula 427, no. 2334: ‘haec oblatio famulos tuos “ill.” ’. 87 Acta concilii Causeiensis, ed. by Georg H. Pertz, MGH SS, 3 (Hanover: Hahn, 1839), pp. 691–93. For discussion, see Jason Glenn, Politics and History in the Tenth Century: The Work and World of Richer of Reims (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 97–98. 88 Die lateinischen Dichter des deutschen Mittelalters: Die Ottonenzeit, ed. by Karl Strecker, MGH Poetae Latini medii aevi, 5/1–3 (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1937–1979), I, p. 426; III, p. 639. 89 Dyer, ‘The Roman Offertory’, pp. 31–36.
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this one brief glimpse it appears that the same dynamic held here and that some of the nobles were granted the special honour of providing the gifts for the main Mass, and in this case with the pope himself celebrating. Historians would never have had the slightest idea of how the offertory worked at all in Orte had it not been for the anomalous riot that broke out during it. The letter itself provides at least two of the specific reasons why this violent outbreak occurred. The first stands out in the account by the Pope. Based on what he wrote, the people of Orte offered their gifts in a standard cycle across many liturgical celebrations so that different noble families could participate and publicly display their munificence. At Rome there was an order in which the nobles would give their bread and wine, although it is less evident if there was a rotation of families who donated it over a longer period of weeks or months. Societal precedence was so significant to Romans that it also played into the distribution of the Eucharist: the First Roman Ordo supposes three different social classes who took Communion in the order of their rank.90 The displaying of social distinctions must have been a recurrent feature of medieval celebrations of the Mass, as shown by the Plea of Rižana (close to Trieste) from c. 800.91 In this example, we can see the order not when the system was functioning at its height, but instead as it broke down. As the Carolingians moved into a city that had once been dominated by the Byzantines, the old social classes determined by Constantinople and the concomitant order of reception of Communion had been disrupted. I suspect that something similar had happened in Orte, albeit in the of‐ fertory. The local hierarchy that had held when the Crescenzi were dominant may well have been thrown into disarray by the incursion of the Ottonian emperors into the Sabina, which here had its most concrete effect as the supplanting the positions and rights of some nobles by others. It may well be that the ‘others’ who were in theory supposed to be doing the offerings, obliquely referred to by the protesters, were the same local noble family or families who were the ringleaders of the revolt. The other local problem that had been raised by the pope’s presence was the issue of judicial queries. Although Sylvester II may have heard a petition to revisit a ruling during the initial procession to the church, he could not have resolved it immediately. Likely he would have referred it to Otto III’s men, since the Emperor had issued judges similar to Carolingian missi dominici to handle local justice.92 This stripped the power of justice from those called either rectores or 90 OR I, c. 113–16, 118 (Les Ordines Romani, II, pp. 103–05), and for discussion, Romano, Liturgy and Society, pp. 97–99. 91 Michael McCormick, ‘The Imperial Edge: Italo-Byzantine Identity, Movement and Integration, a.d. 650–950’, in Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, ed. by Hélène Ahrweiler and Angeliki E. Laiou (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1998), pp. 17–52 (pp. 47–51). 92 Toubert, Les structures du latium médiéval, pp. 988–97, 1267–74. See also Otto Vehse, ‘Die päpstliche Herrschaft in der Sabina bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italeinischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 21 (1929/30), 120–75 (pp. 130–43), although Toubert argues convincingly that some of his conclusions must be viewed with skepticism.
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counts (comites) who held it at the local level. This would have disadvantaged the dominant family in the region, the Crescenzi, and their allies. The combination of these two key issues was surely enough to have the Crescenzi family and their supporters flood the church to stage a protest. One might object that these issues were simply a flimsy pretext to revolt against the pope, and it must be admitted that they do not preclude that larger questions about Otto’s role in Italy were in play. Yet these were real controversies, if only for the elite, and likely only some of the practical problems that Otto III’s appearance in Italy had created. The more interesting question to ask is why of all of the parts of the Mass the offertory had been chosen for the revolt. From the source it appears that the nobles of this time understood the symbolism of the offertory and how it could be subverted or else they would have chosen another time to protest. There was nothing, for instance, that prevented them from targeting the opening procession if they simply wanted to make their voices heard, which would have had the effect of delaying or stopping the Mass. What becomes apparent is that the symbolism of the offertory was understood so well that it could equally well be turned on its head. By disrupting the functioning of the offertory, Sylvester’s adversaries expressed their disapproval with him and his master. This did not require a sophisticated theological understanding by the laity, only a knowledge of the functional character that this part of the liturgy held for its society. It may have only been because the pope continued to have bodyguards near him at Mass,93 that Sylvester II was saved from bodily harm, even as his opponents poured into the presbytery (the sancta sanctorum), the sacred area normally reserved for priests. That the pope emerged as a target in the tumult demonstrates that this was more than an internal civic disturbance with the pope in attendance. The message the crowd had sent was loud and clear. They had rejected not only Sylvester, but the idea that the pope and the nobles were working together or that the aristocrats ought to contribute to the Mass or the pope’s rule. In one fell swoop, the unity that was meant to emanate from the execution of the Mass in an idealized form was shattered.94 The broader political point was so significant that the rioters were willing to forego the spiritual benefits of receiving the Eucharist and deprive others of them too. Communion was said for instance to remit sin and contribute to salvation, as much in the Göttingen manuscript as in older sources.95
93 As in OR I, c. 126 (Les Ordines Romani, II, p. 108). 94 Romano, Liturgy and Society, pp. 109–39. 95 Romano, Liturgy and Society, pp. 171–206. For the forgiveness of sin, see for example Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 65, formula 85, no. 553 (Super oblata); p. 66, formula 86, no. 563 (Super populum); p. 88, formula 108, no. 725 (Preface); p. 98, formula 113, no. 776 (Preface); p. 122, formula 154, no. 1045 (Super oblata); p. 178, formula 257, no. 1560 (Preface); p. 208, formula 313, no. 1830 (Collect); p. 219, formula 338, no. 1926 (Super oblata); p. 248, formula 388, nos 2167–69 (Super oblata, Preface, Hanc igitur); p. 252, formula 393, no. 2191 (Super oblata); p. 257, formula 398, no. 2220 (Preface); p. 260, formula 403, nos 2244, 2246 (Collect, Preface); p. 266, formula 413, no. 2286 (Ad complendum); p. 274, formula 427, no. 2335 (Ad complendum); p. 322, formula 465,
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The Crescenzi had risked much by committing what some would consider a sacrilege and introducing violence into a place of peace. Yet there were no long-term repercussions for the family, who rapidly regained their position of prominence in this region after the Ottonians had temporarily repressed them.96 Their gambit had exposed that Sylvester II did not have sufficient support in Orte to complete an entire Mass, much less to enforce his will there. His ability to hold the Sabina was now entirely dependent on the aid of the imperial military.97 Since Otto III was in Germany, which had likely been the reason for choosing this time for the protest, the emperor could not be there to provide immediate assistance to the pope. The papal control over the Sabina would in the coming years deteriorate, until popes more firmly reasserted their claim to it in the mid-twelfth century. Given a low point of his pontificate came during a Mass, it is a curious fact that at around the same time as this incident, Sylvester’s name would be incorporated into a series of Mass prayers. The pontiff’s name was inserted into a collect, an oratio super oblata, and a postcommunion prayer in a votive Mass dedicated to the pope, which requested God’s favour and protection for him; soon after the millennium, it would be written on the last folio of a sacramentary from the monastery of Fulda.98 While the Mass he said was exploited as an opportunity to reject Sylvester’s reign, its spiritual power at the hands of another celebrant was believed to support him contemporaneously. There may well have been a more concrete echo of Sylvester II’s notorious Mass in Orte. That the offertory could serve as an excellent opportunity to protest was also recognized in a milder rebellion that occurred not long afterwards on 14 September 1000.99 As part of a long-standing jurisdictional dispute, the nuns of Gandersheim and Otto III’s sister Sophia above all objected to Bishop Bernwald of Hildesheim’s decision to dedicate their new monastic church. When the nuns were supposed to bring up the offerings of bread and wine to the bishop in the Mass, they instead threw them down on the ground and cursed him publicly.100
96 97 98
99 100
no. 2600 (Preface); p. 388, formula 526, no. 2902 (Ad complendum). For help in achieving salvation, see for example these prayers, all of them Ad complendum: Sacramentarium Fuldense, p. 39, formula 50, no. 317; p. 41, formula 53, no. 336; p. 51, formula 62, no. 407; p. 69, formula 90, no. 587; p. 87, formula 107, no. 721; p. 131, formula 170, no. 1132; p. 219, formula 337, no. 1924; p. 220, formula 339, no. 1933; p. 320, formula 463, no. 2593. Toubert, Les structures du latium médiéval, pp. 1011–14. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio, p. 149. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3806, fol. 307r. For this manuscript, see in summary Adalbert Ebner, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kunstgeschichte des Missale romanum im Mittelalter: Iter Italicum (Freiburg im Breisgau; St Louis, MO: Herder, 1896), pp. 212– 15. Althoff, Otto III, pp. 112–18; Scholz, Politik, pp. 382–88. Vita Bernwardi episcopi Hildesheimensis auctore Thangmaro, ed. by Georg H. Pertz, MGH SS, 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), p. 766: ‘Missarum vero sollempnia domnus episcopus ipsa die ibidem celebravit, licet maxima congregationis indignatione, easdem tamen, ut oblationes offerrent benedictionemque perciperent, admonuit […] Verum cum ad oblationem ventum est, oblatas indignatione et incredibili furore proiciunt, saeva maledicta episcopo ingerunt’. Eugenia D’Angelo,
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They also as a result were deprived of the blessing normally conferred to those who offered the gifts, as seen earlier in Bernwald’s vita and in the formula from the ‘Romano-German Pontifical’. In this case, however, the bishop was not physically threatened and he continued to perform the Mass, although the source did not clarify where he got the bread and wine to proceed. His celebration of the Mass even in the face of resistance of the inmates of the monastery asserted his claim for his rights over the church. What this anecdote proves is either that the example at Sylvester II’s Mass may have spread, or at the very least, that the symbolism was widely enough understood that it could be employed a second time in close succession. In a broader sense, it is possible to read the Mass of Sylvester II in Orte as an example of what anthropologists term ‘ritual failure’.101 It is all the more thoughtprovoking given the tendency to contemplate the Mass as an almost mechanical, assembly-line performance, especially as opposed to the more spontaneous or improvised nature of some of the best studied anthropological examples of rituals collapsing in some fashion. The category of ‘ritual failure’ is something of a loose one as it appears in the literature, with sometimes a blurring of those rituals that were not completed as opposed to those that did not accomplish all that had been desired of them. In the most extensive attempt at categorizing different kinds of failure, Sylvester’s Mass would fit most closely with what are known as ‘hitches’, in which the full procedure of the ritual was simply never completed.102 Here we have a rare instance in which a Mass suddenly ground to a halt. Later medieval liturgists and canonists had sometimes written contingency plans for specific mishaps that might occur in a Mass. For instance, when it came to the Eucharist, the priest had to be instructed what to do if he forget to add either water or wine to the chalice, if the wine froze, if the bread were made of bad wheat or if it had decayed, or if a spider were found in the chalice.103 Some canonists offered solutions when a priest had a nosebleed, fainted, or even died in the course
‘L’ultima Rosvita: I “Primordia coenobii Gandeshemensis”’, Studia Medievalia, ser. 3, 27 (1986), 575–608 (pp. 599–600), mistakenly thinks that the nuns spat out the consecrated host, which would have been a bridge too far. 101 Classically Clifford Geertz, ‘Ritual and Social Change: A Javanese Example’, American Anthropologist N. S., 59 (1957), 32–54, though it was not Geertz’s intention to speak about ritual failure. More recently, Ronald L. Grimes, Ritual Criticism: Case Studies in its Practice, Essays on its Theory (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 191–209; Edward L. Schieffelin, ‘On Failure and Performance: Throwing the Medium out of the Seance’, in The Performance of Healing, ed. by Carol Laderman and Marina Roseman (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 59–89; and most comprehensively, When Rituals Go Wrong: Mistakes, Failure, and the Dynamics of Ritual, ed. by Ute Hüsken (Leiden: Brill, 2007). Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 8, makes brief mention of rituals that break down, but as throughout the book, he envisions this as a problem of narrative strategies, unrelated to genuine rituals that were carried out. 102 Grimes, Ritual Criticism, pp. 200, 204. 103 Thomas M. Izbicki, The Eucharist in Medieval Canon Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 75–81.
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of a Mass.104 But for all of these guidelines, there was no standard way to deal with a Mass broken up by violence because it deviated so far from the norm. Unlike in other religious traditions, no one imagined any ritual response or replacement ceremony or presider for the ritual that had been interrupted. The only response extended beyond ritual bounds: indignation and a request for military reprisal. One final point should be emphasized about this episode. Too often do historians rely on clichés about a laity who had little understanding or interest about what was happening in the Mass, a trend that is imagined to have been exacerbated as the Middle Ages advanced. At least in this one instance, however, the laity had enough comprehension not only to intervene forcefully in the middle of the Mass, but at a moment that had the greatest symbolic resonance for their cause. It is doubtful that the Mass would have been used for a protest had this liturgy been insignificant to either those leading or subjected to it. Unlike some other forms of ritual protests, manipulating the offertory was only available when it came to the laity’s interactions with the clergy, but it was no less potent when it could be utilized. However, the ability of the laity to protest at this point in the Mass would soon be lost: by the twelfth century, the offerings of the laity would by and large be commuted to coinage.105 While this unusual occurrence at a Mass likely had little to do with this broader trend, removing the offering of bread and wine eliminated one avenue for lay protest within the Mass. This fit well with the lack of spontaneity that the clergy desired for liturgy, but it meant that any potential Mass riots in the future would be forestalled by this modification to the form of the Mass. While his work never touched on the offertory, Ernst Kantorowicz’s approach has been influential for my research. This is in part because of his demonstration of the interaction between liturgy and politics, masterfully elaborated in Laudes Regiae. He took a theme that some might see as arcane, but then teased out its broader significance; in doing so, he brought together scattered liturgical texts to construct a coherent story. His results freed studies of the liturgy from the preserve of specialists, challenging historians to draw insights from their often technical results. Given when I was born, it was impossible for me to have met Kantorowicz, much less to have been his student, but it was fortunate that I was the student of someone who had done both. One of my mentors, Thomas N. Bisson, recalled the seminar that he took with Kantorowicz at Princeton in Fall 1955, describing it as ‘a memorable exercise in erudition’.106 Nearly any observa‐ tion that arose would have Kantorowicz connect it to another reference across 104 Andrew J. M. Irving, ‘“Ex instructione manualium […] ex vera ratione”: Correction of Liturgical Errors in the Late Middle Ages’, in Irrtum – Error – Erreur, ed. by Andreas Speer and Maxime Mauriège (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), pp. 507–28. 105 Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, II, pp. 15–19. For example, William Durandus had the bread and wine given only by the clergy, whereas the laity gave coins: Guillelmi Duranti Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, ed. by Anselm Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, 4 vols, CCCM, 140–140C (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995–2013), I, pp. 381–94. 106 Personal communication, 27 June 2019.
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the broad sweep from antiquity to the seventeenth century. While teaching he would immediately turn to the well-stocked bookshelf in his house, pulling up his chair to reach the exact tome where the relevant passage could be located. Kantorowicz’s humanity also shone through in his personal interactions with his students. Bisson hosted a small party at the end of the semester to thank Kantorowicz and the other participants in the class. After the host fumbled while trying to uncork a bottle of wine, an elegant new bronze corkscrew appeared in Bisson’s mailbox a few days later, courtesy of his professor.
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Gertruda and Her Saints * The Liturgical Calendar Between West and East, and Its Political Meanings
Introduction The Cividale Psalter, also known as the Egbert Psalter or – given the contribution of Princess Gertruda to its present form – the Codex Gertrudianus, is undoubtedly an extraordinary book.1 Created in the tenth century, the Psalter, with its Otton‐ ian full-page illuminations, was originally intended for Archbishop Egbert of Trier (977–993). In the eleventh century it passed to Gertruda of the House of Piast, daughter of Mieszko II and Richeza, who 1043 or early 1044 married Prince Iziaslav I of Kyiv and died in 1108.2 In the twelfth century the codex found its way into Zwiefalten Abbey in Swabia, as is evidenced by the commemorative notes in the calendar included in the codex. It eventually ended up in Forum Iulii (today Cividale del Friuli, Italy), having been donated (at least according to a note added to the codex not earlier than the fifteenth century) to the local chapter by a unique intermediary – St Elizabeth of Thuringia (d. 1231). It has remained in Cividale, in its Museo Archeologico Nazionale, to this day. The calendar, which is the main focus of the present study, can be found on fols 2r–4v, at the beginning of the codex, and are part of a set of folia known as Folia Gertrudiana (fols 2r–14v). Added to the tenth-century part of the codex
* The research was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland as part of grant no. 2015/17/B/ HS3/00502. 1 Cividale del Friuli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Archivi e Biblioteca, MS CXXXVI. The codex is available in a digital version: http://www.librideipatriarchi.it/salterio-di-egberto-codex-gertrudianus [accessed 7 December 2019]. Facsimile edition: Psalterium Egberti. Facsimile del ms. CXXXVI del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividale del Friuli, ed. by Claudio Barberi (Trieste: Ministero per i beni e le attivitàtculturali, Soprintendenza per i beni ambientali, architettonici, archeologici, artistici e storici del Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 2000). The latest edition of the parts added by Gertruda: Modlitwy księżnej Gertrudy z Psałterza Egberta z Kalendarzem, ed. by Małgorzata H. Malewicz and Brygida Kürbis, Monumenta sacra Polonorum, 2 (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 2002), pp. 97– 115 (Kalendarium cum notis commemorationum). 2 Kazimierz Jasiński, Rodowód pierwszych Piastów, 2nd edition (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk, 2004), pp. 144–47; Christian Raffensperger, Ties of Kinship. Genealogy and Dynastic Marriage in Kyivan Rus’ (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), pp. 33–36. Grzegorz Pac • University of Warsaw
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(fols 15r–232v), when it was used by Gertruda, the Folia Gertrudiana are made up of four quires. In addition to the calendar (fols 2r–4v, a bifolium with a third folio inserted), they also contain personal prayers and Byzantine-Rus’ miniatures as well as, on fols 11r–12r, lunar and weather prognostics. Gertruda’s prayers were also added on those folia that were left blank (until fol. 20r) and into the spaces which had remained empty throughout the tenth-century Psalter, where also (on fol. 41r) one Byzantine-Rus’ miniature was added later.3 According to all the scholars examining the codex, the calendar and prognostics were written by one hand. Whether this was the case for all additions related to Gertruda, is a matter of debate. There is, however, no doubt that they were written by at least similar hands and, from a paleographical point of view, the whole set originated in Gertruda’s times.4 The codex, together with its various elements, has attracted the interest of numerous scholars, both historians and representatives of other disciplines, for decades.5 They have pointed to the link between the various elements of the Gertrudian part and the owner of the codex. This has been the context for inter‐ pretations of the ideological content of the codex’s Byzantine-Rus’ miniatures, featuring the princess, her son and her daughter-in-law.6 Scholars also agree that the princess influenced the content of the prayers included here (regardless of the discussion whether she wrote them personally or not) or, in any case, that the
3 Heinrich V. Sauerland, Arthur Haseloff, Der Psalter Erzbischof Egberts von Trier Codex Gertrudianis, in Cividale (Trier: Selbstverlag der Gesellschaft fur nützliche Forschungen, 1901), pp. 3–21; Teresa Michałowska, Ego Gertruda: studium historycznoliterackie (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 2001), pp. 45–49; Brygida Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, in Modlitwy księżnej Gertrudy, pp. 1–94 (pp. 11–12, 57); Laura Pani, ‘Aspetti codicologici e paleografii del manoscritto’, in Psalterium Egberti, pp. 39–59 (pp. 47–50); Małgorzata Malewicz, ‘Problemy edycji manuskryptu Gertrudy’, in Gertruda Mieszkówna i jej manuskrypt, ed. by Artur Andrzejuk (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2007), pp. 34–51 (pp. 38–40); Natalia A. Makaryk Zajac, ‘Women Between West and East: the Inter-Rite Marriages of the Kyivan Rus’ Dynasty, ca. 1000–1204’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Toronto, 2017), pp. 126–30. Note that Malewicz and Zajac include fol. 15 in Folia Gertrudiana, a folio considered by the others to be a part of the original tenth-century structure of the codex. 4 Walerian Meysztowicz, ‘Manuscriptum Gertrudae filiae Mesconis II regis Poloniae’, Antemurale, 2 (1955), 105–12 (p. 106); Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, p. 4; Pani, ‘Aspetti codicologici’, pp. 43, 48, 51; Malewicz, ‘Problemy edycji’, pp. 40–50. 5 The most recent contribution is my own article devoted to the calendar, Grzegorz Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy jako świadectwo dewocji monarszej. Wokół kultu świętych na styku chrześcijaństwa łacińskiego i wschodniego w XI wieku’, Roczniki Historyczne, 84 (2018), 31–68. In it I refer extensively to earlier discussions about the time and place in which the source originated, as well as to its models, and I develop some of the topics from the present study. Footnote 5 of that article also contains an overview of the earlier literature. 6 Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, pp. 50–62; Małgorzata Smorąg-Różycka, Bizantyńsko-ruskie miniatury Kodeksu Gertrudy. O kontekstach ideowych i artystycznych sztuki Rusi Kijowskiej w XI wieku (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2003), especially pp. 24–73; Назар Козак, Образ і влада: Княжі портрети у мистецтві Київської Русі ХІ ст. (Львів: Ліга-прес, 2007), pp. 71–111.
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prayers were certainly written with the princess in mind.7 It has been noted that the book, which, after all, served the purposes of the princess’ personal worship, was personalized in some of its elements. Interestingly, a similar suggestion has not been made so far with regard to the calendar.8 With the exception of two commemorative notes, of which the connection to Gertruda has been considered, the calendar has been regarded as a simple copy of this or that existing model. I would like to propose a new interpretation of this source. As I shall try to demonstrate, although the main set of saints found in the calendar is based on Latin martryrologies and is by no means original, it is possible to identify some anomalies stemming from the influence of Gertruda or her entourage. I shall demonstrate that the calendar was created for Gertruda and personalized in a way similar to other elements added to the codex during her lifetime. At the same time, I shall consider to what extent the cults of saints added by Gertruda or her entourage to the calendar were of dynastic significance or can be associated with the ideology of power. In other words, I will discuss to what extent they were part of a political theology close to the court of Gertruda’s husband, Iziaslav (d. 1078). This, of course, leads us to the ideas of Ernst Kantorowicz, and in particular to his observations concerning the political aspects of the cults of saints, expressed especially in Laudes Regiae.9 In this context I shall interpret the calendar in question as a source that documents these cults in Gertruda’s entourage.
A ‘Private’ Calendar as a Liturgical Source It should be noted straight away that calendars, as far as I know, never became an object of interest on their own for Kantorowicz. In any case, they are very rarely taken into account in the analysis of liturgical sources. For example, in Cyrille Vogel’s classic study, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, no separate
7 For a summary of the discussion whether Gertrude herself was the author of the prayers see: Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy’, p. 33, n. 7, and pp. 78–80. Even Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, pp. 78–94, who challenged Gertruda’s authorship, had no doubt about the individualization of the prayer book. For more on the cult of saints in Gertruda’s prayers, see Artur Andrzejuk, Gertruda Mieszkówna i jej modlitewnik (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2006), pp. 81–93; Krzysztof Skwierczyński, ‘Początki kultu NMP w Polsce w świetle płockich zapisek o cudach z 1148 r.’, in Europa barbarica, Europa Christiana. Studia mediaevalia Carolo Modzelewski dedicata, ed. by Roman Michałowski and others (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 2008), pp. 213–40 (p. 237). 8 This research is summed up in Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, pp. 18–28; Marzena Matla, Czeskie wpływy w życiu religijnym i piśmiennictwie państwa piastowskiego X–XI wieku (Poznań: Instytut Historii UAM, 2017), pp. 316–21. 9 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae. A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship, (Berkley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946).
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attention is paid to them.10 The book’s index does not feature the word ‘calendar’, while ‘martyrology’ (i.e., to simplify this for the purpose of the present argument, a synonym for calendar, as it were) appears only twice.11 This is all the more surprising given the fact that martyrologies and calendars are – it would seem obvious – of fundamental importance to liturgy, as elements organizing the sanctorale cycle. In fact, they served not only as liturgical aids, but also were used during the liturgy itself as they were read publicly.12 In our case the situation may be different, as we are dealing with the calendar in a codex which seems to be related with what could be described as individual devotion rather than public, communal liturgy. The problem is broader and also concerns other prayer books with a similar purpose, as psalters of this kind usually had calendars.13 This is also the case for psalters belonging to women representing the social elites.14 It should be noted that the context in which such ‘private’ prayer books were used, including libelli precum (‘prayer-booklets’, collections of prayers such as that of Gertruda), is a matter of dispute.15 As summed up by Susan Boynton in her chapter on libelli precum in A History of Prayer: ‘Most recently, close examination of individual texts in their manuscript context and in the framework of the liturgy has led scholars to speculate about the performative aspect of prayers’.16 In fact, as pointed out by Sarah Hamilton, in ‘prayer booklets’ a strict division between private and liturgical prayer sources is very difficult to demonstrate. And even if, as in the case of Otto III’s prayer book which she discusses, a careful analysis of the source might lead to the conclusion of individual rather than communal use,
10 Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy. An Introduction to the Sources, trans. by William. Storey and Niels Rasmussen (Portland: Pastoral Press, 1986). The French original was published in 1981. 11 For martyrologies and calendars see above all Hipollite Delehaye, ‘Le témoignage des martyrologes’, Analecta Bollandiana, 26 (1907), 78–99 (pp. 79–80), as well as Baudouin de Gaiffier, ‘De l’usage et de la lecture du martyrologe: Temoignages antérieurs au XIe siècle’, Analecta Bollandiana, 79 (1961), 40–59 (p. 40), Jacques Dubois, Les martyrologes du Moyen âge latin, Typologie des sources du Moyen âge occidental, 26 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 16–17. 12 De Gaiffier, ‘De l’usage’, pp. 44–54; Henri Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques du Moyen Âge. Étude sur la formation du martyrologe, romain, 2nd edition (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 2002), p. 689. 13 See: Walter Cahn, ‘The Psalter of Queen Emma’, Cahiers Archeologiques, 33 (1985), 73–85 (p. 74). 14 Let me mention only a few examples: a personal psalter of St Elizabeth of Thuringia kept in the same location as Gertruda’s prayer book and coming from the same donor as well as psalters of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem and Queen Ingeborg of France. 15 Gertruda’s prayer book as libellus precum see esp. Michałowska, Ego Gertruda, pp. 31–67, 249–51. For further references on libelli precum see Susan Boynton, ‘“Libelli precum” in the Central Middle Ages’, in A History of Prayer: The First to the Fifteenth Centuries, ed. by Roy Hammerling (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 255–318 (pp. 255–71). Most libelli precum are found in psalters containing also calendars, cf. Susan Boynton, ‘Prayer as Liturgical Performance in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Monastic Psalters’, Speculum, 82/4 (2007), 896–931 (p. 899). 16 Boynton, ‘“Libelli precum”’, pp. 267–68 (quotation: p. 267). Cf. Rachel Fulton, ‘Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice’, Speculum, 81 (2006), 700–33 (passim); Boyton, ‘Prayer’, passim.
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it should be remembered that obviously ‘a ruler’s life was never private in any modern sense’.17 To make the connection between libelli precum and public worship even closer, it should be mentioned that many such works also contain liturgical material. That has already been pointed out by Pierre Salmon, who identified such prayers as closer to liturgical than private use.18 The formulas of the Roman Mass are also to be found in Gertruda’s prayers.19 That not only links it with liturgy, but also, together with the general character of the Princess’ libellus precum, might suggest that despite joining the House of Riurik and certainly participating in the local, Eastern Liturgy, Gertruda continued religious practices associated with the Latin tradition for her own needs.20 At this point we can return to the calendar itself and analyze it as a source in its own right. Whether Gertruda’s codex as a whole could be treated as a liturgical source or not, the main role of calendars in such personal psalters or prayer books was finally to determine a liturgical time and fix liturgical feasts for their owners and people who participated in worship with them. After all, women from the highest social strata had chaplains who needed calendars to determine the order of masses.21 In the case of Gertruda, her calendar was probably particularly important – it might have been the only Latin calendar available in the Princess’ milieu.22 Thus, especially in this case, the Psalter’s calendar may have organized the religious life not only of the Princess herself, but also of her direct entourage, including her chaplain, who is often mentioned by scholars in the context of the origins of the Gertrudian parts of the codex.23 When we consider, therefore, the calendar’s adaptations to Gertruda’s needs and her own influence on commemorations and 17 Sarah Hamilton, ‘“Most illustrious king of kings”. Evidence for Ottonian kingship in the Otto III Prayerbook (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 30111)’, Journal of Medieval History, 27 (2001), 257–88 (pp. 268–77; quotation: p. 276); Boynton, ‘“Libelli precum”’, pp. 267–68. 18 Pierre Salmon, ‘Libelli precum du VIIIe au Xlle siècle’, in Pierre Salmon, Analecta liturgica. Extraits des manuscrits liturgiques de la Bibliothèque Vaticane: Contribution à l’histoire de la prière chrétienne, Studi e Testi, 273 (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1974), pp. 123–94 (pp. 189–92); Salmon, ‘Livrets de prières de l’époque carolingienne: Nouvelle liste de manuscrits’, Revue bénédictine, 90 (1980), 147–49 (p. 148). Cf. Boyton, ‘Prayer’, pp. 904–05. 19 Zajac, ‘Women Between’, pp. 156–57. 20 Zajac, ‘Women Between’, pp. 157–58. 21 On chaplains of foreign wives of Rus’ princes see: Christian Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe. Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World, Harvard Historical Studies, 177 (Cambridge, MA-London: Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 63. 22 We know, however, that some Latin calendars had to be present in Rus’ in that times. See further references in: Ольга В. Лосева, ‘Праздники западного происхождения в русских и южнославянских месяцесловах ХІ–ХІV вв.’, Вестник Московского университета, series 8: История, 2 (2001), 17–32; Grzegorz Pac, ‘Kult świętych a problem granicy między chrześcijaństwem zachodnim i wschodnim w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej X–XII wieku’, in Granica wschodnia cywilizacji zachodniej w średniowieczu, ed. by Zbigniew Dalewski (Warszawa: Instytut Historii PAN, 2014), pp. 375–434 (pp. 409–23). 23 Cf. e.g. Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, pp. 50–62; Matla, Czeskie wpływy, p. 335.
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the sanctorale cycle, we are dealing additionally with the question of her autonomy in organizing her time and creating a liturgical milieu for herself and her circle.
Gertruda’s Life, Codex, and Calendar It is worth saying a few words here about Gertruda herself. She was the daughter of King Mieszko II of Poland (1025–1034) and his wife Richeza. Richeza was an extraordinary figure given her family ties – her parents were Ezzo, Count Palatine of Lotharingia, and Matilda, daughter of Otto II and Theophanu.24 Gertruda’s birth date is not known; what is known is that, according to most scholars, in 1043 or early 1044 she married Iziaslav of Kyiv. Although Iziaslav did attain the title of Prince of Kyiv, during the second half of his reign he struggled with political difficulties, including a conflict with his brothers, Sviatopolk and Vsevolod. He even had to go into exile twice. Gertruda and her husband returned to Rus’ in 1077, but Iziaslav died the following year. Her son Yaropolk died in 1086, while the other, Sviatopolk, survived his mother by a few years. Gertruda herself died in 1108.25 Let me now briefly discuss the history of the codex and the circumstances in which the calendar originated. At the very beginning of this essay I presented only those moments in its history that are not really controversial. Others are a matter of conjecture. We do not know, in fact, how the codex found itself in Gertruda’s hands; it is possible that this was connected with her visit to Germany during her exile or that it travelled straight from Germany to Kyiv. I would, however, agree with those scholars who believe that the codex was owned successively by as many as five women, passing from one to another. Thus it was brought from Germany to Poland by Richeza, who in turn passed it to her daughter Gertruda. From her it passed to her granddaughter, Sbyslava, who brought it to Poland when she married Bolesław the Wrymouth, i.e., the grandson of Gertruda’s brother. He in turn was linked to the Zwieflaten Abbey through his second wife, Salomea of Berg; the codex may have been given to the Swabian monastery by Bolesław himself, by his wife or by their daughter, Gertruda, who became a nun there.26
24 See further references in: Grzegorz Pac, ‘Richeza, Queen of Poland: Profiting from Ottonian Descent and Royal Status’, in Das Sakramentar aus Tyniec. Eine Prachthandschrift des 11. Jahrhunderts und die Beziehungen zwischen Köln und Krakau zur Zeit Kasimir des Erneuerers, Klaus G. Beuckers, Andreas Bihrer, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte, Geschichte und Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 (Vienna et al.: Böhlau, 2018), pp. 228–42. 25 Jasiński, Rodowód pierwszych Piastów, pp. 144–47; Raffensperger, Ties of Kinship, pp. 33–36; Simon Franklin, Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus, 750–1200, 2nd edn (London-New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 245–77. 26 For more on the topic: Grzegorz Pac, ‘Women in the Piast Dynasty. A Comparative Study of Piast Wives and Daughters (c. 965-c.1144)’. East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, 80 (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2022), pp. 240–42. See also e.g. Małgorzata Malewicz, ‘Un
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I will not discuss at length here the entire, rather complex, problem of the time and place of the calendar’s origin as well as about its model.27 It should only be noted that the feasts included in the calendar suggest that it should be linked to Kraków (as all Polish scholars would have it) or Prague (as Czech scholars tend to agree), but they do not make it possible to settle the matter between these two locations. What speaks in favour of Kraków, though, is the very link to Gertruda, who, firstly, came from Poland, and, secondly, visited Poland with her husband during their exile from Rus’. The calendar may have been added to the codex during one of these visits or in Rus’ on the basis of a Kraków model that apparently had come to Kyiv with the princess. Another link to Kraków is one of the two eleventh-century commemorative notes that are manifestations of the personalization of the calendar. The note under 22 August reads: ‘O(biit) Zvl’ (‘Zul died’) and under 16 September: ‘O(biit) Demetrius infans’ (‘infant Demetrius died’). Stanisław Kętrzyński identi‐ fies the first figure with Bishop Suła-Lambert, who is known from the catalogue of Kraków bishops and who died in 1071. This has been accepted by other Polish scholars, and seems correct, although hypothetical, because the day of the Bishop’s death is not confirmed by any other source.28 But it must be said that the connection of Bishop Suła-Lambert to Gertruda is unknown. The other note links the calendar directly to Gertruda. Demetrius is a name virtually unknown in Poland or in Bohemia; nor can we say a lot about any partic‐ ular cult of a saint of this name. He was, however, widely venerated in Byzantium and Rus’ (as will be referred to later). Consequently, the name did appear among the Riurikids, and more particularly, in the branch of the clan which Getruda joined.29 It was, for example, the Christian name of Gertruda’s husband Iziaslav.30 That is why the supposition that Demetrius infans was a member of the House of Riurik, from this particular line, perhaps the princess’ grandson, as Brygida
27 28
29 30
livre de priers d’une princesse polonaise au XIe siècle’, Scriptorium, 31 (1977), 248–54; Jean-Claude Schmitt, ‘Circulation et appropriation des images entre Orient et Occident: réflexion sur Le Psautier de Cividale (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, MS CXXXVI)’, in Cristianità d’Occidente e Cristianità d’ Oriente (secoli VI–XI), 24–30 aprile, ed. collective, Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 51 (Spoleto: Presso la sede della Fondazione, 2004), pp. 1283– 316 (pp. 1294–96); Ludwig Steindorff, ‘Die Kiever Rus’ und das Reich im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert’, in Das Sakramentar aus Tyniec, 177–89 (pp. 186–87). For more on the topic: Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy’, pp. 34–47. Stanisław Kętrzyński, ‘O imionach piastowskich do końca XI wieku’, in Stanisław Kętrzyński, Polska w X–XI w. (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1961), pp. 593–675 (p. 648); see also Zofia Budkowa’s review of W. Meysztowicz’s edition in Studia Źródłoznawcze, 3 (1958), 271–73 (p. 273); Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, pp. 24–25, 29–30. Анна Ф. Литвина and Федор Б. Успенский, Выбор имени у русских князей в X–XVI вв. династическая история сквозь призму антропонимики (Москва: Индрик, 2006), pp. 183–84. Литвина and Успенский, Выбор имени, p. 184. Members of the House of Riurik had two names – their family name and a Christian name, Литвина and Успенский, Выбор имени, especially pp. 175– 214; Anna Litvina and Fjodor Uspenskij, ‘Dynastic Power and Name-Giving Principles in Kievan and Muscovite Rus’ (10th–16th centuries)’, Micrologus, 25 (2017), 87–105 (pp. 96–98).
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Kürbis suspected, is fully justified.31 We can, therefore, assume that the decision to include the note in the calendar was made by Getruda herself or by her entourage in Rus’.
Brittiva – a Norwegian Saint in the Calendar Gertruda or her entourage also influenced the main part of the calendar, that is the commemorations of saints included in it. The first evidence of this can be the note placed under 11 January: ‘Brictiue uirginis’. In order to identify this saint, we need to travel as far as Norway.32 However, here, too, we can expect to find little information about her. In an article written a few years ago Åslaug Ommundsen lists the ‘mysterious’ – as she characterizes her – Brittiva among those whose feast day is recorded in one of the oldest collections of Norwegian laws, the Gulathing law, the text of which can be dated to the twelfth century.33 Brittiva was also mentioned in some Norwegian calendars.34 In addition, there is one fifteenth-century reference to a church in central Norway dedicated to this saint.35 Thus we are dealing with a local saint, known only in this particular country, a saint whose cult is evidenced only by some isolated traces. However, at an early stage she must have been venerated more widely in Norway, since the Gulathing law lists hers among the thirty plus commemorations of saints. The question is how her commemoration found its way into our calendar. As there is no concrete information about the cult outside Scandinavia, we have to rely on conjectures; it seems, however, that we should look primarily towards Rus’. For it was Rus’ and the Riuriks that were linked to Scandinavia through unique cultural bonds. They were manifested, until the mid-twelfth century, in numerous dynastic ties between the Riuriks and representatives of the Swedish
31 Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, p. 72, n. 261; Modlitwy księżnej Gertrudy, p. 110 and n. 2. Cf. Kętrzyński, ‘O imionach’, p. 648. It is highly likely, as the Riurikids liked to assume the names of their ancestors, especially grandparents (in this case it would be the Christian name of the infant’s grandfather, i.e., Iziaslav). However, children were generally not named after living ancestors, which makes it possible to date the birth of this Demetrius after Iziaslav’s death, i.e. 1078 and conclude that unless he was a posthumous child, he rather could not have been Iziaslav and Gertruda’s son. Cf. Литвина and Успенскийсп, Выбор имени, especially pp. 11–13, 74, 140–41, 164–65, 267–333, 457; Litvina and Uspenskij, ‘Dynastic Power’, pp. 87–90, 99–100. 32 Agnes B. C. Dunbar, A Dictionary of Saintly Women, 2 vols (London: Bell & Sons, 1904–1905), I, p. 131. 33 Åslaug Ommundsen, ‘The Cults of Saints in Norway Before 1200’, in Saints and their Lives on the Periphery. Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c. 1000–1200), ed. by Haki Antonsson and Ildar H. Garipzanov (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 67–93 (pp. 72–73). 34 Ommundsen, ‘The cults’, p. 74, n. 22; Lilli Gjerløw, ‘Brictiua’, in Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, 22 vols (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1957– 1978), II, col. 241. 35 Diplomatarium Norvegicum, ed. by Christian C. A. Lange and Carl R. Unger, 22 vols (Christiania: Mallings, 1861–1976), V, pp. 677–78, no. 938 (7 November 1488).
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or Norwegian ruling houses.36 These special relations also led to the adoption of the cults of various saints. The clearest evidence of this is the appearance – most likely as a result of dynastic ties – of a whole group of Scandinavian saints from the eleventh and early twelfth centuries in the ‘Holy Trinity Prayer’ in Rus’.37 Something similar may have happened slightly earlier in the case of the cult of St Brittiva, which may have spread to Rus’ through family ties as well. We do not have to look far for these. Gertruda married Iziaslav in 1043 or early 1044.38 At the same time the prince’s sister married Harald Hardrada, King of Norway from 1046.39 Obviously, this must remain only a hypothesis, as there is no evidence of the cult of St Brittiva in Rus’, although it seems that this would be an excellent opportunity for its emergence in the Riurik milieu with the transfer of her relics to mark the occasion – as we know, relics were often used in the Middle Ages as a gift strengthening the relations between two families.40 In any case Gertruda was particularly predestined to cultivate this veneration of her sister-in-law and her husband, as there was a unique bond that connected her to the former. As the outstanding scholar of medieval Rus’, Andrzej Poppe, notes, Iziaslav’s sister, married off at a time when Gertruda joined the family, bore the name of – as we know from Scandinavian sources – Elizabeth.41 The same name (in its Rus’ form of Olisava or Yelisava) was used in Rus’ by Gertruda.42 ‘We would, therefore, be right in assuming’, concludes Poppe, ‘that Yaroslav and 36 Cf. Raffensperger, Ties of Kinship, pp. 319–25. 37 Norman W. Ingham, ‘The Litany of Saints in “Molitva sv. Troicě”’, in Studies Presented to Professor Roman Jakobson by His Students, ed. by Charles E. Gribble (Cambridge, MA: Slavica Publishers, 1968), pp. 121–37; John H. Lind, ‘The Martyria of Odense and a Twelfth-Century Russian Prayer: The Question of Bohemian Influence on Russian Religious Literature’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 68 (1990), 1–21; Grzegorz Pac, ‘Communities of Devotion Across the Boundaries. Women and Religious Bonds on the Baltic Rim and in Central-Eastern Europe, Eleventh – Twelfth Centuries’, in Imagined Communities on the Baltic Rim. From the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries, ed. by Wojtek Jezierski and Lars Hermanson (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016), pp. 123–54 (pp. 130–33); Pac, ‘Kult’, pp. 425–31. 38 Jasiński, Rodowód pierwszych Piastów, p. 145. 39 Andrzej Poppe, ‘Gertruda-Olisawa, regina Russorum. Materiały do życiorysu’, in Scriptura custos memoriae. Prace historyczne, ed. by Danuta Zydorek (Poznań: Instytut Historii UAM, 2001), pp. 575– 91 (p. 579). 40 See Roman Michałowski, ‘Le don d’amitié dans la société carolingienne et les “Translationes sanctorum”’, in Hagiographie, culture et sociétés IVe–XIIe siècles. Actes du colloque organisé à Nanterre et à Paris (2–5 mai 1979), ed. by Evelyne Patlagean and Pierre Riché (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1981), pp. 339–416. 41 Poppe, ‘Gertruda-Olisawa’, p. 579. On the name Ellisif, cf. Fjodor Uspenskij, Name und Macht. Die Wahl des Namens als dynastisches Kampfinstrument im mittelalterlichen Skandinavien (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2004), pp. 40–41; online: http://www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/ouspensky3.pdf [accessed 7 December 2019]. 42 Валентин Л. Янин, ‘Русская княгиня Олислава-Гертруда и её сын Ярополк’, Нумизматика и эпиграфика, 4 (1963), 142–64; Poppe, ‘Gertruda-Olisawa’, pp. 575–77; Pac, Women, pp. 401–03. See however also doubts risen by Karol Górski, ‘Gertruda czy Olisawa’, Acta Universitatis Nicolai Copernici, 204. Historia 24 (1990), 73–77; Zajac, ‘Women Between’, pp. 95–102, where also extensively on the practice of changing names of the Riurikids’ brides (pp. 67–108).
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his wife Ingigerd-Irene named their new daughter-in-law after their daughter who had just left them’.43 It would not be surprising if the cult, which appeared in Rus’ together with some relics in connection with the marriage of Elizabeth and Harald, would then be cultivated by Gertruda, who became a member of the family at that time and was to replace Elizabeth symbolically in it.
St Nicholas in the Calendar and Gertruda’s Piety Speaking of the saints from the calendar whom Gertruda venerated in particular, we should also mention the alleged presence in it of the commemoration of St Nicholas. In the analyzed source, fifty-two particularly important feast days are inscribed in gold. Places for three commemorations of Sts Adalbert, Mark, and Nicholas remained empty (in the case of the commemoration of the Bishop of Myra, 6 December, the octave of St Andrew was mistakenly put in its place, which was repeated – correctly – the following day). Those empty spaces were probably left – as Zofia Kozłowska-Budkowa suspects – for these three feast days to be written in gold as well.44 In the case of St Mark and St Adalbert those absences are puzzling: as the three other evangelists as well as other, less important Polish saints, the so-called Five Martyred Brothers, were mentioned in the calendar (the former noted obviously in gold), it seems highly unlikely that these saints would have been purposefully left out.45 Although this hypothesis is convincing, we cannot, of course, be absolutely certain that St Nicholas was indeed to have been included in the calendar. Yet such a conjecture is justified, especially that – as is suggested by other calendars and martyrologies – the presence of Nicholas under 6 December was quite common, thus it is rather unlikely for him to have been intentionally left out.46
43 Poppe, ‘Gertruda-Olisawa’, p. 579; see Pac, Women, p. 402. 44 Zofia Kozłowska-Budkowa, ‘Wstęp’, in Najdawniejsze roczniki krakowskie i kalendarz, ed. by Zofia Kozłowska-Budkowa, MPH s. n., 5 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978), pp. xxiv– xxv; see Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, p. 31. 45 It can be proved that St Adalbert was already venerated in Kraków then, see: Pac, ‘Richeza, Queen of Poland’, pp. 233–34. 46 For instance, in the Martyrology of Usuard, Le Martyrologe d’Usuard: Texte et commentaire, ed. by Jacques Dubois, Subsidia Hagiographica, 40 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1965), p. 354 (further: MU); Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus, Rabani Mauri Martyrologium, ed. by J. McCulloh, CCCM, 44 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979), pp. 124–26 (further: MRM); Martyrology of Ado of Vienne, Le martyrologe d’Adon. Ses deux familles, ses trios recensions. Texte et commentaire, ed. by Jacques Dubois, Geneviève Renaud (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1984), p. 409 (further: MA); Martyrology of Florus of Lyon, Édition pratique des martyrologes de Bède, de l’anonyme lyonais et de Florus, ed. by Jacques Dubois and Geneviève Renaud (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1976), p. 219 (further: MF), as well as in many of the wide selection of calendars collected in Der karolingische Reichskalender und seine Überlieferung bis ins 12. Jahrhundert, ed. by Arno Borst, MGH Libri memoriales, 2/3 (Hanover: Hahn, 2001), pp. 1565–66 (further: RKal).
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If the commemoration was so common, the plan to include the Bishop of Myra becomes less significant. Something else matters more: the planned use of gold suggests the greatest possible particular reverence; it should be noted that this happened at a time when in Latin circles the Saint’s cult was not yet as extraordinarily popular as it would later become in the High Middle Ages.47 We are dealing here with an effect of the special veneration surrounding St Nicholas – as much evidence seems to suggest – among the Piasts.48 It stemmed from the significance of the cult to the last representatives of the Ottonian dynasty, which received it from Byzantium through Theophanu.49 An intermediary in this case may have been Gertruda’s mother, Richeza, whose family, the Ezzonids, also greatly venerated this Saint thanks to the Queen’s mother and Theophanu’s daughter, Mathilde.50 The hypothesis that Gertruda’s personal piety was behind the potential inter‐ est of the codex in the Bishop of Myra is strengthened by the fact that she founded a monastery in Kyiv dedicated to him.51 This happened despite the fact that the Saint, otherwise very popular in Rus’, was a far from obvious patron in Iziaslav’s family. This is because he was the patron saint of Sviatopolk, Iziaslav’s brother and, at the same time, his long-time political opponent. This could explain the fact that – as Ildar Garipzanov once pointed out – Iziaslav’s entourage was not really favourably inclined towards the cult of the Bishop of Myra and the same applies to the cult of St Andrew, the patron saint of Iziaslav’s other brother and political opponent, Vsevolod.52 Bearing all this in mind, we can suspect that the reason behind the (planned) inclusion of St Nicholas’ Day in the calendar was the personal attachment of the owner of the codex to this Saint.
47 Of key importance here was the translation of the Saint’s relics to Bari 1087, see especially Karl Meisen, Nikolauskult und Nikolausbrauch im Abendlande (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1931), esp. pp. 94– 96. 48 Pac, Women, pp. 165–92. Roman Michałowski, ‘Kościół św. Mikołaja we wczesnopiastowskich ośrodkach rezydencjonalnych’, in Społeczeństwo Polski średniowiecznej, ed. by Stefan K. Kuczyński, 12 vols (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG, 1994–2012), VI, pp. 63–74. 49 Meisen, Nikolauskult, pp. 79–81; Gunther Wolf, ‘Kaiserin Theophanu, die Ottonen und der Beginn der St Nikolaus-Verehrung in Mitteleuropa’, in Kaiserin Theophanu. Prinzessin aus der Fremde – das Westreichs Große Kaiserin, ed. by Gunther Wolf (Cologne et al.: Böhlau, 1991), pp. 27–38; Klaus G. Beuckers, Die Ezzonen und ihre Stiftungen. Eine Untersuchung zur Stiftungstätigkeit im 11. Jahrhundert, Kunstgeschichte, 42 (Münster-Hamburg: Lit, 1993), p. 270. 50 Pac, Women, pp. 165–92; Beuckers, Die Ezzonen, pp. 270–72. 51 Poppe, ‘Gertruda-Olisawa’, pp. 586–89; Pac, ‘Kult’, pp. 381–83. 52 Ildar H. Garipzanov, ‘The Cult of St Nicolas in the Early Christian North (c. 1000–1150)’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 35.3 (2010), 229–46 (pp. 233–34); Ildar H. Garipzanov, ‘Novgorod and the Veneration of Saints in Eleventh-Century Rus’. A Comparative View’, in Saints and their Lives, 115–45 (pp. 121–23, 137). Cf. also Pac, ‘Kult’, pp. 381–86; Pac, ‘Communities of Devotion’, pp. 138–40.
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Two Commemorations of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki Also a presence of the two commemorations of St Demetrius in the calendar may have been influenced by Gertruda. The first is under 8 October, which corresponds to one of the two days when he was commonly commemorated in Latin circles in some martyrologies.53 Yet in Gertruda’s calendar we come across St Demetrius once again, under 26 October, where ‘Demetrii martyris’ was added to the note ‘Uedesti et amandi’. In this case we are dealing with a date under which the Saint, universally venerated in Byzantium, far more widely than in Latin Europe, and regarded as a special patron of the Empire, was venerated in the East.54 This was also the situation in Rus’, where the cult of St Demetrius was also strong and where he was usually present under 26 October in menologies.55 Thus when asking about the reasons why the feast was repeated in Gertruda’s calendar, the most likely explanation is that the model of the calendar in question featured only the commemoration from the first decade of the month, and that Demetrius’ name was added under 26 October to those of Vedestus and Amandus because of Gertruda and her entourage as well as their custom of celebrating the feast. We should bear in mind that Gertruda had special reasons for venerating the saint – and in a manner characteristic of Rus’ at that – as he was directly linked
53 St Demetrius under 8 October: MF, p. 183; MA, p. 350; Martyrology of Notker Balbulus, PL, 131 (Paris: Migne, 1884), col. 1157; MU, p. 316. Cf. RKal 2, 3, pp. 1377–79. In the Martyrologium Hieronimianum we find the Saint under 9 April: Martyrologium Hieronymianum, ed. by Giovanni Battista de Rossi and Louis Duchesne, Acta sanctorum, 2 XI (Brussels: Typis Polleunis et Ceuterick, 1894), p. 41 (later: MHR), and ed. by Hippolyte Delehaye, Henri Quentin, Acta sanctorum, 2 XI (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1931), pp. 180, 186 (later: MHQ). Cf. RKal 2, 2, pp. 770–71. 54 Eugenia Russell, St Demetrius of Thessalonica. Cult and Devotion in the Middle Ages, Byzantine and Neohellenic Studies, 6 (Bern: Lang, 2010). On political significance of St Demetrius’s cult in Byzantium: Peter Schreiner, ‘Aspekte der politischen Heiligenverehrung in Byzanz’, in Politik und Heiligenverehrung im Hochmittelalter, ed. by Jürgen Petersohn, Vorträge und Forschungen, 42 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), pp. 365–83 (pp. 375–77, 380); Monica White, Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 202; Gerhard Podskalsky, Christentum und theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus’ (988–1237) (Munich: Beck, 1982), p. 210, n. 920. There were very isolated cases when the date (26 October) marked the commemoration of St Demestrius also in the West; significantly, however, these are regions easily influenced by the Eastern calendars: first Italy and then in the Late Middle Ages Hungary or Croatia: Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy’, pp. 55–56. Cf. also calendars provided by https:// usuarium.elte.hu/calendarlabels?q=Demetrius [accessed 7 December 2019]. Hereinafter I do not refer to another liturgical genres mentioned in the database, as they give texts of prayers or masses dedicated to particular saints, but usually without actual feast dates. 55 On Demetrius’ cult in Rus’ see: Dimitri Obolensky, ‘The Cult of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki in the History of Byzantine–Slav Relations’, in Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Inheritance of Eastern Europe (London: Variorum Reprints, 1982), pp. 3–20 (esp. pp. 14–17); White, Military Saints, p. 202; also Monica White, ‘Byzantine Saints in Rus’ and the cult of Boris and Gleb’, in Saints and their Lives, pp. 95–114; Podskalsky, Christentum, p. 235; Литвина and Успенский, Выбор имени, pp. 183–84. On the saint’s presence in Rus’ menologies see: Ольга В. Лосева, Русские месяцесловы XI–XIV веков (Москва: Памятники исторической мысли, 2001), pp. 185–86. Cf. Литвина and Успенский, Выбор имени, p. 183.
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to two persons close to her: her husband and alleged grandson (Demetrius infans). In any case, we do know that the former, Iziaslav-Demetrius, provided plenty of evidence of his veneration of St Demetrius, including foundation of a monastery dedicated to him in Kyiv.56 While in exile in Poland, Iziaslav donated also to the archbishopric of Gniezno a pallium with the text calling himself ‘a servant’ of St Demetrius, relaying on his prayers.57 The prince must have paid particular attention to the celebrations of the saint’s feast day, because in eleventh-century Rus’ people celebrated the days of their patron saints.58 This suggests that it was no coincidence that Demetrius was added to Gertruda’s calendar under 26 October. On the contrary – he was added to the calendar, because this was the date of an important event in the princess’ family, celebrating the patron saint of her husband and another close relative.
St Helena Between the East and the West St Demetrius must have been important for Gertruda for family-related reasons, although we do not know anything about her personal devotion to him – apart from the additional note in the calendar analyzed here. The situation is different in the case of St Helena, to whom Gertruda turned in her prayers, as is evidenced by the fact that the Saint appears in her prayer book several times.59 It should be noted at this point that while in the East both Helena and Constantine were celebrated as saints, in the West they were referred to for a long time only as pious royal role models, but were rarely regarded as saints in the strict sense of the word. Constantine kept this unclear status virtually throughout the Western Middle Ages, while Helena with time came to be venerated in purely religious terms.60 However, this happened quite late: her feast day might be first recorded only in the first half of the eight century, in the Calendar of St Willibrord, if only the identification of St Helena in this source with the mother
56 Литвина and Успенский, Выбор имени, p. 184; Poppe, ‘Gertruda-Olisawa’, p. 587. Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy’, pp. 56–57. 57 The pallium does no longer exists, but the inscription was copied in fifteenth c.: Poznań, Biblioteka Kórnicka PAN, MS 802, fol. 15v. Cf. Anatol Lewicki, ‘Napis na paliuszu z XI wieku’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, 7/3 (1893), 447–48; Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, p. 72; Brygida Kürbis, ‘O życiu religijnym w Polsce X–XII wieku’, in Pogranicza i konteksty literatury polskiego średniowiecza, ed. by Teresa Michałowska (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1989), pp. 7–55 (pp. 48–49); Литвина and Успенский, Выбор имени, p. 184. 58 See the story of Zhdan-Nikola below, n. 85. 59 Liber precum Gertrudae ducissae, in Modlitwy księżnej Gertrudy, pp. 125–27, nos 15–18. Cf. Grzegorz Pac, ‘Sancta Helena, christianissima regina. Obraz cesarzowej Heleny w Kodeksie Gertrudy w kontekście kultury religijnej wczesnego i pełnego średniowiecza’ (forthcoming). 60 Eugen Ewig, ‘Das Bild Constantins des Grossen in den ersten Jahrhunderten des abendländischen Mittelalters’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 75 (1956), 133–92 (pp. 136–37, 159–62); Andreas Heinz, ‘Das Bild der Kaiserin Helena in der Liturgie des Lateinischen Westens’, Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 60 (2008), 55–74 (pp. 55–56).
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of Constantine is correct.61 More importantly, empress’ commemoration is not to be found in pre-Usuard martyrologies.62 This must have been the reason why in later calendars she is recorded rather sporadically, and under different dates: 8 (or 7) February,63 15 April,64 and 18 August.65 If we take – as an example – the Cologne calendars, we see that among the eight dated before the end of the twelfth century, Helena appears only in two of them, under 18 August and 8 February.66 In the latter case she is described as a virgin, which stems from the fact that in the case of the February commemoration the empress was often confused with her namesake, Helena, the virgin of Auxerre.67 The latter was, however, usually celebrated on 22 May.68 Thus we are dealing here with a cult that was only beginning to spread in the eleventh century. Despite the variety of dates on which Constantine’s mother was commemorated in the West, in those times there was no reference to 21 May, that is the day under which Gertruda’s calendar featured the following inscription: ‘Elenę matris constantini imp[e]r[atoris]’ (‘[the day of] Helena, mother of Em‐ peror Constantine’). A possible explanation also in this case could be, of course, a confusion with Helena of Auxerre and moving a feast one day, as was not a rare occurrence in calendars. Indeed, in the Late Middle Ages Helena regina is sometimes mentioned on 22 May.69 It is, however, hard to show such a case in the earlier period. The commemoration of the empresses on 21 May in Gertruda’s
61 Paris, BnF, MS latin 10837, fol. 38r, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6001113z/ f. 88.item.zoom# [accessed 16 March 2021]. Helena is recorded here under a date unknown for the empress’ commemoration in the other calendars, 11 August, cf. Ewig, ‘Das Bild Constantins des Grossen’, p. 163; Heinz, ‘Das Bild’, p. 56, n. 9. 62 MHR; MHQ; Martyrology of Bede, Édition pratique; MRM; MF; MA. Cf. RKal 2, 2, p. 785, n. 13. I omit the breviaria – summaries of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum – mentioned there. 63 RKal 2, 1, pp. 562–63. 64 RKal 2, 2, pp. 783, 785. 65 RKal 2, 2, p. 785, n. 13, with calendars from c. 750 and c. 850. This means that it is erroneous to believe that the commemoration of 18 August was introduced into the calendar only in the MU and that it commemorated the translation of the relics of St Helena from Rome to Hautvillers near Reims in 841–42 (this is according to the MU, p. 286, followed by, e.g., Dominique Iogna-Prat, ‘Le culte de la Vierge sous le règne de Charles le Chauve’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 23 (1992), 97–116 (p. 113)). 66 Georg Zilliken, ‘Der Kölner Festkalender, seine Entwicklung und seine Verwendung zu Urkundendatierungen. Ein Beitrag zur Heortologie und Chronologie des Mittelalters’, Bonner Jahrbücher. Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterumsfreunden im Rheinlande, 119 (1910), pp. 13–157 (pp. 44: 8 February, and p. 90: 18 August). 67 RKal 2, 1, pp. 562–63. 68 RKal 2, 2, pp. 909–10. Cf. Graham Jones, ‘Constantinople, 1204, Renewal of Interest in Imperial and Other Byzantine Cults in the West, and the Deep Roots of New Traditions’, in Niš and Byzantium. Third Symposium, Niš, 3–5 June, 2004, ed. by Miša Rakocija (Niš: University of Niš, 2005), pp. 29–48 (pp. 35–36). 69 Hermann Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des Deutschen Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2 vols (HanoverLeipzig: Hahn, 1898–1892), II/2, p. 114 as well as the calendars provided by https:// usuarium.elte.hu/calendarlabel/5232/view [accessed 11 December 2019]. Cf. above, n. 54.
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calendar is also, as far as I know, the earliest appearance of her feast on that day in Latin calendars. It can be explained – I believe – much simpler, like the second entry concern‐ ing St Demetrius. Namely, 21 May was the feast day of Helena and Constantine in the East.70 The date also appears in all calendars in Rus’, including the oldest among them, from the eleventh century.71 It is, therefore, likely that Gertruda’s calendar also drew on the Eastern tradition.72 The borrowing of the date from the Greek calendar may have been prompted by a lack of an established date for the commemoration in the West and its relatively low popularity – many Latin calendars, as mentioned above, simply did not feature Helena’s feast day at all. Thus if the idea was to include the Saint important to Gertruda in the calendar, the only way may have been to use the date known in Rus’. Yet the thesis that Gertruda herself or her entourage influenced the choice of 21 May as the feast day of Empress Helena is undermined by the fact that it appears under the same date (or, as mentioned above, on 22 May) in some of the later Polish and Bohemian calendars (with one example from the mid-twelfth century, again from the thirteenth century and later on; in the fourteenth and fifteenth century the May commemoration is common).73 Both dates appear regularly as the feast of St Helena regina in Hungary, but sometimes even in the sources from Western Europe.74 Does this mean that the appearance of the empress in Gertruda’s calendar under May 21 was influenced by some local calendars, for example the Kraków one? This is, of course, possible; as no other calendars created originally in Poland before the thirteen century have been preserved, we do not really know if Helena’s feast was celebrated locally in Poland and under which date. It is, however, very telling that among the seven oldest Bohemian calendars from the period, dating from before the early thirteenth century, her commemoration is mentioned only by one.75 This shows that the celebration of the mother of Constantine in the eleventh and twelfth century was still uncommon, as elsewhere in Latin Christendom, also in Central Europe, and suggests that the feast of 21 May, noted 70 Александр В. Назаренко, Древняя Русь на международных путях. Междисциплинарные очерки культурных, торговых, политических связей IX–XII веков (Москва: Языки русской культуры, 2001), p. 569; Zajac, ‘Women Between’, p. 100. Cf. Heinz, ‘Das Bild’, pp. 55–56. 71 Лосева, Русские месяцесловы, pp. 344–45. On St Helena’s veneration and her feast in Rus’ see Sean Griffin, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 72 Gertruda’s calendar does not feature Constantine, which is understandable. Not only was his cult not adopted in the West, but also Gertruda’s prayer book, although it mentions the emperor, fails to treat him or refer to him as a saint, unlike Helena, the Virgin Mary, Peter, Michael, and Mary Magdalene: Liber precum Gertrudae, e.g., pp. 119–20, 126, 132, 166, nos 2, 4, 16–18, 28, 91. 73 See Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy’, pp. 59–60. 74 See above, n. 69. I am grateful to Miklós Földváry for drawing my attention to Hungarian sources and his help. 75 See Pac, ‘Kalendarz z Kodeksu Gertrudy’, pp. 59 and 62–63, about the group of the oldest Bohemian calendars, discussed also by Dušan Třeštík, Počátky Přemyslovců (Praha: Academia, 1981), pp. 70–71.
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mostly by late medieval calendars, was not widely disseminated in the region until later. The geography of its appearance indicates, however, that even if in some cases it might be an effect of confusion with the virgin of Auxerre, it was probably also influenced by the Eastern tradition. Gertruda’s calendar should therefore be considered as one of possible intermediaries of that process rather than the effect of alleged presence of the 21 May commemoration in some Polish calendar used as a model for that of Gertruda’s. It seems, therefore, at least probable that the person responsible for the inclusion of St Helena under this particular date adopted in the East was its faithful worshiper, Princess Gertruda. This example, just as the example from the ‘Eastern’ commemoration of St Demetrius, corresponds to the observation of Talia Zajac, who, analyzing prayers and miniatures from the codex, suggests that Gertruda’s spirituality, espe‐ cially that related with the cult of saints, ‘was shaped by devotional practices stemming from her maternal kin in Poland and Germany and from Rus’’.76 But the presence of both Western and Eastern dates of saints’ commemorations in the calendar points especially clearly also to a wider phenomenon undoubtedly evidenced by this source. It concerns the interpenetration of Eastern and Western Christianity, which gradually moved apart, but remained in contact and continued to influence one another. This particularly applies to the cult of saints, as can be seen in this and other examples.77
Kantorowicz and the Question of the Political Nature of Cults of Saints As I have tried to demonstrate, the calendar from the Gertruda Codex bears many marks of personalization, i.e., adaptation to the needs of its user, which must have been influenced by Gertruda or her entourage, as was the inclusion of the prayers and miniatures. Evidence of this includes not only the commemorative note ‘Demetrius infans’ concerning a member of the House of Riurik close to the Princess. The process of personalization also extended to the main part of the calendar containing the feast days of various saints – a fact which earlier scholars failed to note. This may have been the case of the Norwegian saint included in the calendar, St Brittiva, whose cult among the Riurikids could be explained by their dynastic relations. Similarly, the personal piety of the princess may have been the reason behind the plans to make the feast day of St Nicholas a particularly important commemoration. Finally, this essentially Latin calendar features two feast days – of St Demetrius and St Helena – reflecting the Eastern calendar tradition. In both cases this concerns saints who must have been important to Gertruda, which suggests that they were added by the Princess or her entourage in Rus’. 76 Zajac, ‘Women Between’, pp. 132–61 (quotation: p. 133). 77 Pac, ‘Kult’, passim.
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The assumption that at least to some extent the set of saints’ feast days and the status accorded to them stemmed from the user’s needs makes the calendar a firstrate source for the study of the cult of saints. However, a question now arises as to whether the calendar also contains elements going beyond the Princess’ personal piety and associated with political theology. The problem of the political nature of cults of saints brings us straight to the ideas of Ernst Kantorowicz. Although the scholar is known primarily for his remarks concerning the relations between a ruler and Christ, he did devote much attention – especially in Laudes Regiae – to the place of saints in the ideology of power and monarchs’ devotion. Thus we will find here many elements of scholarly analysis and detailed discussions concerning the cult of saints, similar to those presented by me in this study. When Kantorowicz establishes the origins of one of the laudes, pointing to the presence there of ‘the most famous Frankish patrons’, he acts similarly to other historians indicating the provenance of the calendar on the basis of the saints mentioned in it.78 This also applies to the patrons present in the calendar from the Gertruda Codex: on the one hand they suggest a Polish or Bohemian origin for its model and on the other they link to the Princess her‐ self. In turn, his explanation for the presence in Sicilian laudes of a saint who was not widely venerated on the island, but who was important to the Norman royal family, namely Mary Magdalene, brings to mind a similar situation in the Empire and then in Poland.79 I mean here, obviously, the role of St Nicholas for the Ottonians, Ezzonids, and Piasts, and, consequently, his importance to Gertruda herself. Finally, when Kantorowicz talks about the status accorded to the feast of St Mark on Venice-dominated Crete, we can notice its similarity to the role played – mutatis mutandis – by the cult of his patron Demetrius for Iziaslav as well as for his feast day.80 However, this is not the essence of Kantorowicz’s view on the role of the cult of saints in political theology. In Laudes Regiae he demonstrates above all how the presence of the various saints referred to in laudes and their links to specific indi‐ viduals, especially the order in which the patrons appear, were used to illustrate hierarchies of power. Manipulations of this order make it possible to determine the position and prestige of specific persons: the pope, the emperor, etc.81 Thus, according to Kantorowicz, the cult of saints was used in the ideology and legit‐ imization of power. It should be noted straight away that this type of thinking about monarchs’ piety has been questioned by Ludger Körntgen, who points out that so far scholars have tended to overestimate the significance of legitimizing questions, underestimating, at the same time, a matter of prime importance from the point of view of devotion, namely the fact that the objective was above all salvation
78 79 80 81
Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 33. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, pp. 160–61. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 154. Cf. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, esp. pp. 42–53.
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– one’s own and one’s closest relatives.82 This no doubt also applies to personal piety associated with the cult of saints. Does this approach not explain various aspects, also those relating to saints, of Gertruda’s religiosity evidenced, after all, by her ‘private’ prayer book? Or perhaps, to follow a way of thinking of which Kantorowicz is an emblematic figure, her attachment to this or that cult also had its political and ideological aspects? Let us look once again at the examples discussed above from this particular point of view.
Political Meanings of Gertruda’s Devotion to Saints Particularly interesting is the case of the cult of St Nicholas. As I have indicated earlier, Gertruda got to know it through the Ezzonids and the Piasts; in both these families, it would seem, it was closely linked to the ideology of power as a way of emphasizing links to the Ottonian dynasty. Yet even if Gertruda was aware of these connotations, it would be hard to imagine them to have had the same resonance also in Rus’, where, in any case, the Saint was very popular. Here, too, however, he was entangled in politics, and in contemporary politics at that, namely the conflict between Iziaslav and his two brothers. It is worth noting that the situation is interesting to us also as an illustration of calendars being used for political purposes. Ildar Garipzanov, who has noted the links between the cults of St Nicholas and St Andrew (patron saints of Iziaslav’s brothers), and the conflict in the House of Riurik, points precisely to the absence of commemorations of the Saints, venerated to no small degree in Rus’, from the list of important feast days celebrated in Novgorod, ruled by Iziaslav’s line at the time. The list, it should be noted, did feature St Demetrius, that is the patron saint of Iziaslav himself.83 Getruda’s devotional activities associated with the Bishop of Myra – the foundation of the monastery as well as planned inscription of his feast day in gold – took place away from these affairs, in spite, as it were, of the political connotations of the cult. It could, therefore, be said that her worship of the Saint in question was private in nature, connected, as it was, with having been brought up in special veneration for him, although looking from a broader perspective it would be difficult to regard this cult in general, for reasons indicated above, as a counterexample to the links between veneration of saints and politics. How should one understand, from this perspective, the appearance of the Eastern date of the feast day of St Demetrius in the calendar? It can, of course, be said that Gertruda was attached to the saint for personal reasons, as he was the patron saint of her husband and some infant relative for whose salvation she prayed. The founding of a monastery with such a dedication by Iziaslav can,
82 Ludger Körntgen, Königsherrschaft und Gottes Gnade. Zu Kontext und Funktion sakraler Vorstellungen in Historiographie und Bildzeugnissen der ottonisch-frühsalischen Zeit, Orbis mediaevalis. Vorstellungenswelten des Mittelalters, 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001). 83 See above, n. 52.
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too, be viewed as a gesture serving solely his own salvation. However, as we saw in his own attitude to the patron Saints of his brothers and, at the same time, rivals, the cult of patron saints of Rus’ Princes can hardly be treated as dissociated from political matters; we have to bear in mind that in the case of many of them we have extant seals with images of these particular saints.84 In any case, the feast day of St Demetrius, included in the calendar (and in the Novgorod list of important feast days referred to above) must have had an additional meaning relating to power as well. Thanks to a description included in the miracles of Boris and Gleb we know that the elites of Rus’ at the time were in the habit of commemorating this patron. On one such occasion a certain Zhdan-Nikola of Novgorod gave a sumptuous feast.85 It would be hard to imagine Iziaslav not doing something similar on 26 October, and there can be no doubt about the fact that a banquet given by a ruler was an event closely linked to politics and served the purposes of monarchic display and of strengthening of the relations between the ruler and the social elites. If my conjecture concerning the origin of the entry about St Brittiva is correct, her cult, too, had a strictly dynastic basis. But whether this was really important to Gertruda we do not know. The princess may have been attached to the Norwe‐ gian saint in a manner that was far more personal, I would say, if only because, as I have suggested, she may have had some relics of Brittiva. It is in any case worth emphasizing that what may have made the cults of Brittiva as well as those of Nicholas or Demetrius political was their links to those in power and less so the very content of the cult relating to the person of the saint (although in the case of the last saint in the group, as I have mentioned, the political-ideological aspects of the cult can be seen already in Byzantium).86 The situation was different in the by far most interesting case, from the point of view of Kantorowicz’s thinking about the political nature of the cult of saints, namely Gertruda’s veneration of St Helena.87 It is interesting also because, apart from the entry in the calendar, we also have the Princess’ prayers in which she appeals to the Holy Empress. And we must admit that the dominant motif is personal: St Helena is referred to as one through whose intercession God influenced her son Constantine and that is why Gertruda asks her aid, while she prays that her own son Yaropolk be favourably disposed to her and show her
84 See: Валентин Л. Янин, Актовые печати Древней Руси X–XV вв. vol. 1: Печати X–начала XIII в., (Москва: ‘Наука’, 1970). 85 ‘Сказаніе о святыхъ. мученикахъ Борисѣ и Глѣбѣ’, ed. by Дмитрий И. Абрамович, in Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzählung und liturgischen Dichtungen über die heiligen Boris und Gleb (nach der Ausgabe von Abramovič), ed. by Ludolf Müller (Munich: Fink, 1967), pp. 56–58; see Andrzej Poppe, ‘Opowieść o męczeństwie i cudach Borysa i Gleba. Okoliczności i czas powstania utworu’, Slavia Orientalis, 18 (1969), 267–92, 351–82 (p. 290); Pac, ‘Kult’, p. 380. 86 See above, n. 54. 87 For more extended discussion on the meanings of Gertruda’s veneration of St Helena: Pac, ‘Sancta Helena’ (forthcoming).
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respect.88 Characteristically, in one of the prayers she intercedes for Yaropolk, invoking the help of two holy mothers, Helena and the Virgin Mary.89 It is thus not without reason that Artur Andrzejuk calls the Empress Gertruda’s ‘personal patron saint’.90 At the same time, however, we are not dealing here with an accidental saint and it was also no accident that she was chosen by Gertruda. After all, Helena’s cult was profoundly political and she herself, mother of the first Christian Em‐ peror, was regarded as a role model for female rulers, both in the East and in the West.91 Brygida Kürbis calls the motif appearing in the four prayers in which Helena is mentioned a ‘“royal” motif ’; indeed, in one of the prayers Constantine’s mother is referred to as ‘christianissima regina’ (‘the most Christian queen’).92 This conjunction of royal and personal topics in Gertruda’s prayers illustrates the whole complexity of the problem of the political nature of monarchs’ piety. It seems that any attempt to separate a ruler’s private devotion from the public and political aspects of his or her religiosity is based on an anachronistic under‐ standing of the division into the private and the public, a division that has little in common with how the matter was understood by representatives of the elites of the Early and High Middle Ages. St Helena could be a particularly good patron for Gertruda, because, like her, she was a mother concerned with the fate and salvation of her son, but it would be impossible to disregard the fact that what both women also had in common was their royal status highlighted in the cult of the saint. Yet even in the case of cults without such content, like those of St Nicholas and St Demetrius, the very fact of their links to rulers made them deeply political. It seems, therefore, that in a world in which the power was often described, as Kantorowicz demonstrated, by employing theological concepts, the concepts of ‘politics’ and ‘religion’, too, were understood differently from how they are today. There was simply no room for purely private piety or for ‘non-political’ cults of saints for those in power.
88 Liber precum Gertrudae, pp. 126–27, nos 16–18. Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, p. 81; Edward Skibiński, ‘Modlitewnik Gertrudy jako źródło historyczne’, in Gertruda Mieszkówna i jej rękopis, ed. by Artur Andrzejuk (Radzymin: Wydawnictwo von Borowiecky, 2013), pp. 23–38 (pp. 30–36); Andrzejuk, Gertruda Mieszkówna i jej modlitewnik, p. 90. 89 Liber precum Gertrudae, pp. 126–27, nos 16–18. Cf. Skwierczyński, ‘Początki kultu NMP’, p. 237. 90 Andrzejuk, Gertruda Mieszkówna i jej modlitewnik, p. 90. 91 Cf. Jo Ann McNamara, ‘Imitatio Helenae: Sainthood as an Attribute of Queenship’, in Saints. Studies in Hagiography, ed. by Sandro Sticca (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1996), pp. 51–80; Martin Homza, Mulieres suadentes – Persuasive Women: Female Royal Saints in Medieval East Central and Eastern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 33–79; Skibiński, ‘Modlitewnik’, p. 36. 92 Kürbis, ‘Opracowanie’, p. 81. Cf. Zajac, ‘Women Between’, p. 146. The prayer in Liber precum Gertrudae, p. 126, no. 17.
PI ETER bYTTEbIER
How Many Bodies for the Bishop? * Episcopal Methods of Politurgy in Early Eleventh-Century Lotharingia
Introduction Bishops in Central Medieval Europe (tenth to twelfth century) had a fascinatingly multifarious nature: they were religious pastors, civil governors, military lords, judicial masters, learned diplomats, powerful landowners, corporate managers, artistic patrons, moral compasses, and ritual performance managers all in one.1 Their constituency was similarly multiplex: regional practices notwithstanding, bishops were elected or acclaimed by their diocese, invested by kings, consecrated by other bishops, guided by metropolitans, championed by their families, bound
* This essay was written as part of a doctoral fellowship financed by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), entitled ‘The Performative construction of episcopal authority: towards an integrated analysis of speech acts, ritual behaviour and spatial representation’. The essay offers shortened arguments from a broader analysis in the dissertation. I wish to thank all contributors to this volume as well as Steven Vanderputten, John Ott, Loïc Moureau and Barbara Vinck for their valuable insights. All mistakes remain my own. 1 On episcopal studies see, among others, the collected volumes: Bishops in the Age of Iron: Episcopal Authorities in France and Lotharingia, 900–1050, ed. by Steven Vanderputten and Brigitte Meijns, The Medieval Low Countries, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019); Patterns of Episcopal Power: Bishops in Tenth and Eleventh Century Western Europe, ed. by Ludger Körntgen and Dominik Wassenhoven (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2011); The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages, ed. by John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones (Aldershot-Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007); The Bishop: Power and Piety at the First Millennium, ed. by Sean Gilsdorf (Münster: LIT, 2004). In the broader Middle Ages see also: Episcopal Power and Personality in Medieval Europe, 900–1480, ed. by Peter Coss and others (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020); Episcopal Power and Local Society in Medieval Europe, 900–1400, ed. by Peter Coss and others (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Relevant monographs include: John S. Ott, Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c. 1050–1150 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); John T. Eldevik, Episcopal Power and Ecclesiastical Reform in the German Empire: Tithes, Lordship and Community, 950–1150 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Laurent Jégou, L’évêque, juge de paix. L’autorité épiscopale et le règlement des conflits (milieu VIIIe-milieu XIe siècle) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); see the footnotes below on more specific sub-identities. Pieter Byttebier • Universiteit Gent
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by church and local customs, yet ultimately only accountable to God.2 Such myriad positions made bishops vastly intricate rulers, arguably more so than other forms of lordship at the time. How did bishops manage to actively combine those many different – sometimes, even in that period, contradictory – tasks and identities in a (coherent) manner that didn’t undermine their overall authority? Scholarship has had only selective attention to this question, focusing more on ideologies of power than on methods of leadership. The sum of their different tasks provided bishops with broad societal powers. By the Millennium, following decades of (intended or haphazard) accumulation of tasks since the Carolingian era, bishops were thereby arguably at the historical zenith of their power in what Timothy Reuter aptly called a ‘Europe of bishops’.3 On the face of it, most prelates combined their tasks unproblematically, as in this era they were only rarely killed or deposed.4 Nevertheless, as all rulers, bishops did face regular opposition, on many fronts. The confederacy of their dissimilar duties could prove a potential weakness in this regard. Their mixed fidelities have traditionally even been seen as a key catalyst for the so-called ‘Investiture Contest’ and ‘Gregorian Reform’, which sought to draw clearer lines between episcopal responsibilities, in the second half of the eleventh century.5 Yet already in the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, this cumulation of duties was not unproblematic. The remarkable increase in (extant) episcopal forms of expression at this time indeed suggests how bishops of this era had an increasing concern to represent who they were – though focussing still on a coherent representation of their office, rather than on more delineating forms.6
2 On the appointment procedures of bishops (with a focus on the twelfth century) see: Robert L. Benson, The Bishop-Elect: A Study in Medieval Ecclesiastical Office (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968). 3 Timothy Reuter, ‘Ein Europa der Bischöfe. Das Zeitalter Burchards von Worms’, in Bischof Burchard von Worms 1000–1025, ed. by Wilfried Hartmann (Mainz: Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte, 2000), pp. 1–28. 4 Especially in the late tenth and early eleventh century, and with regional differences across Europe. The later Salian period, for instance, did witness increasingly more deposals and murders, often in the shadow of the Investiture Struggle. See Reinhold Kaiser, ‘“Mord im Dom”. Von der Vertreibung zur Ermordung des Bischofs im frühen und hohen Mittelalter’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte / Kanonistische Abteilung, 79 (1993), 95–134 (p. 103). 5 Maureen C. Miller, ‘The Crisis in the Investiture Crisis Narrative’, History Compass, 7/6 (2009), 1570–80; Greta Austin, ‘New Narratives for the Gregorian Reform’, in New Discourses in Medieval Canon Law Research: Challenging the Master Narrative, ed. by Christof Rolker (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 44–57; Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988); Jochen Johrendt, Investiturstreit (Darmstadt: WBG, 2018). 6 Ruotger, Vita Brunonis archiepiscopi Coloniensis, ed. by Irene Schmale-Ott, MGH SRG, 10 (Weimar: Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1951) is often cited as an important early representational example of such a concern in Lotharingia, and beyond. The Vita treats the life of Bruno of Cologne (r. 949–65), who was Otto I’s brother, as well as Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia, and the Vita’s Leitmotiv appears to be the justification of the combination of both spiritual and worldly powers. Friedrich Lotter, Die Vita Brunonis des Ruotger. Ihre historiographische und ideengeschichtliche Stellung,
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As much as episcopal identity was multifarious, however, so were these rising representational forms omnifarious at this time. This was indeed the high-age of the episcopal Gesta-genre, which framed episcopal actions in historical perspec‐ tives.7 Also episcopal hagiography knew a particular flourish, promoting particular episcopal virtues, facts, or images.8 Charters by and for bishops grew in number and expressed concrete and ideological understandings of the episcopal taskset.9 Increased episcopal coinage rights and the rising use of seals offered opportuni‐ ties for literal self-imaging.10 The ‘white mantle of Churches’ in which Europe clad itself around the turn of the Millennium signified generations of ambitious ‘builder-bishops’, who were visually expressing their authority through cathedral (re)constructions, monastic foundations, and booming episcopal towns.11 Grow‐ ing episcopal wealth turned bishops ever more into artistic patrons of manu‐ scripts, objects, and vestments.12 Early episcopal attempts at canon law emerged precisely at this time.13 And it is exactly in this period that we attest the emergence of a new book-genre guiding episcopal (representational) behaviour in the liturgy:
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ed. by Helmut Beumann and others, Bonner Historische Forschungen, 9 (Bonn: Röhrscheid Verlag, 1958). Michel Sot, Gesta Episcoporum, Gesta Abbatum, Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 37 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981); Theo M. Riches, ‘Episcopal Historiography as Archive. Some Reflections on the Autograph Manuscript of the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium (Ms Den Haag Kb 75 F 15)’, Jaarboek voor middeleeuwse geschiedenis, 10 (2007), 7–47. Stephanie Haarländer, Vitae Episcoporum: Eine Quellengattung zwischen Hagiographie und Historiographie. Untersucht an Lebensbeschreibungen von Bischöfen des Regnum Teutonicum im Zeitalter der Ottonen und Salier (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2000). Die Diplomatik der Bischofsurkunde vor 1250, ed. by Christoph Haidacher and Werner Kofler (Innsbruck: Tiroler Landesarchiv, 1995). Brigitte Bedos Rezak, When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2011). Money and the Church in Medieval Europe, 1000–1200: Practice, Morality and Thought, ed. by Giles E. M. Gasper and Svein H. Gullbekk (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015). Numismatics are less or only very locally studied for bishops of this period. Rodulfus Glaber, Historiarum libri quinque, ed. by John France, in Rodolfus Glaber: The Five Books of the Histories (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), III, pp. 114–17. See among others: Frank G. Hirschmann, Stadtplanung, Bauprojekte und Grossbaustellen im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert: Vergleichende Studien zu den Kathedralstädten Westlich des Rheins (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1998); Maureen C. Miller, The Bishop’s Palace: Architecture and Authority in Medieval Italy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000); Florian Mazel, L’évêque et le territoire. L’invention médiévale de l’espace (Ve–XIIIe siècle) (Paris: Seuil, 2016); Anne Wagner, ‘L’évêque et la sanctification de la ville’, in Le programme. Une notion pertinente en histoire de l’art Médiéval?, ed. by Jean-Marie Guillouët (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 2011), pp. 79–94; The White Mantle of Churches: Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium, ed. by Nigel Hiscock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003). Among the vast art historical scholarship on bishops see most recently: Envisioning the Bishop: Images and the Episcopacy in the Middle Ages, ed. by Sigrid Danielson and Evan A. Gatti (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014); William L. North and Anthony Cutler, ‘The Bishop as Cultural Medium: Berthold of Toul, Byzantium, and Episcopal Self-Consciousness’, in The Bishop. Power and Piety, ed. by Gilsdorf, pp. 75–111; Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, C. 800–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014). Greta Austin, Shaping Church Law around the Year 1000. The ‘Decretum’ of Burchard of Worms (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009).
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the pontifical.14 Undoubtedly this surge of episcopal expressions attests to an increase in material culture and literacy. Yet it can also point to how European bishops at this time were consciously and constantly concerned with finding ways to give coherent representational form to their office, identity, and authority. The bloom of episcopal studies in the last two decades has furthered much of our knowledge on episcopal (sub-)identities as well as on their representational source types. Attention has, however, been mostly on static ideas and values of episcopal authority, and less on a possibly underlying, dynamic, shared culture of methods in which bishops sought to realize these ideas within ever changing contexts, and, moreover, at a time when behaviour was fundamental to shaping authority.15 Especially liturgy, an essential category of standard and performed behaviour, has significantly been under-investigated in this regard. Building on (untaken routes in) the work of Ernst Kantorowicz, and fur‐ thering more recently opened investigative paths, this paper will engage with liturgy in a comparative investigation of methods in intersectional episcopal leadership. By comparing self-representational attitudes of three early-eleventhcentury bishops in the border region of Lotharingia (Gerard of Cambrai, Bruno of Toul, and Ansfrid of Utrecht), through three different types of liturgy, this paper will strengthen the notion that in this high-episcopal age liturgy was not merely a separate and static sub-realm of episcopal routine, but a fundamental and highly dynamic hub for pragmatic episcopal self-representation of political or overall authority. The essay will equally explore how it was exactly in liturgy that the multifarious and compound episcopal sub-identities, or ‘bodies’, as well as the diverse expressions of episcopal authority, could be bound more closely and cohesively – though not necessarily coherently – together.
Kantorowicz, Bishops, and Liturgy Few historians have addressed the self-representational multiformity of power as famously as Ernst Kantorowicz. He is most known of course for tackling the royal perspective, yet in both the King’s Two Bodies and his Laudes Regiae, Kantorowicz actually rooted and mirrored his ideas about kings in conceptions about bishops. His analysis of the twin-identity of a king’s natural body and body politic indeed found a key basis, starting from the Norman Anonymous, in the late eleventh- and
14 See most recently: Henry Parkes, ‘Henry II, Liturgical Patronage and the Birth of the Romano– German Pontifical’, Early Medieval Europe, 28 (2020), 104–41; Éric Palazzo, L’évêque et son image. L’illustration du Pontifical au Moyen Âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999). 15 See for instance within the Church: C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe, 950–1200 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). For the secular realm see the references to the works of Gerd Althoff, Geoffrey Koziol, and others in the footnotes below.
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early twelfth-century Investiture Struggle, over the episcopal office.16 Kantorowicz thereby actually departed from a slightly different type of mixed identity duality, namely worldly versus spiritual, and even doubling it up between bishops and kings, holding that ‘to the extent that the idea of kingship became sacerdotal, priesthood became regal’.17 Yet, when it came to bishops specifically, Kantorowicz never further developed his understanding of their particular leadership dualities; and where he did, he quickly concentrated on the particular case of the popes.18 In the Laudes he did study bishops, though, but only for that single ceremony. Therefore this ‘road perhaps not taken’ by Kantorowicz begs the question whether bishops should equally be attributed two bodies?19 Many scholars, before and after Kantorowicz, indeed worked along dualistic lines. The episcopal office was long interpreted as a difficult combination of two different, mutually exclusive, and even mutually destructive episcopal bodies: the worldly and the spiritual bodies. More recent historians have moved away from that dichotomy, in favour of a more kaleidoscopic and circumstantial interpreta‐ tion of the episcopal office, focussing on local contexts, on discrete episcopal tasks, and/or on specific source types of episcopal expression; as outlined in the introduction above. While highly needed, these studies do risk perpetuating the notion of a fragmented or multi-centred episcopal identity. Scholars therefore often try to keep the bishop ‘taped together’ through notions such as their ambiguous or mixed nature; or the combination, balance, harmony, mediation, negotiation, or overlap between different episcopal roles.20 Alternatively, scholars build on single representation types (often iconographical or hagiographical), of‐ ten juxtaposing them with other source-types, in order to unveil overarching local understandings of episcopality, their corresponding mentalities, and the manner in which these views addressed contextual needs of the bishop in question.21 While important, especially for our understanding of the dynamic use of the
16 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology, 7th edn (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 43–55. 17 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), p. 112. 18 Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, e.g. pp. 212–20. 19 Kantorowicz’s student Robert Benson did start to think about the constituent parts of episcopal authority along Kantorowiczian lines, especially post-Gratian. He hinted, at least for the periods preceding the twelfth century, to a strong (legal) multiformity of the office, to which modern scholarship tends to adhere. (Benson, The Bishop-Elect, esp. pp. 25–33). 20 See, among others: Thomas Head, ‘Postscript: The Ambiguous Bishop’, in The Bishop Reformed, ed. by Ott and Trumbore Jones, pp. 250–64; John S. Ott, ‘“Both Mary and Martha”: Bishop Lietbert of Cambrai and the Construction of Episcopal Sanctity in a Border Diocese around 1100’, in The Bishop Reformed, ed. by Ott and Trumbore Jones, pp. 137–60. 21 See for instance, in the Lotharingian area: Diane J. Reilly, The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of Saint-Vanne, and the Saint-Vaast Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2006); or Anne Wagner, ‘L’image du pouvoir épiscopal aux Xe–XIe siècle: L’exemple Lorrain’, in Hagiographie, idéologie et politique au Moyen Âge en Occident, ed. by Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), pp. 233–41.
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source-types discussed, this latter approach of a single, but multi-tentacled episco‐ pal body nevertheless lingers within patterns of Kantorowiczian political theology, which present unified, static, or passive ideologies which were mostly meant for a select, appreciative audience. Building on understandings about ninth-century Carolingian bishops, scholars on tenth- and eleventh-century bishops have looked exceedingly at what identities were sought to be performed by or for bishops, while the more structuralist, possibly shared level of adaptive practices and meth‐ ods for how bishops sought to actualize such varying notions within their broader and ever-changing surroundings remains under-appreciated.22 This assessment straightforwardly leads to the second contribution to me‐ dieval studies for which Kantorowicz is becoming increasingly more known: the exhortation to historians to make better use of liturgical sources – as discussed in the introduction to this volume. Despite the recent contextualization in episco‐ pal scholarship, the liturgical aspects of bishops’ authority received somewhat less attention. This is remarkable twice over: first because liturgy was front and centre in bishops’ daily execution of their office and in fact separated them perhaps most from other rulers; and second because historians in the wake of a post-modern interest in anthropology did heavily study medieval rituals.23 In central medieval studies, the focus of this latter trend was, however, rarely on liturgy itself, and these authors mostly treated bishops as behavioural equals to kings and noblemen in the greater political game of ritual performance. It is only more recently that historians have started to open up investigation into the politico-liturgical sides of bishops, as I further indicate below, echoing the introduction to this volume. Such historiographical trepidations towards liturgy were, in turn, mirrored by liturgists’ hesitations towards the socio-political. This latter group indeed only seldomly studies the mutual exchange between liturgy and dynamic (episcopal) power, and has so far mostly focussed on the historical development of liturgical sources and practices. Part of the explanation for these voids in scholarship might be that for many modern researchers, liturgy remains a distinct, religious, and source-difficult biosphere. Mixing such complex, formalized, and seemingly slowly evolving cer‐ emonies about moral and cosmological themes with the rapid improvisational ‘play’ of worldly politics can indeed appear uneasily foreign and even more ‘magical’ in nature than the more secular, socio-political rituals studied by Althoff
22 Steffen Patzold nevertheless already pointed towards the importance of ritual, already in the late Carolingian period. Steffen Patzold, Episcopus: Wissen über Bischöfe im Frankenreich des späten 8. bis frühen 10. Jahrhunderts (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2008), pp. 526–33. 23 Most notably are Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Primus, 1997); Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001); Geschichtswissenschaft und ‘Performative Turn’. Ritual, Inszenierung und Performanz vom Mittelalter bis zur Neuzeit, ed. by Jürgen Martschukat and Steffen Patzold (Cologne: Böhlau, 2003).
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and others.24 To the modern mindset this fault line therefore still renders a bishop into a gemina persona (rather than a persona mixta) as Kantorowicz would phrase it: one who did the liturgy and one who did the politics. The difficulty of such a juxtaposition is perhaps easier to ignore when talking about secular rulers, since from a profane perspective their use of ceremony, political theology, and stylized social interactions were (supposedly) primarily used to enact particular socio-political relations. Bishops, on the other hand, had to perform their liturgi‐ cal duties regularly. Also, contrary to most socio-cultural-political rituals – as were discussed by Althoff and Koziol – liturgy did indeed know forms of written formalizations of behaviour, regardless of whatever normative or discursive value such texts had. Liturgy was thus a very particular form of ritual. But that doesn’t mean it was a fully separate one; quite on the contrary. As the examples in this essay will help to further demonstrate, liturgy did feed into episcopal politics, and politics easily infiltrated liturgical practices. This is not to say, however, that scholars have ignored the episcopal employ‐ ment of liturgy in the Central Middle Ages. Scholars such as Éric Palazzo, Sarah Hamilton, Maureen Miller, Diane Reilly, Louis Hamilton, Didier Méhu, Henry Parkes, Susan Boynton, Catherine Saucier, or Julia Exarchos, to name several, have significantly engaged with episcopal liturgical material from this period in one way or another and discussed the way it reflected on episcopal authority.25 Most recently and pertinently, and citing even Kantorowicz’s admonition above, Sarah Hamilton called for increased attention to (especially daily) liturgies and their impact on local identities.26 These valuable contributions have showed the way forward, but often they have focussed on a single source (type), a single practice, or on specific ideas and mentalities that these liturgies helped to express. Several of these scholars have increasingly started to treat liturgy as a way for bishops
24 Christina Pössel, ‘The Magic of Early Medieval Ritual’, Early Medieval Europe, 17 (2009), 111–25. 25 Éric Palazzo, ‘La liturgie épiscopal au Moyen Âge et sa signification théologique et politique’, in La imagen del obispo hispano en la Edad Media, ed. by Martín Aurell and Ángeles Garcia de la Borbolla (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 2004), pp. 61–73; Reilly, The Art of Reform, pp. 115– 17; Louis I. Hamilton, A Sacred City: Consecrating Churches and Reforming Society in Eleventh-Century Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010); Mises en scène et mémoires de la consécration de l’église dans l’occident médiéval, ed. by Didier Méhu (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008); Henry Parkes, The Making of Liturgy in the Ottonian Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Miller, Clothing the Clergy, especially pp. 87–93; Catherine Saucier, A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2014); Julia Exarchos, ‘Identität, Wahrheit und Liturgie’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 52 (2018), 157–87. Particularly art historians engage more easily with liturgical sources. See for instance the contributions in: Envisioning the Bishop, ed. by Danielson and Gatti, among others pp. 181–214, 249–74, 347–76; For important – but less directly episcopal – research on the interaction between liturgy and politics, see the introduction to this volume and the works there cited by, among others, Susan Boynton, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Iris Shagrir, Yitzhak Hen, Helen Gittos, and Sarah Hamilton. 26 Sarah Hamilton, ‘Liturgy and Episcopal Authority: The Evidence of the Noyon Sacramentary (London, British Library, Additional MS 82956, formerly Phillipps MS 3340)’, in Bishops in the Long Tenth Century, ed. by Vanderputten and Meijns, pp. 139–58.
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to actively represent unified and intersectional episcopal identities. Liturgy is thereby shown to have complemented or enacted understandings that were (also) expressed in other manners or in other sources; understandings that moreover responded to particular, local needs. In these new scholarly approaches, on which this essay explicitly seeks to build, the presented episcopal ideology or employed source-type still often overshadows the more abstract – even presumed magical – methodology of bishops to achieve such a ‘leadership representation through liturgy’. Scholars have looked more at what bishops did (concrete actions in com‐ plex contexts), and not yet as much at how exactly they did it. The behind the curtain of shared episcopal methodological practice thereby still remains open for further investigation. One way to allow more abstraction from the particular contexts would be to add a comparative perspective. The remainder of this essay wishes to do exactly this. It will compare three bishops from early eleventh-century Loharingia, throughout different types of liturgy (cathedral dedication, relic elevation/translation, episcopal ordination, and weapon blessings), yet which were all creatively employed to represent discur‐ sive solutions to difficult aspects of the episcopal identity at stake. Lotharingia offers an interesting test bed for such an investigation. It was itself a regio mixta, a border region between the East and West Frankish kingdoms, with strong traditional powers but also innovative reformers; economically prosperous but tensely coveted by many sides; autonomous while also dependent. Through the well-studied examples of Gerard of Cambrai, Bruno of Toul, and Ansfrid of Utrecht, the essay will each time describe the bishops’ particular challenges, their discursive solutions, followed by precisely how (and why) they in fact creatively engaged with liturgical practices to convey their discourse. The well-studied na‐ ture of each of these bishops will allow to get to the heart of the matter more quickly and compare them, in the scope of a short essay that would otherwise be highly reductive to more complex contexts.
Liturgically Appropriating Predecessors: Gerard of Cambrai (1012–1051) A first case is that of Gerard, bishop of the double diocese of Cambrai-Arras.27 While scholarship has paid previous attention to Gerard’s use of ritual, his use of liturgy specifically has been less discussed.28 It proves, however, to be a funda‐ 27 On Gerard, his context and actions described below, see: Theo M. Riches, ‘Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai-Arras, the Three Orders, and the Problem of Human Weakness’, in The Bishop Reformed, ed. by Ott and Trumbore Jones, pp. 202–22; Les représentations de l’autorité épiscopale au XIe siècle: Gérard de Cambrai et les ‘Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium’, ed. by Charles Mériaux, Revue du Nord, 410 (2015), 1–384; Pieter Byttebier, ‘Holy Bishops and the Shaping of Episcopal Discourse in Early Eleventh-Century Cambrai’, in Episcopal Power and Local Society, ed. by Coss and others, pp. 175–93. 28 Geoffrey Koziol, Beggin Pardon, pp. 216–20 does address excommunication. An opening into more liturgical research in Gerard’s context was also made by: Julia Exarchos, ‘Liturgical Handbooks as
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mental element in his leadership approach, and strongly connects to the many episcopal bodies of his predecessors. Gerard was a foreign, imperial appointee to a diocese in the outer corner of the empire, and which even straddled its border with the French kingdom: with one cathedral in Arras, the other in Cambrai, and spiritual and worldly loyalties due to both kingdoms. The Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium tells how before Gerard’s arrival in 1012 the Cambresian bishops were already engaged in a protracted power struggle with the local castellan Walter; a narrated feud that should (also) be read as a metaphor for broader tensions between the bishops and the local aristocracy.29 While relations with the local monastic communities appear peaceful through Gerard’s friendship with Abbot Richard of Saint-Vanne, the Saint-Vaast abbey in Arras was also a powerful and ambitious regional actor. This entire state of affairs significantly diffused episcopal authority. His predeces‐ sors might have tried a martial approach, receiving comital powers and building a fort in Cateau-Cambresis, but Gerard’s actions discussed below, suggest that he sought to fortify the image of the episcopacy itself, to bind the different strands of his identity (and that of his diocese) together, and to emphasize in particular episcopal centrality to society. Useful tools in this approach were Cambrai’s saintly bishops. Sources show that Gerard had two favourite predecessors: St Gaugeri‐ cus/Géry and St Autbert. Géry (584/590–c. 624) was considered the actual founder of the diocese as he had brought the episcopal see to Cambrai. He was venerated in the basilica that he had founded on a hilltop overlooking the city. Autbert (645–674/675) was considered the founder of the important Saint-Vaast abbey in Arras, yet he too had been buried in Cambrai, in a basilica of his own foundation, which soon functioned as an episcopal necropolis. These short descriptions alone already make it unsurprising why Gerard chose exactly them as his favourites: both saints were fundamental to a revered history of the diocese; their relics were in Cambrai and so under Gerard’s control (contrary to St Vedast, the diocese’s actual first bishop but whose image was under the control of the monks of Saint-Vaast in Arras); Géry’s move of the see emphasized the centrality of Cambrai rather than of Arras, and his episcopal tomb literally dominated the city, while Autbert’s necropolis also offered control over the memories of Cam‐ brai’s other historical bishops. Additionally, Géry was celebrated on 11 August. This was the day after St Lawrence, a key saint for the Ottonian imperial dynasty – to whom Gerard owed his episcopacy and who always served as the ultimate
Tools for Promoting Bishops’ Ideological and Political Agendas: The Example of Cambrai/Arras in the Eleventh Century’, Revue du Nord, 410 (2015), 317–35. 29 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, ed. by Ludwig Bethmann, MGH SS, 7 (Hanover: Hahn, 1846), pp. 393–525 (on Gerard specifically see Book III, pp. 465–89).
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backstop against rebellion.30 In the rich episcopal identities of these saints Gerard recognized opportunities for the symbolic expression of his desired policies. Gerard’s desired connection with these precursors was also expressed by emphasizing his shared patronage of particular religious foundations, handling their relics, and, most discernibly to the modern scholar, by commissioning hagiographies for them. Early on in his tenure Gerard ordered a Vita Sancti Aut‐ berti, an elaborated new Vita Sancti Gaugerici, and a very first Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, which also tied the first two texts into the apostolic succession leading up to Gerard.31 The texts not only explicitly associated Gerard with these saints, they were also filled with messages Gerard wished to promote via their saintly authority. In that sense, the texts became invented traditions playing with memory and history for the benefit of central contemporary episcopal authority.32 To (often illiterate) contemporaries, however, Gerard’s association to these saints was not necessarily clear through texts alone. Moreover, other actors in the diocese could contest Gerard’s messaging of control, not in the least the monks of Saint-Vaast.33 To overcome both these threats, the bishop could more clearly express his association through behaviour or art, which, by their similitude, undoubtedly reinforced the messages in the hagiographies.34 The most visible behaviour would be the bishop’s physical and liturgical handling of the saints’ bodies. Gerard indeed translated the relics of Autbert early in his tenure, from the cathedral to their original resting place in the Saint-Autbert church.35 Most explicit, however, was Gerard’s liturgical dedication in 1030 of Cambrai’s cathedral, , which he had recently reconstructed. The cathedral was the visual and symbolic epicentre of episcopal authority, and as a bishop Gerard also held a monopoly over the liturgy of dedication. This liturgy was therefore an ideal platform to express episcopal authority and gather the community around him. The Gesta indeed attests to how Gerard creatively engaged with particularly the
30 Gerard consciously engaged with this coincidence in dates. In 1023 he was involved in organizing a royal meeting between the West-Frankish King Robert II and Emperor Henry II, exactly on 10–11 August, and moreover in Ivois – a regular meeting place for kings, but in Cambrai known as the birthplace of St Géry. Gerard recognized the opportunity and clearly sought to emphasize this connection between his saint and his emperor, both in the text and in reality. Moreover, this is already an example of Gerard mixing an important political event with a date of liturgical significance (Byttebier, ‘Holy Bishops’, pp. 180–82). 31 Vita Autberti and Vita tertia Gaugerici are both edited and discussed in Gerardi Cameracensis Acta Synodi Atrebatensis; Vita Autberti; Vita Tertia Gaugerici; Varia Scripta Ex Officina Gerardi Exstantia, ed. by Steven Vanderputten and Diane J. Reilly, CCCM, 270 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 93–127 and 145–87. On the Gesta see above. 32 Byttebier, ‘Holy Bishops’, pp. 178–80. 33 Which they did, see: Steven Vanderputten, ‘Universal Historiography as Process? Shaping Monastic Memories in the Eleventh-Century Chronicle of Saint-Vaast’, in Universal Chronicles in the High Middle Ages, ed. by Michele Campopiano and Henry Bainton (York: York Medieval Press, 2017), pp. 43–64. 34 On artistic expressions of Gerard’s episcopal self-conception see: Reilly, The Art of Reform, passim. 35 Vita Autberti, ed. by Vanderputten and Reilly, pp. 76–77.
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liturgical staging to this effect.36 He brought out not just one relic, but the relics of all the most important episcopal saints of the diocese. Moreover, he ordered these relics around the altar, in a hierarchic concentric circle, and at the centre he placed St Géry, on the actual episcopal throne – as if he (and all other bishop-saints) were still alive, forming a counsel around Gerard. Such a staging of encircling and endorsing bishops around Gerard could moreover be seen as almost mimicking the liturgical setting of an episcopal ordination, which thereby also evoked a sanctioning of Gerard’s rule by the apostolic succession itself. The veracity and the author’s narrow interpretation of such a complex liturgi‐ cal event can of course be doubted. However, this particular staging was not an isolated occurrence: other sources attest a highly similar setting by Gerard when dedicating the newly founded abbey of Saint-André in 1025 as well as the rebuilt Arras cathedral in 1029/1030; and the same setting was used later by Gerard’s pupil and successor Lietbert for the dedication of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Cambrai.37 As Louis Hamilton has argued, a church dedication’s abundance of metaphors offered many opportunities to incrementally innovate meaning, convey topical messages, and reshape relations or communal identity.38 Without even changing the dedicational liturgy itself, but only through his small but innovative, organiza‐ tional addition of the episcopal bodies – especially those of his two favourites – Gerard indeed brought his political discourses (expressed also elsewhere) to‐ gether and brought them into the setting of the liturgy, where they could add (and in turn even gain) additional meaning. At the same time, the dedication liturgy was also the reason for a societal gathering, its remembrance became a recurrent part of the feast calendar of the diocese, and it became the day on which important taxes or payments were made, as the Gesta indeed affirmed.39 Politics thereby clearly mixed into the liturgy, but liturgy also emanated back into the broader socio-political sphere. As a bishop on unsure footing in a complex diocese, it was not surprising for Gerard to wish to emphasize episcopal centrality and clear rules for society. It was also not remarkable in this time to use the image of bishop-saints in order to express local policies and thereby engage with the episcopal body politic.40
36 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, ed. by Bethmann, l. III, c. 49, pp. 483–84. 37 On Saint-André see Chronicon S. Andreae Castri Cameracesii, ed. by Ludwig Bethmann, MGH SS, 7 (Hanover: Hahn, 1846), I, 19, p. 530; on Arras cathedral see Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, III, 58, p. 488; On Lietbert’s similar dedications see Notae Sancti Sepulcri Cameracensis, ed. by Adolf Hofmeister, MGH SS, 30/2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1926), pp. 781–82. 38 Hamilton, A Sacred City, pp. 74–79. 39 Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium, ed. by Bethmann, l. III, 49, p. 484: ‘Cuius censum ita bipertivit, ut in dedicatione aecclesiae medietatem eius insumerent’. 40 Saintly Bishops and Bishops’ Saints, ed. by John S. Ott and Trpimir Vedriš (Zagreb: Hagiotheca Humaniora, 2012), passim and esp. pp. vii–ix; La réécriture hagiographique dans l’Occident médiéval: Transformations formelles et idéologiques, ed. by Monique Goullet and Martin Heinzelmann (ParisOstfildern: Thorbecke/Picard, 2003), e.g. pp. 109–44.
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It was also extremely normal for bishops, and other contemporaries, to haul relics around, also in political settings; most explicitly perhaps in Peace councils. Relics were even a standard part of church dedications, as this liturgy required the deposition of relics under the new altar.41 Yet, Gerard elevated these traditional elements to an extreme level and combined several of them into something new. He demonstrated liturgical creativity in physically gathering not just the relics to be deposed, but also many important relics to the diocese, and, moreover, all of them bodies of bishops who had all carried out the same duties as he. He equally demonstrated liturgical creativity by making them actively part of the liturgy via such a concentric staging. This emphasized episcopal centrality in a demonstrable and multi-sensorial way that art or text alone could never achieve. Moreover, the presentation of these many different episcopal bodies and identities – all reincarnated in Gerard – might also have helped to overcome any problematic perception of multiplicity in Gerard’s office. Indeed, this whole liturgy was a ‘Gesta episcoporum performed’. It was indeed how Gerard expressed his policies that attracted the attention of the source author, rather than what he actually expressed. The precise messages that Gerard brought were actually left more implicit in the text, and in any case up to every spectator to discern for themselves. The bishop’s noteworthy actions, however, prompted and thus framed those (conscious or unconscious) discernments. In the later tenth century – when Gerard grew up – several bishops in Lotharingia had favourite predecessors, for whom they built abbeys and or‐ dered hagiographies, often capped off by a grand dedication.42 Gerard was thus possibly imitating, sharing and probably evolving a method of liturgical activation of predecessors through a corporate episcopal culture. One of the most virtuoso examples of politicizing liturgy, also via predecessors, is offered by Gerard’s con‐ temporary Bruno of Toul.
Liturgical Leadership: Bruno of Toul (1026–1051) Before his momentous papacy as Leo IX (1048–1054), Bruno of Eguisheim ruled the diocese of Toul – a large but loosely bound territory on the triple border between France, the Empire, and Burgundy.43 Like Cambrai, Toul was
41 See also Laurent Durnecker, ‘Consecrations d’autels et depots de reliques. L’exemple de Saint-Etienne de Dijon du XIe au début du XIIIe siècle’, in Mises en scène, ed. by Méhu, pp. 189–218. 42 Notable examples are Wigfrid of Verdun’s (959?–984?) attention to seventh-century bishop Paul, and the bishops of Verdun following Wigfrid, each building a church for their preferred saint; or Gerardus of Toul’s (963–94) attention to bishops Mansuy and Evre. 43 On Bruno’s episcopacy specifically see: Joachim Dahlhaus, ‘Das bischöfliche Wirken Brunos von Toul’, in Léon IX et son temps, ed. by Georges Bischoff and Benoît-Michel Tock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 33–60; Bruno Saint-Sorny, ‘Les chartes de l’évêque Bruno de Toul’, in Léon IX et son temps, ed. by Bischoff and Tock, pp. 131–60; Jacques Choux, ‘Bruno de Dabo, évêque de Toul, chef spirituel et seigneur temporel du diocèse’, Saisons d’Alsace, 6 (1954), 93–100.
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a fragmented border diocese: it had its cathedral city in the north-western corner; a cross-shaped grouping of important, autonomy-minded monasteries in the far eastern Vôsges mountains, which had struggled with the bishops for decades; and several foundations belonging to the diocese of Metz in between.44 While it didn’t straddle the border like Cambrai, Toul did face threats from western invasions, which resulted in a pillaging siege of the city during Bruno’s early episcopacy.45 As with Gerard in Cambrai, Toul’s bishops preceding Bruno had faced decades of local opposition, yet it seems that in this diocese there was more competition between the nobles and the monks themselves, each trying to pull the bishop their way.46 Contrary to Gerard of Cambrai, however, Bruno had lived in his episcopal city since boyhood and had been elected by his own diocese. He was thus very much a local, in a slightly different episcopal context. While Bruno thus didn’t need to prove himself as much, he too sought to express strong connections to previous local saintly rulers and he also chose favourites: Bishop Gerardus of Toul (963–994) and Abbot Hildulf (probably early eight century), founder and patron of Moyenmoutier, the central house of the ‘Vôsges-cross’. The expression of apostolic succession or diocesan body politic in these favourite saints – an extremely recent predecessor and an abbot – is thereby much less clear than for Gerard of Cambrai or tenth-century bishops, and it probably reflects how Bruno needed less to demonstrate his identity as bishop, but instead needed an image that could hold balance and unity between the diocese’s vying or dispersed flock. While Hildulf allowed him to connect more with the distant Vôsges, Gerardus’s life offered opportunities to embody the strong local tensions between monks and nobles; additionally, Gerardus had also made important steps in gaining episcopal footholds in the Vôsges. Both saints’ identities, and their alignment with Bruno’s needed policies, were further developed in the vitae that were composed for them exactly during Bruno’s time.47 For Gerardus, Bruno did not, however, found or rebuild a special monastery.48 Gerardus’s and Bruno’s own Vita combined indeed suggest that Bruno’s atten‐ tion was more behavioural-based. Bruno’s Vita emphasizes that ‘it was Gerardus
44 On Toul see: Gerold Bönnen, Die Bischofsstadt Toul und ihr Umland während des hohen und späten Mittelalters (Trier: Verlag Trierer Historiche Forschungen, 1995). 45 Especially the counts of Champagne and their local allies posed a threat. In the early eleventh century, the bishops of Toul built several forts along the Meuse but in 1033 Odo II of Blois would still break through and pillage Toul’s surroundings. (Michel Bur, ‘Lorraine – Champagne: Osmose et confrontation’, Annales de l’Est, 6 (2009), 7–17). 46 John Nightingale, ‘Bishop Gerard of Toul (963–94) and Attitudes to Episcopal Office’, in Warriors and Churchmen in the High Middle Ages. Essays Presented to Karl Leyser, ed. by Timothy Reuter (London-Rio Grande, OH: The Hambledon Press, 1992), pp. 41–62. 47 Vita Sancti Gerhardi Episcopi Tullensis, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), pp. 490–505; Vita Hildulfi (Tertia), edited in Acta Sanctorum, Iulii, III (Antwerp: Jacobus du Moulin, 1723), col. 228–38. 48 North and Cutler, ‘The Bishop as Cultural Medium’, pp. 75–111 do suggest that the bishops of Toul articulated specific meaning through artistic patronage.
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whom he imitated before the others’.49 Imitation was indeed an important theme in Gerardus’s as well as Bruno’s own vitae, and connotes a very behavioural and performative identification with specific values or policies. Part of this behavioural imitation was liturgy, a task for which Gerardus had a particular attention, as noted (by Bruno’s confidant Widric) throughout Gerardus’s Vita.50 Bruno is, as Leo IX, well known for his liturgical prowess, which had clear political motivations and or consequences, not in the least during the famous council of Reims in October 1049.51 For Gerardus’s purpose this liturgical interest came to a particular culmination in October 1050, not in a church dedication as for Gerard of Cambrai, but with an elaborate translatio of Gerardus of Toul’s relics, as described in the latter’s miraculae.52 Two years into his papacy Leo was still holding his see in Toul, and he decided to let the former shine on the latter: he sanctified Gerardus in Rome and then went back to Lotharingia to move Ger‐ ardus’s body. Bruno’s charisma drew enormous crowds and prelates from all over Europe to Toul. Once there, he heightened the mystery by elevating Gerardus during a Saturday’s nightly divine office in the cathedral choir (where Gerardus was buried); so, shielded from the crowds, with only clerics and monks present. The next day Bruno displayed the body of Gerardus for a full Sunday to all, before interring him on Monday in a different, more accessible place of the cathedral: at the right hand of the main altar. On top of this new tomb Bruno dedicated an altar to Gerardus and decided that this day be yearly commemorated. This must have been quite a spectacle. However, again it are the staging elements of the liturgy’s time and place that stand out. The Saturday night timing, the shielding from the crowd, the three-day elevation: these all explicitly express a (Christological) imitational connection with the Resurrection, which links the event to the imitational themes present in the Vitae of both Gerardus and Bruno. Also the place of the new tomb was a highly relevant choice: via a martyrology from Toul we know that there was an altar here dedicated to St Blaise.53 From
49 Vita Leonis, ed. by Hans Georg Krause, MGH SRG, 70 (Hanover: Hahn, 2007), I.4 p. 98: ‘Nam cum quintus a domno Gerardo reverendus Bruno computetur ab ipso tantum et non ab aliquo sequacium eius videtur preelectus, quoniam deo annuente eum pre illis est imitatus’. 50 Vita Gerhardi, ed. by Waitz, c. 6–8, 13, and 15 (pp. 495–97, 498, and 499) all concern liturgical or even Eucharistic themes. 51 Jacques Hourlier, ‘Anselme de Saint-Remy: Histoire de la dédicace de Saint-Remy’, in La Champagne Bénédictine. Contribution à l’année Saint Benoît (480–1980) (Reims: Academie Nationale de Reims, 1981), pp. 179–297. See also, among others on this subject: Dominique Iogna-Prat, ‘Léon IX, Pape consécrateur’, in Léon IX et son temps, ed. by Bischoff and Tock, pp. 355–84. 52 Translatio Gerardi (c. 1050), a chapter in Miracula Sancti Gerardi Episcopi Tullensis, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), pp. 505–09. 53 Paris, BnF, MS latin 10018 contains a Martyrology adapted to the usage of Toul. At the end of the note on 5 Ides of November (fol. 87v, column 211) it reads how on this day was also celebrated: ‘Dedicatio dextrioris membri maioris ecclesiae huius sedis, in honore sancti Blasii episcopi et martyris, atque omnium sanctorum’. While the manuscript is fourteenth-century, numerous eleventhcentury texts (see below) indicate the presence of a St Blaise altar in Toul cathedral. Jacques Choux even argued that this celebrated dedication of this altar might have even been done by Gerardus
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the Vita Gerardi we know that Gerardus not just regularly prayed at this altar at matins, but that he actually fell ill there and subsequently died.54 Bruno was thus returning Gerardus to an important symbolic place in the story of his life and death. From the Vita Leonis, furthermore, we know that Bruno himself, had been miraculously cured from a year long illness by St Blaise, after he had been carried to the altar of this saint – possibly to die as Gerard did.55 Both Gerardus and this location in the cathedral were thus of personal importance to Bruno. By liturgically moving Gerardus’s relics to this location, Bruno thus also expressed and inscribed within the central space of his diocese his own self-represented personal bond with Gerardus. From this example we can see how Bruno – just by adding certain aspects to traditional translatio proceedings, such as choosing the time, place, and saint – drew several elements or symbols pertaining to his broader identity into the liturgy. Thereby every action in Bruno’s liturgy now clearly stood in additional symbolic relations to extra-liturgical webs of meaning. Again, a common critique to such ritual-analysis is that these one-time events did not necessarily communicate the meanings we read in the singular source. However, in this case we are not following the narrative of one author, but only seeing the full set of meaning by juxtaposing several different sources. Moreover, we can actually attest how these identity-fusing messages were successfully com‐ municated at least on some level: first of all, the Gesta of Toul states that a copy of the Vita Gerardi, presumably containing the narrative of his translation, was kept next to Gerardus’s new tomb, to be consulted.56 Second, later bishops clearly recognized the importance of this place and event: Bruno’s successor Udo (1051– 1069) also had himself buried before the altar of St Blaise, and Udo’s successor Pibo (1069–1107) dedicated his Westwork tower additions to the cathedral explicitly on the same day as Bruno’s translation of Gerard.57 Especially this latter aspect demonstrates the power of the recurrent liturgical celebrations that was instigated by this one-time event: important translatio’s were celebrated every year and became the stage for new symbolic adaptations. Bruno must have been well aware of the power of this repetitive aspect, in order to solidify his meanings every year anew. Moreover, Bruno staged the translatio on 20–22 October, exactly half a year apart from Gerardus’s main feast day 23 April: a perfect pendulum to each other, making Gerardus now twice-yearly a focal point of local liturgical life. Bruno also combined this translatio liturgy with the nightly office – not immediately an episcopal liturgy – thereby associating the cathedral canons (but
54 55 56 57
himself ( Jacques Choux, ‘La cathédrale de Toul avant le XIIIe siècle’, Annales de l’Est, 5 (1955), 99–143 (p. 119)). In any case the altar must have been in the north-transept part of the cathedral, close to where Gerard’s new tomb and altar came (Choux, ‘La cathédrale de Toul’, p. 122, n. 2). Vita Sancti Gerhardi Episcopi Tullensis, ed. by Waitz, c. 22, p. 503. Vita Leonis, ed. by Krause, l. I, c. 17 (14), p. 152. Gesta episcoporum Tullensium, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 8 (Hanover: Hahn, 1848), c. 34, p. 642. Choux, ‘La cathédrale de Toul’, p. 124, n. 2. Later the feast of Pibo’s dedication would be moved to avoid competition with Gerardus’s translation.
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at the same time significantly also the monks of the diocese) in his endeavour, and he moved Gerardus’s body to a more accessible part of the cathedral, to draw crowds. The new location thereby reshaped the liturgical narrative of his cathedral and also immediately tied in his personal (imitational) identity. In this episode we thus see Bruno taking active control over a liturgical setting and its interpretation, actively modifying space and time, and expressing through it a broader approach of imitational identity-fusing that he also expressed through other channels. Liturgy was, however, the most behavioural and explicit place to bring these many messages together and to cohesively combine the episcopal office’s many different demands into one body politic. A different example of the same method of leadership representation through liturgy can be found on the other side of the diocese. In the important but far away abbey of Moyenmoutier, Bruno and his predecessors were continuously seeking to strengthen episcopal influence.58 His very first episcopal act was indeed to impose a new abbot: Widric, whom Bruno had also made abbot in the two suburban abbeys of Toul-city, thereby pulling these three most important abbeys of his diocese closer together.59 The Vita Leonis portrayed this appointment as positive, but it was in fact a repetition of Bruno’s predecessor’s disastrous removal of the (very same, returned) abbot. Yet, where Bruno’s predecessor was despised in the sources, Bruno seemed to have gotten away with it.60 One possible reason is Bruno’s stronger engagement with the abbey through a combination of political and symbolic-liturgical behaviour, which helped tie his own identity stronger into the abbey’s. In Bruno’s time indeed a new, third Vita was written for the abbey’s founder Hildulf.61 This text emphasized Hildulf ’s intense friendship with another founder of an important Vôsges abbey (St Dié) over which Bruno also sought control; but the text also emphasized Hildulf ’s baptism of St Odile. Odile was the patron saint of Hohenberg, a nearby monastery founded by her father, who, crucially, was considered an ancestor of Bruno’s.62 Bruno and his parents, who stemmed from the region, were indeed significant patrons to the monastery. It is noteworthy that the connection of Moyenmoutier with the bishop was made through his personal identity, but also through the liturgy (baptism). This baptism, moreover, supposedly took place in the church of St John the Baptist in Moyenmoutier, built by St Hildulf; and Bruno rebuilt and liturgically rededicated it.63 The (presumably
58 On Moyenmoutier see: Léon Jérôme, L’abbaye de Moyenmoutier de l’ordre de Saint Benoît en Lorraine (Paris: Lecoffre, 1902). 59 Vita Leonis, ed. by Krause, l. I, c. 12(11), pp. 130–32. 60 Libellus de successoribus s. Hidulphi in Vosago, ed. by Augustin Calmet, in Histoire de Lorraine, 7 vols (Nancy: Leseure, 1745–1757), III, cols cxcix–ccxiii, c. XII. Bruno’s predecessor Berthold is criticized as an ‘oppresor vulgi’, but the text stops right before Bruno’s tenure. 61 Vita Hildulfi (Tertia), ed. In Acta Sanctorum, Iulii, III, pp. 228–38. 62 Fabienne Cardot, ‘Le pouvoir aristocratique et le sacré au Haut Moyen Âge: Sainte Odile et les Etichonides dans la Vita Odiliae’, Le Moyen Âge, 89 (1983), 173–93. 63 Jérôme, L’abbaye de Moyenmoutier, p. 233.
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twelfth-century) image of Hildulf baptizing Odile is also one of the main scenes depicted on Hildulf ’s reliquary, which suggest how important this particular episode and saint had become to the abbey.64 Bruno’s new Vita for Hildulf, which elaborated on ideals of monasticism, also got a new versified office, which would have been performed during the monastic offices on Hildulf ’s feast day – which fortuitously coincided with the feast of St Benedict himself (11 July). The Vita Leonis even claims that Bruno himself composed the music for the new responsories in his office for Hildulf.65 Finally, Bruno also re-dedicated the Saint Gregory oratory, where Hildulf was buried, and also for St Gregory Bruno was remembered to have composed liturgical music – as well as for Hildulf ’s Vôsges-colleague St Dié.66 Bruno was thus seeking to establish more episcopal footing in the abbey, and he did so by tying in different strands of his personal and official identity in that of the abbey. Significantly, Bruno brought these strands together via liturgy. Grand liturgical gestures, such as dedications, might till the interpretational ground, but they were subtle elements within traditional acts – such as staging, music, or emphasized contextual aspect – that, by their subtlety and year-in-year-out repeti‐ tion, really nudged the spectrum of interpretation in a certain direction. These small additions and the flurry of identity elements with which they connected, on the one hand provided Bruno’s liturgies with a lot of additional meaning, but in turn these liturgies offered Bruno another opportunity to tangibly perform identity politics (fusing his identity together with the patron of the abbey) to gain authority in a place striving for autonomy from the bishop. As a final, but never remarked, original example of this liturgical method, Bruno already applied ‘liturgical play’ with the calendar to his own episcopal consecration. The discourse in the Vita Leonis already significantly frames Bruno’s episcopal accession within the liturgical calendar: his predecessor died right before Palm Sunday, signifying the dawn of Bruno’s era in parallel with Christ’s entrance in Jerusalem. Bruno’s accession to the episcopal throne in Toul was, moreover, remembered on Ascension Day 1026, signalling an intended parallel with Christ’s assumption. Holding important events on significant liturgical dates was very common in this time and carried meaning – something which Kantorowicz had already remarked in his Laudes Regiae. Indeed, Konrad II was crowned emperor at Easter in that same year, and the French King Henry I was crowned at Pentecost in the next. But bishops did this too, and Bruno is indeed well known for having tied his papal peregrinations as Leo IX to highly significant local liturgical dates.67
64 Preserved through drawings in Paris, BnF, MS latin 11913, fol. 89v. 65 Vita Leonis, ed. by Krause, l. I, c. 15(13), pp. 140–42; Madeleine Bernard, ‘Les offices versifiés attribués à Léon IX (1002–1054)’, Etudes grégoriennes, 19 (1980), 89–102 (p. 91). 66 Vita Leonis, ed. by Krause, l. I, c. 15(13), pp. 140–42. Bernard, ‘Les offices’, p. 92. 67 Joachim Dahlhaus, ‘Urkunde, Itinerar und Festkalender. Bemerkungen zum Pontifikat Leos IX’, in Aspects diplomatiques des voyages pontificaux, ed. by Barbiche Bernard and Grosse Rolf (Paris:
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Bruno’s innovation to this custom, already as bishop in Toul, is that his ordina‐ tion was remembered on 9 September 1027, a significant day in Toul’s liturgical narrative.68 It was one day after the important feast of the Virgin’s Nativity, but more importantly, it fell exactly in the middle between the feasts of St Mansuy (3 September) and St Evre (15 September), the patron saints of Toul’s two, dominant suburban abbeys, which lay on opposite sides of the city and cathedral. In that sense Bruno’s ordination day became a perfect liturgical reflection in time of Toul’s existing spatial organization. Moreover, it communicated on a very basic level that Bruno was taking a mediating though central position between these two powers, while it also performed him as among the great bishops, who were moreover Gerardus’s favourites. Such spatialized metaphors could on a basic level strongly impact contemporaries’ understanding of the world.69 9 September 1027 was also a Saturday, rather than a Sunday, customary for episcopal ordinations. Whether tradition was broken, or Bruno just decided that the event would be remembered on the 9th, both options required a conscious decision, with significant impact: episcopal consecration dates were celebrated yearly while the bishop was still alive, and were often the date set for some recur‐ ring societal celebrations or financial transactions. With the intimate knowledge that Bruno had of his diocese, he recognized an opportunity, simply by choosing this date, to add political narrative to his ordination liturgy. Conversely, it was via liturgy that these broad meanings were immediately inscribed in the yearly recurring liturgical calendar, instantly rewriting the diocese’s repeated experience of time in this period of the year and thereby reaffirming over and over again Bruno’s role in the diocese.70 All three of these examples (translation of Gerardus, liturgy in Moyenmoutier, and his own ordination) demonstrate how Bruno, like Gerard of Cambrai, creatively used contextual aspects of traditional liturgies – though using other aspects – in order to subtly express, and immediately inscribe, political meaning into the fabric of society.
École nationale de chartes/Institut historique allemand, 2009), pp. 7–29. On the choice of significant dates for (political) meaning see also Hans M. Schaller, ‘Der heilige Tag als Termin mittelalterliche Staatsakte’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 30 (1974), 1–24 and Johanna Dale, ‘Royal Inauguration and the Liturgical Calendar in England, France, and the Empire c. 1050–c.1250’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 37 (2015), 83–98 (p. 84). 68 Vita Leonis, l. I, c. 13 (12), p. 136; Henri Quentin, Les Martyrologes historiques du Moyen Âge, 2nd edn (Paris: Lecoffre, 1908), p. 238. 69 George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), esp. pp. 147–55. 70 This was moreover already a significant week memoria-wise: Gerardus’s immediate predecessor Bishop Gauzelin was remembered on 7 September, and on 11 September the eight-century Bishop Bodo, who was so important for Toul gaining a foothold in the Vôsges.
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Liturgizing Personal Identity: Ansfrid of Utrecht (995– 1010) The two bishops discussed so-far strongly employed the episcopal bodies of their saintly predecessors within their creative, though methodological application of liturgy to better display self-representational (political) discourses. The final example of this essay demonstrates how bishops did not necessarily depend on relics to apply this method. Ansfrid of Utrecht had been a successful count all his life, before Otto III made him bishop of the frontier diocese of Utrecht.71 Alpert of Metz informs us best about Ansfrid’s intriguing accession: When Bishop Baldwin of Utrecht died, […] the king took Ansfrid by the hand and offered the bishopric to him. But Ansfrid resisted. He argued that he was an old man and had spent his entire life as a soldier. It would seem utterly absurd for him to take up the office of a priest. But the king was adamant, insisting that he would use force to make Ansfrid take his office. […] Ansfrid then took up the sword, with which he was girded, and placed it on the altar of St Mary saying: ‘Up until this time I have obtained earthly honors with this sword. I have driven out the enemies of Christ’s poor, and of widows. Now I commend it to my Lady Saint Mary by whose strength I shall gain honor and the salvation of my soul’. After he said this, everyone there broke out in tears. Then, to the applause of all those present, the episcopal stole was given to him for his worthy merits.72
71 On Ansfrid see: Rolf Grosse, ‘L’évêque d’Utrecht autour de l’an Mil: le modèle d’un prélat ottonien?’, in Evêque et prince: Notger et la Basse-Lotharingie aux alentours de l’an Mil, ed. by Alexis Wilkin and Jean-Louis Kupper (Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2013), pp. 207–44; Bas Aarts, ‘Ansfried, graaf en bisschop. Een stand van zaken’, in ‘Opera Omnia’. Een verzameling geschied- en heemkundige opstellen 2, ed. by Jan Coolen and Jacobus Forschelen (Thorn: Het land van Thorn, 1994), pp. 7–85. 72 Alpert of Metz, ‘De diversitate temporum’, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1841), l. I, c. 12, p. 706: ‘Cum vero Baltuvinus Sacerdos Traiectensis vita decederet, […] rex Ansfridum seorsum manu ducens, sacerdotium illud ei offerre coepit. Cumque ille reniteretur, iamque se senem, in militaribus armis omni tempore vitae suae versatum, Clericatus officia suscipere omnino absurdum videri contenderet; et rex vehementer instans, vi ad suscipiendum compelleret, perspiciens quia regi resistere non posset, ut cum suis deliberaret, exposcit. Qua re impetrata et ab suis oratione accepta, quae Rex imperaret se facturum pollicetur. Et accepto gladio quo erat accinctus, super altare Sanctae Mariae posuit dicens: Hactenus hoc honorem terrenum obtinui, et hostes pauperum Christi & viduarum expuli; nunc deinceps huic dominae meae S. Mariae, qua virtute honorem et salutem animae meae optineam, commendo. Hoc cum diceret, omnium obortis lacrimis applausu omnium qui aderant, dignis eius meritis tribuitur infula pontificalis’. Translation from David S. Bachrach, Warfare and Politics in Medieval Germany, ca. 1000: On the Variety of Our Times (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2012), pp. 23–24. A much shorter account of Ansfrid’s appointment, without this ritual act and with greater attention to the role of fellow bishops Everger of Cologne and Notger of Liège can be read in Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. by Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG NS, 9 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1935), l. IV, c. 35, p. 173.
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The author extended this narrative by adding a contemporary poem (versiculos) about the remarkable start of this bishop’s tenure. In essence these versicles sing of Ansfrid’s transformation from defender of the kingdom to guardian of the Church, from warrior to peace lover, from a fighter to a governor of souls, from bearing arms to wearing vestments, from wielding swords and shields to holding chalices and patens, and from waving the battle flag to singing the mass. Finally, Alpert stated how Ansfrid wore the canonically prescribed vestments for a long time, in order to emphasize how he did not differ in his habits from other priests. The discourse in Alpert’s text is clear. There was a problematic tension be‐ tween Bishop Ansfrid’s multiple identities, which needed resolving: his status as a fighting aristocrat was perceived, not in the least by himself, as problematic for his new role. Perhaps there was a clerical ‘gender’ issue at play here;73 or infringed standard career paths, as Ansfrid was indeed not even a minor cleric when he was made bishop; and Alpert was also unmistakably referencing the canonical prohibition of clerical weapon wielding.74 More generally though, Ansfrid’s mili‐ tary background was used allegorically for a broader societal unease towards the martial – and by extension worldly – tasks the emperors increasingly sought of bishops on the border of the Empire.75 Rolf Grosse has indeed argued that Ansfrid – much like his predecessors in Utrecht – might have resisted this tasking or image of an ideal ‘border bishop’ in the service of the emperor, and that he therefore sought to focus heavily on the spiritual side of his episcopal role.76 Remarkably, in order to present an episcopal identity that was more acceptable to himself and to his local constituency, Ansfrid’s military past was not negated or downplayed. Rather, his clerical and martial personae were re-framed as dis‐ tinctive instantiations of the same protecting identity: previously he defended the Church with weapons against material loss, but as a bishop he defended it with words against spiritual loss. Ansfrid’s former life as a warrior, and all the vocabulary associated with it, thereby actually became a useful metaphor-group
73 Maureen C. Miller, ‘Masculinity, Reform, and Clerical Culture: Narratives of Episcopal Holiness in the Gregorian Era’, Church History, 72 (2003), 25–52. 74 On clerical restrictions and use of violence see: Leopold Auer, ‘Der Kriegsdienst des Klerus unter den sächsischen Kaisern’, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 79 (1971), 316–407. See also: Friedrich Prinz, Klerus und Krieg im früheren Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1971) and Jeffrey R. Webb, ‘Representations of the Warrior-Bishop in Eleventh-Century Lotharingia’, Early Medieval Europe, 24 (2016), 103–30 and most recently Between Sword and Prayer: Warfare and Medieval Clergy in Cultural Perspective, ed. by Radosław Kotecki, Jacek Maciejewski, and John S. Ott, Explorations in Medieval Culture, 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 75 Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Grafschaften in Bischofshand’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 46 (1990), 375–480 (pp. 440–47). While the bishops of Utrecht only received the county of Drenthe by 1024 (around the terminus ante quem of Alpert’s text), this would be the first of many in the following years and this trend was predominant in the region. Ansfrid’s southern neighbour, Bishop Notger of Liège (972–1008) had received exactly Ansfrid’s old county of Huy by 985; and the bishops of Utrecht played significant roles against the counts of Frisia, for instance during the battle of Vlaardingen (of which Alpert is our main source) and in the following decades. 76 Grosse, ‘L’évêque d’Utrecht’, pp. 207–44.
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for his episcopal task, rather than a liability. As I will discuss further below, such martial-religious similitudes became increasingly popular at this time, especially in monastic (con)texts. Here, however, this discourse was rather uniquely used by a bishop, or at the very least for a bishop, by the author of the text, and it was employed in a very practical way: it could be used to express particular visions of the episcopal role, and which suited specific contextual needs. Ansfrid’s image of the spiritual-martial bishop could indeed serve two contex‐ tual purposes. First, Alpert’s De diversitate temporum overall focus is the prevalent aristocratic violence and vanity in this time and region. Bishop Ansfrid’s uncom‐ fortable double identity could thereby actually serve as a discursive political strength to his rule: as a supreme spiritual warrior he could be presented as the ideal counterexample to the unruly local worldly rulers.77 Moreover, while he was surely a capable war leader and governor, as a bishop, Ansfrid now could also be presented to have additional weapons which his non-episcopal colleagues didn’t have: spiritual and liturgical powers. A second contextual benefit to doubling down on his warrior identity is that it made Ansfrid align perfectly with that of the patron saint of Utrecht cathedral: warrior-turned-bishop St Martin, whose fa‐ mous Vita (by Sulpicius Severus) Alpert even quoted when describing Ansfrid.78 This method of identity-association to a favourite local saint brings us closer again to the methods of the two bishops discussed above, though here it wasn’t a local predecessor. Ansfrid’s clear monastic sympathies also support both these contextual benefits: they link him to St Martin who famously was a monk before coming bishop, and it emphasizes the spiritual accent Ansfrid wished to give to his episcopacy. By creatively reframing his own past identity the prohibition of violence by clerics, and thereby the tension within Ansfrid’s episcopal identity, could thus not merely be discursively swept under a rug of contextual needs, it could actually also help the bishop establish and (self-)represent his authority. In Alpert’s passage cited above, liturgy is a significant element to designate and to clarify Ansfrid’s transformation from warrior to warrior-bishop. The mentioned versicles/poem make this most clear, by the imagery in the repeated substitution of his attributes: arms are replaced by vestments, swords and shields by chalices and patens, battle flag waving by singing the mass. These examples suggest that in this context episcopal identity was expressed most visibly by liturgical elements and activities. It is thereby not surprising that in the appointment narrative itself,
77 Grosse argued that Ansfrid’s discourse of a spiritual warrior differed on this point from the notion of peace–loving violence for the common societal good, which was a core message in the Vita about Ansfrid’s teacher Bruno of Cologne (953–65). Bruno indeed more ostensibly combined episcopal with ducal duties (Ruotger, Vita Brunonis, ed. by Schmale-Ott). 78 Bachrach, Warfare and Politics, p. 24, n. 74. Thietmar even concludes Ansfrid’s appointment story, for no specific reason, with the fact that Ansfrid later made a donation to St Martin – as if Thietmar wanted readers to be aware of that connection (Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. by Holtzmann, l. IV, c. 35, p. 173). The sword deposition, however, does not know an explicit parallel in the Vita Martini.
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Ansfrid’s real identity shift is expressed most clearly by him placing his sword on the altar. This liturgical demilitarization of the count-turning-bishop is clearly related to an at that time emerging ritual practice mostly associated with new monastic converts, who ritually deposed their weapons before taking on the habit and turning themselves into spiritual soldiers of Christ.79 Ansfrid, as both Alpert and Thietmar of Merseburg suggest, indeed had wanted to become a monk before being pressured into the episcopacy – and indeed he would take the habit in his final years. Apart from merely expressing Ansfrid’s transformation, this liturgical act thus also immediately added a layer of meaning to his new episcopal identity, actually mixing in a third (monastic) identity, signalling his spiritual focus. However, as Alpert’s words and Ansfrid’s new tasks suggest, Ansfrid did not do entirely away with his sword: he did not fully exchange it for a metaphorical one or for vestments; no, he explicitly offered its use to the Virgin. Nor did Ansfrid turn his back entirely on the world: he became a bishop who intrinsically retained important worldly responsibilities. The sources might be remarkably quiet on Ansfrid’s secular actions – especially compared to his successor Adal‐ bold II (1010–1026) – concentrating on Ansfrid’s religious and foundational feats; yet the sources do suggest that Ansfrid was a respected leader, in a period characterized by secular strife, and he was, for instance, clearly instrumental in defending Utrecht against barbarian invaders.80 Ansfrid’s ritual identity-shift from count to bishop was thus not a rejection of old identity but a reframing; and while he touched on monastic elements, his renunciation of the secular was much more ambiguous than for his monastic colleagues. Ansfrid was almost stating that he would become a monk, as a soldier for Christ, but still in the world. The bishop placing the sword on the altar became thereby a shade less metaphorical than for monks, making it more ambiguous, turning it almost into a form of weapon-blessing. He might not have wielded the actual sword anymore, but as bishop he was definitely still commanding its service. Weapon-blessing liturgies would in Ansfrid’s time still have been in the tran‐ sition from somewhat novel to traditional.81 The eleventh-century variations of the so-called ‘Romano-Germanic Pontifical’ do include some weapon-blessing liturgies, one of which indeed instructs to place a sword on the altar during the mass and then to bless it.82 In one extant example of such an ordo, stemming
79 Katherine A. Smith, ‘Ungirded for Battle: Knightly Conversion to Monastic Life and the Making of Weapon-Relics in the Central Middle Ages’, in Between Sword and Prayer, ed. by Kotecki, Maciejewski, and Ott, pp. 182–206. I wish to thank John Ott for pointing this out. 80 Alpert of Metz, ‘De diversitate temporum’, ed. by Waitz, l. I, c. 10, p. 705. 81 M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons: Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017), p. 51. 82 Le Pontifical Romano–Germanique du dixième siècle, ed. by Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, 3 vols (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1963–1972), nos CCXLIII–CCXLVI, here specifically CCXLVI Iudicium ferri ferventis (II, p. 380). It must be noted though that Alpert’s prayer citation does not resemble any of the prayers in the PRG.
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exactly from eleventh-century Lower-Lotharingia, the bishop blesses the sword before girding the receiving soldier with it, all while clerics are singing Specie Tua (repeated twice).83 This popular and versatile antiphon was only used for feasts associated with the Virgin Mary or other virgins. Such a practice actually connects to Ansfrid’s choice for the altar of Mary, linking act, stage, context, and music even stronger together via the liturgy.84 The sword deposition can equally be linked to the episcopal or priestly con‐ secration rite. Alpert mentions how following Ansfrid’s deposition of the sword and his prayer over it, he received the ‘pontifical stole’ (infula pontificalis). Bestow‐ ing vestments on the ordinand was an integral part of both the episcopal and presbyterial ordination liturgy, after the interrogation, and before the ordination prayer and anointment.85 In these ordination rites, for each vestment or attribute bestowed, a prayer was said about the intended purpose of the object – just as Ansfrid did about the new (semi-metaphorical) purpose of his sword. The vocabulary Alpert uses in his description of the event most likely refers to the priestly ordination.86 Through the traditional bestowal blessings of the stole, we also know that this particular vestment was also closely associated with the virtue of justice.87 In fact, the same is true about the sword blessings, which originated out of the coronation liturgies for kings.88 Via liturgical expression, Ansfrid – or at least Alpert – was thus representing the connected priestly, judicial, and protective nature of Ansfrid’s new position. With this act, Ansfrid was thus simultaneously changing his own identity, stating association with a universal saint particularly important for the diocese as well as with monastic values, blessing the (now semi-metaphorical) use of his sword, and making a context-specific statement about his episcopal identity. Apart from attesting to the malleability of liturgy in this time, Ansfrid was clearly
83 Ordo XL ad armorum milite in the Cologne Pontifical: Cologne, Cathedral library, MS 141, fols 173r– v. The pontifical is to be dated to the mid to second half of the eleventh century, from Cambrai–Arras. 84 Significantly, the Specie tua verse (Ps. 44. 5) follows the verse ‘accingere gladio tuo’ in that very Psalm 44. The Cologne pontifical was simply following the Psalmist in connecting this antiphon to the sword blessing. Specie tua has multiple numbers either as antiphon (CAO4987), versicle, responsory or responsory verse in René-Jean Hesbert and René Prévost, Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, 6 vols (Rome: Herder, 1963), III, p. 487. 85 No. LXIII for bishops, No. XVI for priests in Le Pontifical, ed. by Vogel and Elze, I, pp. 200–29. For bishops there was additionally the bestowal of ring and staff at the end of the rite; see also Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 87–93. 86 ‘dignis eius meritis tribuitur infula pontificalis’ in Alpert’s text highly resembles the ‘quo nobi indignis sacerdotalem infulis tribuisti’ in the ordination prayer for priests in the influential Gregorian Sacramentary (Le Sacramentaire Grégorien: Ses principales formes d’après les plus anciens manuscrits, ed. by Jean Deshusses, 3 vols (Fribourg: Editions universitaires, 1971-1982), I, p. 308). Infula is a sparsely used term and should here indeed be translated as stole, an attribute given to priests. Since bishops normally wore a stole at the start of their ordination liturgy, the author was here emphasizing with ‘infula pontificalis’ the priestly nature of Ansfrid’s new office. 87 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 83–93. 88 Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons, pp. 50–51.
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depicted here as possessing a liturgical creativity to adapt or even fuse different liturgies into a dynamic and more appropriate whole. Such an aptitude was indeed very effective for a bishop to have, as it allowed a systemic expression of specific messages of societal leadership. By this simple act of placing his sword on the altar, Ansfrid thus brought political messages into the liturgy. The sword as worldly and personal political symbol (Ansfrid had actually been sword bearer to Otto I, as Thietmar remem‐ bers) was physically brought into a liturgical context that was meant to confirm episcopal identity.89 This act unavoidably added meaning and context to other, standard liturgical behaviour in this ritual, about which now the protective or martial interpretations would be highlighted. This effect exactly reinforced the particular interpretation of the overall, unproblematic episcopal identity Ansfrid sought. Thereby Ansfrid indeed also looped liturgy back into the political realm. Since he had fused his protective obligations so demonstrably with his liturgical ones, also the liturgical or spiritual interpretations of his protective or martial actions would be more at the forefront of people’s minds. To seemingly reinforce this point, Alpert narrates how Ansfrid wore his liturgical vestments for a long time after this liturgy, emphasizing how his liturgical and protective tasks were not separated, nor that the one was limited to the sacral sphere or inside the church building, and the other to the outside, secular world: both tasks and both worlds blended into each other. While the discourse of the justifiably ‘defending bishop’ comes to us only via Alpert’s historiographical text, even within this text the message is made most clear through the liturgy. The liturgical use of the sword and the liturgical metaphors used around it, denote that the liturgy was the most demonstrative place where such discourse could be expressed, and where all the elements could come together, and could reinforce each other in words, behaviour, objects, clothes, and music. With all the senses activated there was no better place to con‐ vey desired episcopal identity – and thereby episcopal leadership and shared diocesan policy – than in, as well as through, the liturgy.
Conclusion Gerard of Cambrai’s case showed how bishops could methodologically engage with their predecessors’ rich and mixed identities in order to obtain heightened authority, but also how bishops could put these engagements into liturgical settings in order to be expressed more clearly. Bruno of Toul’s case augmented
89 Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. by Holtzmann, l. IV, c. 32, pp. 170–71. The sword could here be a simple symbol of martial identity, but also of his service to the emperor. His act of recommending his sword to Mary could then also reinforce Grosse’s analysis that Ansfrid sought to reject too much imperial service and wished to focus on the Church itself. Crucially, also this message would then be expressed via the liturgy.
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this understanding by demonstrating how bishops could deliberately play with the temporal, spatial, and other settings of episcopal liturgies (concerning saintly pre‐ decessors, or other themes), and how they could thereby bring political meaning into the liturgical acts, while simultaneously building liturgical structures of mean‐ ing around their own wider contemporary politics. Ansfrid of Utrecht, finally, suggested how these methods not only worked through saintly predecessors, but how the expression through liturgies of mere personal identity politics could equally aid episcopal self-representation in view of stark contextual debates. In all three of these examples bishops communicated essentially – though metaphorically – about themselves. Not just about the normative requirements of their office, but also about their more contingent and structural mix of different identities and tasks. No method was better to structure and communicate such a desired reality or self-image than liturgy. In that sense, the method itself, the holding of the liturgy, within a particular political context, was a constitutive act of leadership – perhaps more effective in achieving leadership than the normative ideologies of episcopal authority these liturgies were meant to express. Indeed, the discussed bishops recognized opportunities to employ suitable religious figures (and their bodies) as mascots for their local policies, and they used liturgical practices about these metaphorical figures to structurally reshape time and space around these ideas so as to express them more clearly. On the other hand, in this method, symbol and the symbolized reality entered into a complex relationship in which it becomes unclear to discern whether the bishop employed politics to advance religious convictions, or the other way around. I believe such complex‐ ity was indeed intended that way because it reinforced both aspects, and it thereby makes the number of ‘bodies’ of the bishop purposely ‘ambiguous’ – though still cohesive. These three brief cases suggest that eleventh-century Lotharingian bishops were clearly experimenting with the liturgical format – or at least the sources for this period attest this more willingly. All within the framework of the codified, bishops were adding or supplementing elements, innovating procedures, or hook‐ ing them into the broader context. Such episcopal creativity will not have been without broader consequence and might in turn have inspired the flourishing of liturgical genres, or, conversely, might have elicited increasing codification of standard behaviour (or indeed both of these dynamics combined). In any case, such examples of experimenting – and further needed studies on how normal or exceptional these were – attest how liturgy in this period was more than a segregated spiritual activity: at the hand of the bishops, and those who imitated them, Politics and Liturgy malleably merged more into one another, however slightly, so as one could call them almost pol-liturgy. Given the bishops’ increased societal position in this period and their methodological engagement of liturgy for their authority, the execution of the liturgy therefore became ever more an arena of contention. This in turn might have reinforced the – sometimes seemingly
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merely ecclesiastical – concerns that so impacted the later eleventh and early twelfth century. Liturgy provided bishops with a powerful method to bind their many different bodies together around a shared enacted reality. This method of leadership was theirs, if they could keep it.
ANDREw j. M. IRVING
Lector, si adesses! Liturgy and Strategies of History Writing in Medieval Southern Italy
Introduction The appearance of liturgical descriptions or allusions to liturgical celebrations and texts in medieval accounts of the past prompts a number of questions of interpretation for the contemporary reader. In a certain fundamental sense, as Gerd Althoff has argued, in order to function as acts of public communication, medieval rituals ‘had to be unambiguous and easily understandable’.1 At the same time the ‘rules of play’ of medieval political rituals were marked by a lively indeter‐ minacy, inasmuch as they were open to variation, and were adapted according to circumstances.2 One might equally underline variability in ritual participants’ understandings of the significance of the ritual, whether it be occasional (such as a coronation, or the translation of relics) or routine (such the mass, or the singing of the divine office). The anthropologist Roger Keesing has proposed a number of related theses to describe this phenomenon.3 First, symbolic systems are structured, and participants require varying degrees of knowledge, experience, and imagination in order to participate in them; second, the distribution of such knowledge (‘who knows what’) varies according to the political structure of the community in which the ritual takes place; and third, because the perceived meaning of a ritual depends on what individual participants know, the same ritual may simultaneously evoke diverse meanings. The fact that, unlike the varied sources of the anthropologist or ethnographer, the accounts of medieval ritual activity available to the historian are mediated largely by texts imposes additional complexity. We are bound to discern and
1 Gerd Althoff, ‘The Variability of Rituals in the Middle Ages’, in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, ed. by Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick J. Geary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 71–87 (p. 86). 2 Gerd Althoff, Rules and Rituals in Medieval Power Games: A German Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2019), p. 10; Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick J. Geary, ‘Introduction’, in Medieval Concepts of the Past, pp. 1–17 (p. 11). 3 Roger M. Keesing, ‘On Not Understanding Symbols: Toward an Anthropology of Incomprehension’, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2 (2012), 406–30 (pp. 406–07). Andrew J. M. Irving • Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
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interpret variability in ritual performances and in understandings of them only as they are recorded, embellished, or invented in texts – that is through the attimes-obfuscating curtain of linguistic and literary convention, implied audience, authorial intent, textual transmission, and writerly innovation.4 The ‘writtenness’ of liturgical accounts in medieval historical writing need not, however, be perceived as ‘imprisoning’.5 Careful attention to the very artifice of the writer’s construction of the past can afford precious insight into conceptions and consciousness of history, and thereby to what Hans-Werner Goetz has called Vorstellungsgeschichte.6 Further, by means of analysis of the rhetorical formation, presuppositions, and strategies of medieval historical writers, or of the narrative arc that can be observed even in the desultory asyndeton of annalistic writing, the historical text reveals itself to be less a set of prison bars through which we are constrained to peer desperately at elusive rituals and their users, than a textual artefact worthy of attention in itself, providing evidence, albeit imperfect, of its maker’s and readers’ conceptions of the past and its rituals, and their relation to each other and to the present.7 The Baltic historian Leonid Arbusow, made an early, and so far as I can ascertain unprecedented (and, until recently, largely unfollowed) attempt to set liturgical allusions at the centre of an analysis of the ‘literary character of the authors’ in his brief monograph on the historiography of Otto of Freising and Henry of Latvia, published posthumously in 1951.8 Noting the by-then obligatory
4 The hermeneutical problems presented by the subjective accounts of ritual in historical sources have been most forcefully argued by Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), esp. pp. 51–87. See also Philippe Buc, ‘Text and Ritual in Ninth-Century Political Culture: Rome, 864’, in Medieval Concepts of the Past, pp. 123–38. 5 Althoff, Fried, and Geary, ‘Introduction’, p. 12: ‘The medievalist is imprisoned in texts, and must not forget that attempts to read rituals as texts amounts to reading texts as rituals’. 6 Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘“Vorstellungsgeschichte”: menschliche Vorstellungen und Meinungen als Dimension der Vergangenheit. Bemerkungen zu einem jüngeren Arbeitsfeld der Geschichtswissenschaft als Beitrag zu einer Methodik der Quellenauswertung (1982)’, in HansWerner Goetz, Vorstellungsgeschichte: Gesammelte Schriften zu Wahrnehmungen, Deutungen und Vortstellungen im Mittelalter, ed. by Anna Aurast, Simon Elling, Bele Freudenberg, Anja Lutz, and Steffen Patzold (Bochum: Winkler, 2007). See also: Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Historical Writing, Historical Thinking and Historical Consciousness in the Middle Ages’, Revista Diálogos Mediterrânicos, 2 (2012), 110–28; Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Past as Text. The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 7 Matthew Kempshall, Rhetoric and the Writing of History, 400–1300 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011); Sarah Foot, ‘Finding the Meaning of Form: Narrative in Annals and Chronicles’, in Writing Medieval History, ed. by Nancy Partner (London: Hodder, 2005), pp. 99–108. 8 Leonid Arbusow, Liturgie und Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelalter (Bonn: Röhrscheid Verlag, 1951), p. 1. For recent investigations of the relationship between medieval historiography and liturgy, see: Margot E. Fassler, ‘The Liturgical Framework of Time and the Representation of History’, in Representing History, 900–1300: Art, Music, History, ed. by Robert A. Maxwell (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), pp. 83–123; Susan Boynton, ‘Writing Liturgy with History’, in Representing History, 900–1300, pp. 187–200; and Medieval Cantors and Their Craft: Music,
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practice of recording the biblical and classical allusions in medieval historical writing, Arbusow describes the occurrence to him in 1927 that liturgical allusions should be similarly detected and analysed as an Egg of Columbus discovery. Not only was the influence of liturgy on medieval writers and readers in general, and clerical authors and audiences in particular, undoubted, and could therefore be expected to leave stylistic and linguistic traces in the histories and chronicles they wrote and read, but also attention to the deployment of liturgical descriptions could be an effective means, Arbusow argued, to track sustained themes and motifs deriving from the liturgical influence on historians’ ways of thinking.9 In the present chapter, I will attempt to analyze some examples of liturgical descriptions and allusions in four historical works written in Southern Italy between the late-eleventh and mid-twelfth centuries: 1 the Chronica monasterii casinensis, commissioned by Abbot Oderisius I from the Cassinese monk, scribe, and librarian, Leo Marsicanus; the Chronicle was begun in the last years of the eleventh century, and continued through to the year 1138 by his successors as librarian, Guido, and Petrus Diaconus;10 2 Amatus of Montecassino’s Ystoire di li Normant; commissioned by Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino from the Cassinese monk (and former bishop) Amatus; written around 1080, the History survives only in a fourteenthcentury French translation;11
Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, ed. by Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, Andrew B. Kraebel, and Margot E. Fassler, Writing History in the Middle Ages, 3 (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2017). 9 Arbusow, Liturgie, p. 3. 10 The edition cited here is: Die Chronik von Montecassino, ed. by Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH SS, 34 (Hanover: Hahn, 1980); cited hereafter as Chron. mon. cas. (with page references to the edition in parentheses). On the authorship of the work see: Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Studien zur Chronik von Montecassino’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 29 (1973), 59–162; and Anna Maria Fagnoni, ‘Storia di un testo. La Cronaca di Montecassino’, Studi Medievali, ser. III, 25 (1984), 813–32. Leo Marsicanus is considered the author of Chron. mon. cas. 1.1–3.33. Guido was responsible for 3.34–4.95. Petrus Diaconus revized Guido’s text somewhat, relocated Leo’s description of the monastery of San Benedetto in Salerno which originally followed 3.33, to after 3.13, suppressed mention of his predecessor Guido’s authorship, and continued the text from 4.96 to 4.130. Exceptionally, Chron. mon. cas. 4.11, which treats the First Crusade up until the arrival of Christian forces in Antioch and draws closely on other early crusade accounts, seems to derive from neither Guido, nor Petrus Diaconus. Hoffmann argued convincingly that the chapter is a remnant of Leo’s otherwise lost work, Ystoria peregrinorum. 11 The work is preserved in a manuscript that presents a collection of French translations of historical works: Paris, BnF, MS français 688, fols 125v–199r. The edition cited here is: Amatus of Montecassino, Ystoire de li Normant: Édition du manuscrit BnF fr. 688, ed. by Michèle Guéret-Laferté, Les classiques français du Moyen Âge, 166 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011), hereafter cited as Ystoire de li Normant (with page references to this edition in parentheses). Translations provided are (unless noted) from Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, trans. by Prescott N. Dunbar, rev. and introd. by Graham A. Loud (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004) (hereafter referred to as History, with page references) which translates De Bartholomaeis’s edition: Storia de’ Normanni di Amato di Montecassino, ed. by Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 76 (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1935) (referred to hereafter as FSI, with page references). A microfilm
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3 Abbot Alexander of Telese’s libellus, known as the Ystoria Rogerii regis, proba‐ bly composed in late 1136 or early 1137;12 4 the Chronicon beneventanum of Falco of Benevento, a lay notary, and, from 1133, judge of the papal city of Benevento .13 All four of the texts were cited by Ernst Kantorowicz in a brief and ‘tentative’ approach to the subject of the ‘political liturgy of South Italy in Norman times’ in his Laudes Regiae (1946).14 As befitted his monograph’s subject, Kantorowicz was primarily interested in the evidence of ruler acclamations and of the anointing of princes (of Capua, Salerno, and Benevento) and kings, both before the Norman period, and during it. More recently, Richard Gyug has highlighted for the first time the prominence of liturgical accounts in the region’s historical writing, providing a survey of examples from the Chronicle of Montecassino to Hugo Falcan‐ dus’s History of the Tyrants of Sicily and Cardinal Boso’s Life of Alexander III.15
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of the manuscript has been digitized and is available on Gallica: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b9059220x [accessed 1 February 2021]. For the date of the text, see Loud’s introduction pp. 19–20. For the dating of translation and of the manuscript, see: Marianne Gasperoni and Sabina Maffei, ‘Considerazioni sul manoscritto F. Fr. 688 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Parigi: L’Ystoire romane e l’Ystoire de li longobart di Paolo Diacono’, Franconia, 30 (1996), 53–80; and especially Jakub Kujawiński, ‘Alla ricerca del contesto del volgarizzamento della Historia normannorum di Amato di Montecassino: il manoscritto francese 688 della Bibliothèque nationale de France’, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 112 (2010), 91–135. The edition used is: Alexandri Telesini abbatis Ystoria Rogerii regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie, ed. by Ludovica De Nava, Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 112 (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano, 1991), hereafter cited as Ystoria Rogerii (with page references in parentheses); translations are drawn from Graham A. Loud, Roger II and the Creation of the Kingdom of Sicily, Manchester Medieval Sources Series (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 63–129 (hereafter cited as Roger II, with page references). The edition used is Falco Beneventanus, Chronicon beneventanum. Città e feudi nell’Italia dei Normanni, ed. and trans. by Edoardo D’Angelo, Per Verba. Testi mediolatini con traduzione, 9 (Florence: SISMEL – Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1998), hereafter referred to as Chron. ben. (with page references in parentheses); the English translation cited is that of Roger II, pp. 130–249 (hereafter cited as Roger II, with page references). A detailed philological study of the Chronicle is provided in Edoardo D’Angelo, ‘Studi sulla tradizione del testo di Falcone Beneventano’, Filologia Mediolatina, 1 (1994), 129–81. External evidence allows for the reconstruction of Falco’s acephalous text as having originally covered the years 1101 and perhaps 1100, and as having concluded with an account of the meeting between Lucius II and Roger II at Ceprano, in June 1144. The surviving text, however, which is preserved only in early modern manuscript copies and an important editio princeps (1626), is acephelous, beginning in medias res in January 1102. It is also incomplete, breaking off mid-sentence in the description of Innocent II’s response to Roger II’s introduction of new coinage in 1140. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Medieval Ruler Worship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), pp. 157–66 (p. 161 n. 21). Richard Gyug, ‘Reading for Ritual: Liturgy and Ritual in Southern Italian Chronicles’, in From Learning to Love: Schools, Law, and Pastoral Care in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of Joseph W. Goering, ed. by Tristan Sharp, Papers in Mediaeval Studies, 29 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2017), pp. 555–70; see also Richard F. Gyug, ‘Du rite bénéventain à l’usage de Bénévent’, in La cathédrale de Bénévent, ed. by Thomas F. Kelly, Esthétiques et rituels des cathédrales d’Europe, 1 (Gent and Amsterdam: Ludion, 1999), pp. 69–97 (pp. 79–89). I am indebted to the author for first arousing my interest in Falco, and for his unstinting encouragement. See also:
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Like Arbusow, Gyug focuses here less on the political implications of the liturgies described, than on the writers themselves and on their texts. While the prevalence of the liturgy may not be surprising in monastic histories, secular historians too, he argues, employ a ‘liturgical framework’ in order to ‘emphasize critical moments and to portray the relationship between political rulers and ecclesiastical institu‐ tions’.16 This chapter aims to examine more closely the deployment of liturgical descriptions and allusions in medieval historiography of eleventh- and twelfthcentury Southern Italy within the broader framework of the themes in the works considered. The selection of authors, time, and region is limited, and only a small number of examples can be treated from each text, but the range of the corpus is varied both in terms of the authors’ status, including works by monastic and lay historians, and in genre, including both ‘histories’, written with a clearer purpose and unifying subject matter (Amatus, Ystoire di li Normant; Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii regis), and ‘chronicles’ in which the year-by-year or abbot-by-abbot chronology exercises a greater role in the organization of material (Chronica monasterii casinensis; Chronicon Beneventanum). The primary purpose is not, how‐ ever, strict comparison of the authors’ liturgical descriptions: parallel accounts of a single ritual occasion in more than one of the authors are disappointingly rare.17 Although, as we shall see, an historians’ silence regarding a known ritual event may not be without significance, the richest ritual descriptions tend in these sources to be of events, customs, objects and sites of singular import to the author because of local or institutional interests, or because of particular themes developed in his narrative. The surprisingly different ways in which liturgical language and accounts are artfully employed to accentuate, or develop these motifs is the subject of our investigation.
Chronica monasterii casinensis Originally commissioned by Abbot Oderisius as an account of the gesta of his illustrious predecessor Desiderius (1058–1087), later expanded at Oderisius’s command to include the ‘times and deeds’ (tempora seu gesta) of all of the abbots of Montecassino from St Benedict until Desiderius, and successively continued by Guido and Petrus Diaconus, the Chronicle of Montecassino is unsurprisingly Andrew J. M. Irving, ‘Processions at the Cross-Roads: Processions in Twelfth-Century Benevento and in the Chronicle of Falco Beneventanus’, in Prozessionen und ihre Gesänge in der mittelalterlichen Stadt: Gestalt – Hermeneutik – Repräsentation, ed. by Harald Buchinger, David Hiley, Sabine Reichert, Forum Mittelalter Studien, 13 (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2017), pp. 45–66. 16 Gyug, ‘Reading for Ritual’, p. 570. 17 An exception is the description of the adventus of Richard of Aversa at Montecassino in 1058, recorded briefly by Leo Marsicanus (Chron. mon. cas., 3. 15, p. 379), and far more elaborately in Amatus History of the Normans (Ystoire de li Normant, 4. 13, p. 191); the accounts are compared by Gyug, ‘Reading for Ritual’, p. 560.
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replete with liturgical references.18 The allusions include, for example, specific and concrete attribution of the authorship of a popular hymn for St Benedict to a Cassinese monk and priest named Cyprianus in the mid-eighth century. They explain the origin of certain penitential processions at the Abbey intended to divert God’s wrath to a severe storm in the late eleventh century, when a certain Manno, who was serving as weekly liturgical officiant (hebdomedarius) was struck dead by lightening while the monks were singing the office.19 Petrus Diaconus provides an historically and liturgically valuable account of both the aborted coronation of Henry V and arrest of Paschal II on 12 February 1111, and, more briefly, of Henry’s coronation on 13 April of the same year.20 The latter account includes the detail not found elsewhere, that after the fraction Paschal II handed a piece of the host to the emperor with the words: ‘Just as this part is divided from the life-giving Body, so may he be divided from the kingdom of Christ and God, who should attempt to break this agreement’.21 The ominous note of division inherent in Paschal’s use of the Eucharist as a medium of oath-swearing (Beschwörungsmittel), is immediately picked up by the notoriously partial author. He rounds off his account with the dark sentence: ‘Therefore from this point on, the scandals of dissension and schism began to arize in the Roman church’.22
18 See dedicatory epistle of Leo, Chron. mon. cas., Prologus (pp. 3–10, at pp. 3–5). 19 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 17 (p. 33): the hymn cited is Christe sanctorum decus atque virtus. See Giampaolo Mele, ‘“Ymnum Sancti Benedicti composuit”: Su Cipriano di Montecassino e l’inno “Christe sanctorum decus atque virtus”’, Rivista internazionale di musica sacra, 37 (2016), 151–89. For the hymn, see: Ulysse Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum: Catalogue des chants, hymns, proses, séquences, tropes en usage dans l’Église latine depuis les origins jusqu’à nos jours (Brussels: s. n., 1920– 1921), I, p. 179 (nos 3006/3007); Dieter Schaller, Ewald Könsgen, and John Tagliabue, Initia carminum latinorum saeculo undecimo antiquorum. Bibliographisches Repertorium für die lateinische Dichtung der Antike und des früheren Mittelalters (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), p. 107 (no. 2246). The hymn, originally dedicated to St Benedict, but later used (and adapted) for other feasts, is edited in: Hymnarius Moissiacensis. Hymnar der Abtei Moissac im 10. Jahrhundert, ed. by Guido Maria Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, 2 (New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1961 [1888]), pp. 40–41 (no. 31); and Hymnarius Severinianus. Hymnar der Abtei S. Severin in Neapel, ed. by Guido Maria Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, 14a (New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1961), pp. 63–65 (no. 53). On the penitential procession see: Chron. mon. cas., 3. 20 (p. 386): the incident occurred on 18 March 1063. 20 Chron. mon. cas., 4. 37–38 (pp. 503–04; 12 February), 4.40 (pp. 506–08, at p. 508; 13 April). 21 Chron. mon. cas., 4. 40 (p. 509): ‘Sicut pars ista vivifici corporis divisa est, ita divisus sit a regno Christi et Dei, quicumque pactum istud dirumpere temptaverit’; see Mary Stroll, Symbols as Power: The Papacy Following the Investiture Contest, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 24 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), p. 63. 22 Chron. mon. cas., 4. 40 (p. 509): ‘Abhinc igitur in Romana ecclesia scandala dissensionum et scismatum oriri ceperunt’. Regarding the use of the Eucharist as Beschwörungsmittel, see Peter Browe, Die Eucharistie im Mittelalter: Liturgiehistorische Forschungen in kulturwissenschaftlicher Absicht, introd. by Hubertus Lutterbach and Thomas Flammer, 2nd edn, Vergessene Theologen, 1 (Berlin: LIT, 2007), p. 239. The liturgical resonances between peace and the ritual fraction of the host in the mass would have been familiar to any medieval reader of the Chronicle. With respect to the papal liturgy, Lotario dei Conti di Segni (later Innocent III), describing the particularities of the rite of fraction and communion for the Roman pontiff in his De sacro altaris mysterio libri sex (1195/97), noted
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Other references draw on the authors’ and their readers’ monastic familiarity with liturgical texts. Leo provides, for example, a charming origin story of the dedication to the Virgin of the monastery of Santa Maria dell’Albaneta. Sometime in the tenth century a certain hermit, who had withdrawn to the Masseria Albaneta located in the immediate vicinity of the Abbey, determined to build an oratory in an abandoned and ruined cistern. While, Leo tells us, the servant of God was wondering to whom the church should be dedicated, a ‘young school‐ boy’ (puerulus scolaris), presumably from the Abbey, happened to pass by. The hermit asked the child to sing the first chant that came into his mind. In response, the boy sang ‘with an exceedingly sweet melody’ Veni electa mea, a night-office responsory for the Virgin that certainly would have been well-known to the Chronicle’s readers, of whatever age.23 Liturgical expressions naturally and yet tellingly find their way into a monastic historian’s record of speech. Guido’s account of Abbot Desiderius’s anguished address to his brethren when ordered by Henry IV to celebrate Easter with him at Albano in 1082 provides a case in point. The command provoked a crisis in loyalty with apparently no options that would preserve the Abbey from harm, and Desiderius opens with the words ‘Angustie michi sunt undique’ (‘I am straightened on every side’).24 The abbot’s incipit is a direct quotation of the biblical Susanna’s harrowing reply to her molesters in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 13. 22: ‘Angustiae mihi undique’). In the aural memory of the monks, however, it that after dividing the host in three, and after the kiss of peace, the pope ascended to the throne. There he further divided the ‘partem maiorem’ presented to him by the deacon on the paten. He consumed one particle (particula), placed another in the chalice held by the subdeacon, and, having himself received the wine through a liturgical straw, gave another particle to the attendant deacon. See Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio libri VI, 6. 9, PL, 217 (Paris: Migne, 1855), cols 773–915 (col. 911B); Bernard Capelle, ‘Le rite de la fraction dans la messe romaine’, Revue bénédictine, 53 (1941), 5–40 (p. 36). The fact that the pope’s communion took place at the throne raises the question of whether the emperor ascended to the throne to receive communion in 1111. According to the coronation ordo known as ‘Ordo C’ (or ‘Cencius II’), probably dating to the second half of the twelfth century, at the peace the emperor and empress were to ‘ascend’ to receive communion from the pontiff: ‘ascendit ad communicandum […] et imperatrix cum eo, Et accepta communione iterum redeunt ad loca sua’; Die Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin, ed. by Reinhard Elze, MGH Fontes iuris Germanici antiqui in usum scholarum, 9 (Hanover: Hahn, 1960), p. 46 (XIV. 48). Though it is not clear whether this ascent is to the altar or to the throne, the early-thirteenth-century ordo of the Roman Curia, stipulates that the emperor receives communion from the pontiff at the throne ‘cum osculo pacis’; Die Ordines, p. 83 (XVIII. 42). 23 Chron. mon. cas., 2. 30 (p. 221). For the responsory, see: René Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii, Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta. Series maior, Fontes, 7–12 (Rome: Herder, 1963–1979), IV, p. 448 (no. 7826). For the monastery of S. Maria dell’Albaneta, see Herbert Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1986), II, pp. 714–16. The incident is purported by the chronicler to have occurred not long before the arrival of the monk Lucius at S. Maria dell’Albaneta in the early eleventh century (see Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, I, p. 12, n. 2). 24 Chron. mon. cas., 3. 50 (p. 431, l. 33); on the meeting see: H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Age of Abbot Desiderius: Montecassino, the Papacy, and the Normans in the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 156–58.
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is also an allusion to the night office responsory with the same incipit that serves subtly to indicate to the attentive monastic reader what action the abbot is about to take, for the responsory continues ‘it is better for me to fall into the hands of men, than to abandon the Law of my God’ (‘melius est mihi incidere in manus hominum, quam derelinquere legem dei mei’).25 The abbot’s touch-and-go decision to risk his physical safety by going to meet the emperor at Albano is thus cleverly clothed by the writer with the righteous innocence of Susanna. At the same time, the forward drive of narrative is calibrated to the sacred logic of a liturgical text sung by the monks in the divine office. The liturgical references employed by the Cassinese historians also serve to undergird and to express a central motif in the Chronicle: destruction and reconstruction. Leo Marsicanus’s decision, expressed in his dedicatory epistle, to organize his material into three parts according to the three abbots – Petronax (718?–749/750), Aligernus (948–985), and Desiderius (1058–1087) – who, by his account, were the most zealous for the restauratio of the abbey, instils at the very outset of the Chronicle an interpretation of Desiderius’s radical dismantling of almost the entire monastic complex including the sacred basilica of St Benedict, and of his building of newer, grander buildings during Leo’s own lifetime, as an act of restoration. It is as though Desiderius, like his two illustrious forebears, were rebuilding the abbey after a long period of abandonment and ruin.26 The device also fuses the history of the abbey with the story of the construction, acquisition, and safeguarding (and destruction, theft, and loss) of liturgical sites and liturgical treasure. The theme runs from the first chapter of the work which recounts the revelation to Benedict that the monastery he had founded would be destroyed, but another both mightier and larger would come to be built on the same site, to the penultimate chapter, in which Petrus Diaconus relays the dire vision of a certain a monk named Albert, who saw fire-brandishing demons leading away Count Crescentius of Marsi, from whose nostrils dangled two large and fuming silver thuribles he had wrongfully taken in pledge, and had refused to return to the abbey.27 25 Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium officii, IV, p. 24 (no. 6099): ‘I am in straights on every side, it is better for me to fall into the hands of men than to abandon the law of my God’. The responsory was appointed as part of the De prophetis series, for use during the summertime night-office readings from the prophets. The verb ‘sunt’, absent from the Vulgate text, and omitted in some witnesses of the responsory, appears in several liturgical sources, including in the Beneventan Zone. See, for example, Benevento, Biblioteca Capitolare, 20 (saec. XII), fol. 117v. Guido’s choice of the verb for Desiderius’s dilemma ‘si enim ad imperatorem non iero […] si autem iero […]’ (my emphasis) echoes that in the biblical text and in the responsory’s versicle: ‘Si enim hoc egero […] si autem non egero […]’. 26 Chron. mon. cas., Prologus (p. 8): ‘In tres porro decisiones quasi pro legentium levamine statui libellum istum dividere, quoniam tribus precipue cenobii huius abbatibus concessum est post beatum Benedictum in huius loci restauratione supra ceteros studuisse’. 27 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 1 (p. 18) and 4. 129 (pp. 605–06). On the first episode Hoffmann notes that Leo is here drawing on (and sharpening in Montecassino’s favour) the account of the same vision in Odo of Glanfeuil’s Vita sancti Mauri, praef. 4 (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, 5773), edited in: Johannes Bollandus, Acta Sanctorum, Ianuarii II, pp. 321–32 (p. 321).
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Almost precisely halfway through the first book of the Chronicle, Leo Marsi‐ canus considers it ‘not superfluous’ (otiosum) to provide what is one of the longest and most detailed ritual descriptions of the entire work.28 In the mid-ninth century, Leo tells us, it had been the custom that early in the morning of Easter Tuesday all of the monks of the monastery at the summit of Montecassino and those of the monastery of San Salvatore in the township of San Germano at the foot of the mountain, would robe in sacred vestments, and, bearing golden crosses, thuribles, lights, gospel books, and relics, would simultaneously descend and ascend to meet at the little church of San Pietro in the settlement in the ruins of Casinum, known as the ‘civitas’ or ‘castellum Sancti Petri’.29 After each group sang to the other the responsory ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini’, the monks from San Salvatore would greet and kiss the abbot and seniores from the monastery above, and together they would proceed to sing the mass ‘cum cantu promiscuo’, that is, in both Greek and Latin.30 After the Gospel, while a priest and assistants would continue the mass at the church of San Pietro, the rest of the joint assembly would process with psalms and litanies to San Salvatore where they sang the mass of the day, after which they enjoyed a festive luncheon. Following the meal, the community from above would take their leave of the abbot and each of the brothers of San Salvatore, and, return with their blessing to the sum‐ mit. The ritual appears to have had a venerable history: the early ninth-century Letter to Charlemagne attributed to Theodemar of Montecassino (777/778–796) includes Easter Tuesday among the major feasts for the Cassinese community ‘when there is a great celebration’ (quando nobis grandis festivitas est).31 But by the time of Leo’s writing at the turn of twelfth century the procession had been out of use for over two hundred years. We might ask then what is the purpose of the meticulously detailed description of a long defunct ritual in the Chronicle? For a start, we might note where the description is inserted in the chronicler’s narrative. Irrespective of the antiquity of the ritual, which, as we have noted, is at least as old as the late eighth or early ninth century at least in its general outline, it is placed by Leo in chronological sequence in the mid-ninth century, immediately before the beginning of an abbacy of profound significance for the 28 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 32 (pp. 86–89). 29 For the monastery of San Salvatore, see Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, II, p. 684. For the Castellum San Petri, see Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, I, p. 172; Faustino Avagliano, ‘Monumenti del culto a San Pietro in Montecassino’, Benedictina, 14 (1967), 57–76 (pp. 59–61). 30 For the use of Greek chant in Southern Italy, see Thomas F. Kelly, The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 203–18 (esp. pp. 204–05). Ildefonso Schuster proposed that the Greek elements of the liturgy derived not from local Southern Italian liturgical practice, but from ancient Roman practice, transported to the Abbey when the monastery was refounded at the initiative of Gregory II: Ildefonso Schuster, ‘A proposito d’una nota di topografia cassinese in un codice del secolo undecimo’, in Casinensia. Miscellanea di studi cassinesi pubblicati in occasione del XIV centenario della fondazione della badia di Montecassino (Montecassino: s. n., 1929), I, pp. 65–87 (pp. 85–87). 31 Theodemari epistula ad Karolum regem, ed. by Kassius Hallinger and Maria Wegener, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, 1 (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1963), pp. 137–75 (p. 164, l. 7).
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Cassinese community: that of Bertharius (856–883).32 In the chapters that imme‐ diately follow, Leo will unfold a story of increasingly frequent incursions of Arab mercenaries. Before this point, the author had described the attacks gradually drawing closer to the Terra Sancti Benedicti.33 After it, however, with increasing frequency and urgency, he recounts their encroachment within the region.34 His narrative culminates in his brief but dramatic account of the pillaging and burning the Abbey (4 September 883), the attempted arson and successful destruction and looting of the church of San Salvatore, the martyrdom of Abbot Bertharius before the altar of St Martin within the church of San Salvatore (22 October 883), and the flight of the monks to Teano.35 The dramatic poignancy of placing an extensively detailed account of an annual liturgy expressing unity and stability in the two communities, immediately before narrating the series of events that would lead to the destruction and abandonment of their respective monasteries, is only increased by the remark that the two communities used to sing the Te deum together in procession on their way to the celebration’s festive lunch in order ‘to give thanks to God for having pre‐ served them from their enemies, and having kept both buildings and monks free from harm’.36 The well-timed inclusion of the detailed description of the smooth execution of the annual processions, masses, and banquet, serves to underline, with dramatic irony, the shock of rupture, dislocation, and destruction to come. But there is more at work here. Leo’s rubrically detailed description is, in fact, a thinly edited excerpt from a surviving manuscript: Montecassino, Archivio dell’Abbazia, cod. Casin. 175, commissioned by Abbot John I (914–934), and produced probably between 919 and 920, not at Montecassino, but at Capua where the Cassinese community had established a monastery while it was in ex‐
32 The brief reference in the Epistula ad Karolum regem is further corroborated by the early description of the ritual that Mabillon described from a manuscript (now lost) that he found in the library of the Abbey of St Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg: Jean Mabillon, Vetera Analecta (Lutetiae Parisorum: Apud viduam Edmundi Martin et Johannem Boudot, 1685), IV, pp. 454–57 (pp. 456–57); edited as an important early variant in Ordo casinensis II dictus Ordo officii, ed. by Tommaso Leccisotti, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, 1, pp. 105–23. In his introduction to the edition Leccisotti (p. 109) considered this early version of the ordo a product of the abbacy of Theodemar (777/78–796), or of the early years of Gisulf (796–817). 33 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 21 (Capitulatio, p. 14: ‘Quo tempore Saraceni Siciliam ingressi sunt’), 27 (‘Qualiter Deus a Saracenis locum istum eripuit’), 28 (‘De discursione ac vastatione Saracenorum et generali ac maximo terremotu’). 34 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 35 (Capitulatio, p. 14: ‘De nequitiis Saracenorum, et qualiter vastatum et incensum sit monasterium sancti Vincentii’), 36 (‘De tertio adventu Ludovvici in Italiam et de bellis, que gessit cum Saracenis’), 40 (Capitulatio, p. 15: ‘De pacto Saracenorum cum nostris’), 43 (‘Qualiter Saraceni a Caietanis ad habitandum in Gariliano recepti sunt’). 35 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 44 (pp. 114–15): ‘Qualiter hoc monasterium a Saracenis incensum sit, et abbas Bertharius decollatus et monachi Teanum profecti’. 36 Chron. mon. cas., 1. 32 (p. 88): ‘et dicta sexta ibant in refectorium cantando “Te Deum laudamus” gratias utique agentes Deo, qui eos ab omnibus adversis eripuit et cenobium cum inhabitantibus incolume custodivit’.
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ile.37 The largest portion of the manuscript is comprised by a copy of the Rule with a version of Hildemar of Corbie’s commentary.38 The collection of historical texts known as the Chronica sancti Benedicti casinensis appears originally to have concluded the codex.39 Sandwiched between the two are a brief collection of monastic texts including the Letter to Charlemagne, and a series of brief ordines, in‐ cluding the Easter Tuesday ritual almost exactly as it appears in Leo’s Chronicle.40 Walter Pohl has recently described the manuscript as a kind of ‘historiographi‐ cal workshop’ in which the exiled Cassinese community in Capua sought to reori‐ ent itself to its former glory on the basis of its older texts.41 It bears underlining, however, that the liturgical source for Leo’s account of the Easter Tuesday liturgy itself describes a practice that at the time of copying in Capua was both imprac‐ ticable and imaginatively reconstructed. Both the abbey and San Salvatore had been more or less abandoned for nearly forty years by the time the manuscript was copied. Further, the ordo in cod. Casin. 175 specifies that the Gospel book
37 The manuscript is described in detail in Giulia Orofino, I codici decorati dell’Archivio di Montecassino (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1994), I, pp. 52–57 (and plates XX–XXIII, figs 5–7); see also the description by Valentino Pace, ‘53. S. Benedetto, Regola; Ps. Paolo Diacono, Commento alla Regola di s. Benedetto; Chronica sancti Benedicti; Raccolta di testi della tradizione monastica’, in I Fiori e’ Frutti santi: S. Benedetto, la Regola, la santità nelle testimonianze dei manoscritti cassinesi, ed. by Mariano Dell’Omo (Milan: Centro Tibaldi, 1998), pp. 175–78. The dedication image (cod. Casin. 175, p. 2) depicts Abbot John with square nimbus, indicating its production during his lifetime, presenting his book to an enthroned St Benedict attended by an angel. 38 Montecassino, Archivio dell’Abbazia, cod. Casin. 175, pp. 3–506; edited (from this manuscript) in: ‘Ex codice CLXXV. Commentarium Pauli Warnefridi diaconi casinensis in regulam s. p. n. Benedicti’ in Florilegium casinense 4 (1880), 12–173, bound with Bibliotheca casinensis, 4 (Hildesheim: Olms, 2004 [1880]). The commentary is attributed in the manuscript to ‘Paulus Diaconus et monachus S. Benedicti’ in a slightly later hand (p. 3 col. 1). For the version of Hildemar’s commentary attributed to Paul the Deacon, see Klaus Zelzer, ‘Überlegungen zu einer Gesamtedition des frühnachkarolingischen Kommentars zur Regula S. Benedicti aus der Tradition des Hildemar von Corbie’, Revue bénédictine, 91 (1981), 373–82; and the online project: http://hildemar.org, [accessed 1 February 2021]. 39 Archivio dell’Abbazia, cod. Casin. 175, pp. 534–62; edited in Chronica sancti Benedicti casinensis, ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH Scriptores rerum Langobardorum et Italicarum, 1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1878), pp. 467–89. The Chronica is followed by two originally blank folios, now filled with various additions of the thirteenth (fol. 563v) and tenth century (564r); this would appear to mark the original conclusion of the codex. Alessandro Pratesi argued that the final twenty-six pages, comprised of two quires of eight and five folios, were added shortly after the manuscript’s completion apparently at Abbot John’s initiative; see Alessandro Pratesi, ‘La “Chronica sancti Benedicti casinensis”’, in Montecassino: Dalla prima alla seconda distruzione. Momenti e aspetti di storia cassinese (secc. VII–X), ed. by Faustino Avagliano, Miscellanea Cassinese, 55 (Montecassino: Badia di Montecassino, 1987), pp. 331–45 (p. 342). 40 The Chronicle’s close adherence to the text of cod. Casin. 175 was noted by Leccisotti, Ordo casinensis II, p. 110. 41 Walter Pohl, Werkstätte der Erinnerung: Montecassino und die Gestaltung der langobardischen Vergangenheit, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreische Geschichtsforschung Ergänzungsband, 39 (Vienna: Oldebourg Verlag, 2001), pp. 77–107; Walter Pohl, ‘History in Fragments: Montecassino’s Politics of Memory’, Early Medieval Europe, 10 (2001), 343–74. Pohl’s treatment largely omits discussion of the liturgical texts in the manuscript.
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borne by the abbot in procession was the ‘codex that Bertharius wondrously made in honour of the Lord and of blessed Benedict’, a detail evidently added to the text of the ordo after the martyrdom of the abbot, and thus after the last performance of the ritual.42 Another addition even specifies that the abbot whom the brethren await in the atrium of San Salvatore is none other than Bertharius himself.43 While the ritual doubtless did use the sumptuous Gospel during Bertharius’s abbacy (856–883), by the time these rubrical additions were made and copied in cod. Casin. 175 the abbot had long been martyred, and the ritual and the sites of its performance abandoned. Leo the librarian’s liturgical source turns out to be less a purely archival copy of a series of instructions for liturgical performance, than itself an act of reconstruc‐ tion and preservation of what had already been lost: a history in liturgical form. Leo carefully edits out his source’s references to Bertharius however, since they did not accord with his neat chronological placement of the ritual as a kind of eirenic bookend before the beginning of Bertharius’s fateful abbacy. Both the copyist of the liturgical ordo, and the librarian-historian who used it nearly two hundred years later, employ rubrical description to address the trauma of destruc‐ tion: the former responding to past events, the latter setting up the narrative of dislocation to come. In this sense, the Easter Tuesday procession of the two communities down and up the slopes of the mountain might be understood as a striking early example of what Pierre Nora has called lieux de mémoire: a moment of history ‘torn away from the movement of history, then returned; no longer quite life, not yet death, like shells on the shore when the sea of living memory has receded’.44 No treatment of the liturgical description in the Chronicle could fail to address what is perhaps the intended climax of Leo’s tripartite division, the famous account of the construction and decoration of Desiderius’s new basilica at Mon‐ tecassino, and of its consecration by Pope Alexander II on 1 October 1071.45 Beyond the impressive list of invited guests, the specification of which prelate consecrated which altar, and the lists of relics and their placement, the actual dedication liturgy itself is barely described by Leo in the Chronicle. The ritual, with its complex series of gestures, processions, chant, readings, and prayers, was
42 Ordo casinensis II, p. 121, ll. 15–16: ‘Et domnus abbas illum ante pectus deferat codicem, quem Berthari mirifice domino beatoque construxit Benedicto’. Leo records Bertharius’ donation: Chron. mon. cas., 1. 33 (p. 89): ‘Codicem nanque evangeliorum auro et gemmis optimis adornavit’. 43 Ordo casinensis II, p. 121, ll. 6–7: ‘nec dubium quem Birthar abbatem’; Leccisotti noted the additions to the ordo (p. 109). Regarding the atrium of San Salvatore and the altar of St Michael, see Silvio Carella, Architecture religieuse haut-médiévale en Italie méridionale: Le diocèse de Bénévent, Bibliothèque de l’antiquité tardive, 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 78–81. 44 Pierre Nora, ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de mémoire’, Representations, 26 (1989), pp. 7– 24 (p. 12). 45 Chron. mon. cas. 3. 26–30 (pp. 393–402).
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for him and his contemporaries in itself unexceptional.46 What was worth noting was the magnificence of the building, the vast amassment of relics and their locations, and the ecclesiastical and political prominence of the occasion, qualities of abundance and unfathomable splendour that the near-overwhelming repetition of lists was better suited to express than was the narrative of specific moments in a ritual performance.47 It is after the account of the consecration, however, that an earlier written source is once again deployed in the Chronicle to express the meaning of a ritual occasion that, in this case, Leo had personally observed. To describe the waves of devout worshippers that flocked to Montecassino for the consecration, Leo lifts and centonizes nearly twenty verses from a poem that Paulinus of Nola (c. 354– 431) had written nearly seven hundred years earlier (Table 1).48 By appropriating, reordering, and editing at the end of the eleventh century this sainted SouthernItalian poet’s description of throngs of happy pilgrims travelling to the town of Nola for the feast of St Felix in the early fifth century, the chronicler redirects the route of both ancient and contemporary pilgrims of Campania (in place of Paulinus’ Lucania), Apulia, Calabria, and Lazio: from Nola to Montecassino. Leo sings (with Paulinus’s words) that Rome itself rejoices to become empty, sending ‘thousands’ not to Paulinus’s walls of ‘friendly Nola’, but to the ‘lofty walls of Montecassino’. It should not surprise us to read elsewhere in the Chronicle that a manuscript of Paulinus’s poems (of which two folios survive) was copied at precisely the time that Leo himself was working in the Cassinese scriptorium.49 In sum, whereas in his description of the Easter Tuesday processions Leo had
46 For a useful introduction to the liturgy of the dedication of churches, see Mette Birkedal Bruun and Louis I. Hamilton, ‘Rites for Dedicating Churches’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 177–204; see also Louis I. Hamilton, A Sacred City: Consecrating Churches and Reforming Society in EleventhCentury Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010). 47 Shortly before beginning his work on the Chronicle, Leo had authored a brief account of the dedication of the basilica, usually referred to as the Narratio de consecratione et dedicatione ecclesiae casinensis (incipit: Opere pretium michi videtur), preserved in the late-twelfth-century manuscript, Montecassino, Archivio dell’Abbazia, cod. Casin. 47, pp. 23–26; edited in Tommaso Leccisotti, ‘Appendice: Il racconto della dedicazione della basilica desideriana nel codice cassinese 47’, in Angelo Pantoni, Le vicende della basilica di Montecassino attraverso la documentazione archeologica, introd. and appendix by Tommaso Leccisotti, Miscellanea Cassinese, 36 (Montecassino: s. n., 1973), pp. 213–25. The Narratio provides, however, no further detail regarding the ritual itself. 48 Chron. mon. cas. 4. 31 (pp. 401–02). Paulinus of Nola, Carmen, 14, ll. 49–51, 55–57, 65–66, 68, 79–80 (Venit festa dies caelo), edited in Paulinus of Nola, I carmi, ed. by Andrea Ruggiero and Strenae Nolanae, 6–7 (Napoli: Libreria Editrice Redenzione, 1996), pp. 219–33. 49 The Chronicle’s list of books ordered to be made by Desiderius includes a copy of the ‘Versus paulini’ (Chron. mon. cas. 3. 63, p. 446). The entry was first identified with surviving leaves are preserved in Città del Vaticano, Bibliotecea Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 14437, fols 23–26 by Rino Avesani, ‘Nuovi testimonianze di scrittura beneventana in biblioteche romane II’, Studi medievali, ser. III, 8 (1967), 866–81 and pl. XII. Regarding the manuscript, see Francis Newton, The Scriptorium and Library of Monte Cassino, 1058–1105 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 259, 278, 389, and pl. 206.
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used an old manuscript describing a defunct liturgical custom to colour his historical narrative, here he employs a recently recopied ancient work of a revered local poet to interpret a ritual that he had himself witnessed, borrowing and redirecting the glory of local Christian antiquity, and simultaneously surpassing it.
The Histories: Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant ; Alexander of Telese, Ystoria Rogerii regis Though Amatus of Montecassino and Alexander of Telese shared the monastic vocation of Leo and his continuators, the subject matter of their histories lies for the most part beyond the monastery walls with the new political forces of the Mezzogiorno, the Normans, whom both authors view largely favourably. The stuff of their narratives are battles and truces, and the political rituals of investiture, and oath-making (and breaking). Even brief descriptions of liturgical rites, sites, and customs are relatively rare in comparison with the numbers found in the monastic Chronicle. What is striking in Amatus’s History is that liturgical references when they do appear are very often deployed in association with accounts of violence and cruelty. The only occasion on which a political leader’s pious custom of attending mass, decorating the church, fasting, and distributing food and alms to the poor on feast days, the only description of votive prayers and papal absolution of the dead, and the only mention of attending the night vigils for a liturgical feast, for example, appear in the account of the bloody assassination of Count Drogo. Robert Guiscard’s elder brother and the Count of Apulia and Calabria, Drogo was cut to pieces inside a church where he had gone during the night to attend vigils for the feast of St Lawrence.50 The only mention of the ceremonial enthronement and investiture of a bishop in the History appears in the account of Prince Pandulf IV of Capua’s installation of his illegitimate son Hildebrand as archbishop of Capua on Ascension Day.51 The legitimate bishop, Atenulf, who had been imprisoned by Pandulf, was, Amatus tells us, temporarily released for the occasion, in order that he might made to witness the liturgical ceremony, hand the usurper his ring and crozier and kiss his feet, before being returned to his cell. The most extensive listing of celebrations of the liturgical year in Amatus appears in a series of particularly gruesome accounts of the cruelty meted out by Prince Gisulf II of Salerno (1052–1077), whom the author unfavourably 50 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 3. 22 (pp. 322–23; FSI, pp. 135–38; History, pp. 93–94); the assassination took place on 10 August 1051 and is also recorded in the Annales beneventani, edited in Ottorino Bertolini, ‘Gli Annales beneventani’, Bulletino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano e Archivio Muratoriano, 42 (1923), 1–159 (p. 138). Leo IX’s prayers for the repose of Drogo during the mass for the feast of the Assumption (15 August 1051) and an account of the pontiff’s postmortem absolution of the count’s sins are described in Ystoire di li Normant 1. 20 (FSI, p. 134). 51 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 1. 37 (p. 264; FSI, p. 52; History, p. 59); the incident is only reported in Amatus.
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compares to Nero and Maximian. In Lent, Amatus tells us, Gisulf would ‘have [Amalfitan captives’] feet and hands cut off, and had their genitals cut off, and their eyes pulled out’, while he and four of his henchmen dined only on meat ‘in abundance’. The description of such fleshy butchery and carnal consumption during Lent stresses their irreligious nature, and carries with it a whiff of canni‐ balism.52 On the Feast of St Peter in Chains (1 August), which celebrates the apostle’s miraculous release from prison, Gisulf had the feet of twelve prisoners ‘severed from their bodies in his presence’.53 And when a group of Pisan sailors, miraculously saved by the intercession of St Matthew, came barefoot to venerate the apostle’s shrine at Salerno, dedicating a votive lamp and a precious cloth before his relics and ‘decorating the entire church’, Gisulf, who had promised them safe passage, seized their ship and held the wealthiest to ransom. He then rejoiced, Amatus writes, that ‘his treasury was full of ill-gotten gains’, a pointed and sacrilegious contrast, the reader is meant to understand, with the behaviour of the apostle who left his tax-collecting to follow Christ.54 Even the joyous occasion of the consecration and dedication of the new basilica of Montecassino, which Amatus almost certainly observed, serves in the History but as the stage for a duplicitous truce between Gisulf and Maurus, a prominent merchant of Amalfi and the donor of the bronze doors of the basilica of Montecassino, who himself became a monk at the abbey immediately after the dedication.55 According to Amatus’s account, on the occasion of the dedication, the Amalfitans complained to Pope Alexander II of their harassment by Gisulf and asked him to intervene. The pontiff then ordered Gisulf to promise to release without ransom any of Maurus’s six sons should they fall into his hands. No sooner had he returned to Salerno, however, than Gisulf, having captured one of 52 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 8. 2 (p. 480; FSI, p. 341; History, p. 188). 53 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 8. 4 (pp. 483–84; FSI, pp. 346–47; History, p. 190). 54 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 8. 4 (pp. 483–84; FSI, pp. 346–47; History, p. 190): ‘Et vit Gisolfe que son tresor estoit plein de richesce de malvaiz aquest. Fu molt alegre, secont lo monde […]’. Cf. Mt. 9. 9. 55 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 8. 3 (pp. 480–83; FSI, pp. 343–46; History, pp. 188–90). The date of Amatus’s becoming a monk at Montecassino is not known with certainty. He is recorded as a bishop and monk in Leo Marsicanus’ necrology: Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Der Kalendar des Leo Marsicanus’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 21 (1966), pp. 84–149 (p. 104): ‘1 Kal. Mar. Amatus (cap) ep. et mo.’. Amatus is generally identified with the Bishop of Paestum-Carpaccio: Hoffmann, ‘Der Kalendar’, p. 129, n. 16 and Graham Loud, ‘Introduction’, in The History of the Normans, pp. 1–38 (pp. 10–15). Amatus was certainly no longer bishop of this see in October 1071, for Leo Marsicanus records that ‘Maraldus episcopus pestanus’ attended the dedication: Leccisotti, ‘Il racconto della dedicazione’, p. 221. The bronze doors, which Desiderius had made in Constantinople after admiring the bronze doors of the Cathedral of Amalfi in 1065, were made at Maurus’s expense, and dedicated (for the old basilica) in 1066, a detail omitted in the Chronicle, but recorded on the dedication panels on the doors; see Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, I, pp. 155–63, with transcriptions and translations of the panels at pp. 160–61, and reproduced at figures 110–11. Maurus’s taking of the habit after the dedication ritual on 1 October 1071 is recorded in Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 8. 3: ‘Et puiz aprés ceste consecration, Maure fu fait moinne’ (pp. 482; FSI, p. 343, ll. 12–13; History, p. 189).
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Maurus’s sons, demanded ransom. Despite, Amatus suggests, the personal pleas of Empress Agnes, Gisulf refused to release him, but instead ordered a finger and a toe to be cut off each day, making his victim eat his own severed digits. He then had Maurus junior blinded in one eye, bathed in ice, and finally drowned in the sea. The narrative has been criticized for the inclusion of elements that have ‘all the appearance of a legend taken from the hagiography of an ancient martyr’.56 For our purposes however, it is precisely this construction that is of interest. Amatus’s staging of the papally mediated reconciliation in the context of a liturgical gathering of the contemporary Italian who’s who, a celebration of unity in the basilica of Benedict, in which the coming together of both pro- and anti-Amalfitan parties is deliberately underlined by the author, establishes and accentuates the blasphemous quality of Gisulf ’s behaviour. Those principally criticized by the author’s strategic deployment of liturgical sites, feasts, and celebrations are the Lombard nobility, in particular, the princes of Salerno and Capua.57 The underlying effect of the motif is the portrayal of the political situation under Lombard rule as something that respect for the holy would inherently demand to be rectified, and, as a consequence, to present those who bring an end to such sacrilege, as the bringers of not only political, but sacred order. This theme is sounded in the first words of the dedicatory letter of the History, addressed to Desiderius. Amatus opens with a quotation from the Book of Isaiah: ‘To my anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him, and to turn the backs of kings before his face’ (Isaiah 45. 1–2).58 As Graham Loud has observed, the author’s explicit reading of the Old Testament messianic prophecy as ‘fulfilled in these two princes’, Richard of Capua and Robert Guiscard, underlines the divine favour that Amatus wants to present from the outset as the guiding force behind the Norman conquest of Southern Italy. The fact that the selected scriptural passage is the single occasion in the Old Testament in which a non-Israelite is addressed as a messiah (christus), artfully preserves a sense of the foreignness of the new political forces in the Mezzogiorno, and, at the same time, characterizes the arrival of the Normans as redemptive. Moreover, for the monastic community, the biblical passage itself car‐ ried unmistakable overtones of the liturgical season of Advent with its attendant theologies of incarnational and eschatological hope for the coming Saviour. The
56 Michelangelo Schipa, ‘Storia del principato longobardo di Salerno’, in Ferdinand Hirsch and Michelangelo Schipa, La longobardia meridionale (570–1077): Il ducato di Benevento; il principato di Salerno, ed. by Nicola Acocella, Politica e Storia, 19 (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1968), pp. 87–278 (p. 226). 57 Graham Loud has posited that the source of Amatus’s resentment may have lain in a long-standing dispute he may have had with the Prince of Salerno, when Amatus was still a bishop; see Loud, ‘Introduction’, p. 14. 58 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, Dedica (p. 235; FSI, p. 3; History, p. 41): ‘“A lo criste mien Cyre” – c’est a lo roy mien Cyre […] A lo roi mien Cyre a loquel je ai prise la main droite a ce que devant la face soe soient subjecte la gent et li roy tornent l’espaule devant la soe face’ (my translation).
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Book of Isaiah was read in the monastic night office in December in immediate preparation for Christmas; and in the mass, the Isaian prophecy to Cyrus was read in the solemn celebration of Ember Saturday in December.59 In this sense, Amatus’s numerous accounts of adventus rituals, acclamations and laudes may be understood not only as the marks of a divinely ordained and prospered conquest, nor simply as evidence of shifts in rulership rituals and their inherent ideologies, but also in literary terms. They are the subtle means by which Amatus constructs an account of what amounts to a messianic Norman arrival. In 1050, Amatus relays, Prince Guaimar of Salerno ordered Count Drogo to release from captivity the Norman Richard Drengot, whereupon he brought him to Salerno to dress him in silk, and then took him to Aversa where he was made count ‘amidst the approbation and joy of the people’.60 In 1058, Richard, now Prince of Capua, was greeted ‘as if he were a king’ by ‘princely laudes’ at Montecassino.61 The abbey basilica was decorated ‘as if for Easter’, and the prince was seated in the abbot’s place in chapter, where the defence and oversight of the monastery were entrusted to him, and he in turn ‘granted peace to the church and promised to combat its enemies’.62 The ‘glorious duke’, Robert Guiscard, is described by Amatus as thin through Lenten fasting when he enters Bari in 1071 at the end of his victorious siege of the Byzantine stronghold, a victory which was to have momentous implications for Norman dominance in Apulia. The liturgical date Amatus gives for Robert’s entry into Bari, the Saturday before Palm Sunday, is surely not inconsequential.63 The association of Robert’s entry into the city with Christ’s triumphal entry into
59 See Ordo romanus XIIIA, 12, in Michel Andrieu, Les ‘Ordines romani’ du haut moyen âge, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 11, 23, 24, 28, 29 (Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1931–1961), II, pp. 479–88 (p. 485). The Ordo dates from the first half of the eighth century, by which point the differences between the monastic and the Roman cursus were relatively minor. This basic pattern of division of biblical readings was retained throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period; see Pierre Salmon, L’Office divin. Histoire de la formation du bréviaire, Lex orandi, 27 (Paris: Le Cerf, 1959), p. 138. Passages from Isaiah also regularly appear in the appointed first mass readings in Advent. The Cyrus prophecy (Is. 45. 1–8) quoted by Amatus was appointed as the fourth reading for the mass on Ember Saturday in December: see, e.g., Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6082 (missal, Montecassino, saec. XII med.), fol. 12v. 60 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 3. 12 (p. 317; FSI, pp. 126–27; History, p. 90): ‘et de la volenté et alegresce de lo pueple lo fist conte’. 61 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 4. 13 (p. 359; FSI, p. 191; History, p. 115): ‘Il fut rechut o procession come roy […] et la cort resone del cant et de la laude del Prince’. 62 Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 162, discussing the occasion, notes that ‘the Norman princes in Southern Italy enjoyed the privilege of anointment otherwise restricted to kings, and indeed to few kings only’. 63 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 5. 27 (p. 410; FSI, pp. 254–55; History, p. 146). The date given for the capitulation of Bari in the Anonymi barensis chronicon is: 1071 ‘in medio mens. Aprilis’; ed. Camillo Pellegrino in Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum italicarum scriptores (Mediolani: Ex typographia Societatis Palatinae in Regia Curia, 1724), V, pp. 147–56 (p. 153). Easter fell on 24 April in 1071, which would mean that the calendar date of Amatus’s timing of his entry is 16 April; see De Bartholomaeis’s note in his edition, p. 255, n. 1. The Annales Lupi Protospotharii gives 15 April as
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Jerusalem is clear. Not only did the following day’s solemn liturgical procession include a reading of Matthew’s account of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem (Matthew 21. 1–9), but the appointed Gospel for the mass on the Saturday itself was the account of Christ’s entry in John’s Gospel ( John 12. 10–36), in which Jesus repeatedly refers to his glory, both present and to come.64 Amatus’s descrip‐ tion of the duke as ‘glorious’, and his precise sense of liturgical timing evoke liturgical and scriptural precedents that succinctly present Robert in Christ-like terms, a glorious ruler entering the city, who though thin through fasting, will be strengthened by the Easter feast. Just five years later, in autumn 1076, the abbot and monks of Montecassino were busy making preparations for an elaborate procession to ‘welcome the duke with great honour’, when they came upon Robert Guiscard and his entourage already in prayer in the church.65 The point seems obvious: the Normans have quite literally arrived where they are supposed to be. Finally, the author’s styling of the two Norman princes as Cyrus, affords a subtle transference to Richard and Robert of the Bible’s association of the great Persian ruler with the ending of the Israelites’ Babylonian captivity, and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1. 1–8). It is perhaps in this light that that we should read the account of Robert’s entrance into Palermo together with his wife, his brother, his brother-in-law, and his princes, after Palermo’s defeat on 10 January 1071. Amatus recounts that Robert, ‘weeping and with great reverence’, went straight to the church of St Mary ‘which had been a Saracen temple’. Having arrived at the church-turned-mosque, he ‘ordered all the rubbish and filth to be cleaned out, and had the catholic and holy archbishop say mass’.66
the date on which Robert took (cepit) the city of Bari: Annales Barenses. Lupus Protospatarius, ed. by Georg Heinrich Pertz, MGH SS, 5 (Hanover: Hahn, 1844), pp. 52–63 (p. 60). 64 John 12. 23, 28: ‘“venit hora ut clarificetur Filius hominis […] Pater clarifica tuum nomen”. Venit ergo vox de caelo “et clarificavi et iterum clarificabo”’ (‘“The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified […] Father, glorify your name”. A voice therefore came from heaven: “I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again”’). The pericope is presented in this assignment (Saturday before Palm Sunday) in the mid-twelfth century Cassinese missal, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6028, fols 92r–92v. Interestingly, the late-eleventh century missal in ‘Bari Type’ Beneventan minuscule, made for use in the Diocese of Canosa, lacks appointed propers for the Saturday before Palm Sunday, but gives a shorter version of the Johannine pericope ( John 12. 1–9, the entry into Jerusalem only) for Palm Sunday: Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W 6, fols 115r–116r; edited in Sieghild Rehle, Missale Beneventanum von Canosa (Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, MS W6), Textus Patristici et Liturgici, 9 (Regensburg: Putstet, 1972), p. 116 (no. 430). 65 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 8. 22 (p. 498; FSI, p. 362; History, p. 198): ‘Et le matin appareilla l’abbé la procession pour recevoir lo duc a grant honor’; Guido reports the visit more succinctly at Chon. mon. cas. 3. 45 (p. 423): ‘dux cum exercitu sociato sibi principe ad hoc monasterium venit atque a Desiderio et fratribus honorifice susceptus illorumque se orationibus commendans, attentius Campaniam expugnaturus ingreditur’. 66 Amatus, Ystoire de li Normant, 6. 19 (pp. 431–32; FSI, p. 282; History, p. 158): ‘Et ensi, come homo cristiennissime, avec la moillier et ses frere, et avec lo frere de la moillier, et avec ses princes, s’en ala, o grant reverence, plorant, a l’eglize de Saint[e] Marie, laquel eclize avoit esté temple de li sarrazin, et en fist chacier toute l’ordesce et ordure, et fist dire messe a lo catholique et saint archevesque’.
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The temple in Palermo, as in Jerusalem, is thus restored from profanation. The concluding chapter of the History, in which Amatus sets out to list ‘all the good that these two lords [Richard and Robert] did for our monastery, serves then as a kind of inclusio with the interpretation of the prophecy to Cyrus with which he opens the work. It makes concrete precisely how these foreign-born rulers fulfilled in their day and in the author’s own monastery the historic munificence of Cyrus to the Temple, a history the monks knew well both from the lists of donated treasure in the biblical Book of Ezra (Ezra 1. 7–11), and from the venerable copy of Josephus’s Histories, preserved in the Abbey’s library.67 The Ystoria Rogerii regis was authored by Alexander, abbot of San Salvatore near Telese, which appears to have been a Norman foundation.68 Liturgical refer‐ ences in this work are almost entirely limited to accounts of laudes and adventus rituals for King Roger II, the subject of this history, and the brother of Alexander’s patron, Countess Matilda.69 While, as we have noted, laudes for visiting secular rulers also appear in both the Chronicle of Montecassino and in Amatus’s History, here they comprise the dominant feature of the liturgical references. They are described as following a tense surrender at Capua in 1134, when Roger was ‘honourably received, as was proper, by a procession organized in advance of the clerics and all the townspeople, and was led to the archiepiscopal church with hymns and laudes’.70 Alexander records the reaction of the people of Benevento
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Loud suggests that the event, recorded (with some discrepancies) in other contemporary accounts, probably took place on 10 January 1072; see Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow: Longman, 2000), p. 161. Josephus, Antiquitates Iudaicae, 11. 1. 3. A copy of Josephus’s work is preserved in Montecassino, Archivio dell’Abbazia, cod. Casin. 124, pp. 1–530. The manuscript is considered a product of Montecassino during the abbacy of Theobald (1022–1035) and would therefore have been in the library when Amatus began his work; see Orofino, I codici decorati dell’Abbazia di Montecassino, II/2, pp. 92–96 and LXVIII–LXX. For the abbey see Luigi R. Cielo, L’abbaziale normanna di S. Salvatore de Telesia, introd. by Marcello Rotili, Biblioteca del Molise e del Sannio, 4 (Napoli: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1995), pp. 35–62. The abbot of Telese at the time of the construction of the church was John of Tusculum, who had been a monk at Bec, and a canon of Beauvais before his nomination as abbot of Telese by Urban II. By 1100 he had been named cardinal bishop of Tusculum by Paschal II, which speaks highly not only John’s reputation and connections (he maintained contact, for example, with his former teacher, Anselm), but also the prominence of the abbey at the time: see Stephan Freund, ‘Giovanni di Tuscolo’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, ed. by Carlo Albarello, Fiorella Bartoccini, and Mario Caravale (Roma: Istituo della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2001), LVI, pp. 244–47; Roger II, p. 52, n. 169. In his prologue, Alexander states that he wrote the work in part at the urgings of the king’s sister, Matilda: Ystoria Rogerii, Prologus (p. 2; Roger II, p. 63). Clementi notes that Matilda, the wife of Count Rainulf II of Caiazzo, one of Roger’s principal foes, appears to have spent some of the year in the Valle Caudina in the vicinity of Telese, which had been granted to her as part of her dowry by her brother Roger. Clementi considers it plausible that she regularly visited Alexander and served also as a source for his history; see Dione Clementi, ‘Historical Commentary’, in Alexandri Telesini abbatis Ystoria Rogerii, ed. by De Nava, pp. 175–346 (pp. 218–23). Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 67 (p. 55; Roger II, p. 102): ‘Cum ergo civitatem ipsam iam sibi subditam Rex introiturus esset, a preordinata clericorum totiusque populi processione honorifice, prout decebat, suscipitur; atque ad Archiepiscopium usque, cum himnis et laudibus, perducitur’.
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to the news of Roger II’s return to Salerno after he had been rumoured dead on 5 June 1135, celebrations that he himself witnessed. Bells were rung in the city’s churches, and a procession of clergy formed leading from the cathedral to the monastery of Santa Sofia during which hymns and laudes were sung – a not insignificant clerical ritual given the city’s papal status.71 Laudes were offered again in Capua, in more eirenic circumstances, in late summer 1135 to welcome at once the newly-elected and royally-approved archbishop William of Ravenna, and the recently invested Prince Anfusus of Capua, Roger’s third son.72 It is with obvious pleasure that Alexander records the ritually structured visits of the king to his own abbey in 1134 shortly before his entry into Capua, and again in 1135, before the adventus of his son and the archbishop to the same city.73 Alexander’s somewhat formulaic accounts of the liturgical reception of the king on these two occasions are enriched by punctiliously recorded details of the king’s promises regarding the property of the abbey, including assurances to the abbot made in the king’s chamber. Paul Oldfield has recently underlined that Capua, the subject of an encomium that Alexander places neatly between Roger’s reception at the Abbey of Telese and the adventus in Capua in 1134, is not merely of regional interest for the Cam‐ panian abbot.74 The submission of Capua to Roger, was ‘a watershed from which there would be no retreat’ in Roger’s campaigns on the Italian mainland, the ‘first unequivocal manifestation of the magnitude and capabilities of royal power in action’.75 Alexander’s repeated twinning of accounts of adventus rituals at his abbey with accounts of the same in Capua thus not only serves the geographical and temporal logic of Roger’s progress in the region, but also subtly itinerizes the abbey’s reception of the king in the path of the establishment of Roger’s regnum.76
71 Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 3. 9 (p. 64; Roger II, p. 108): ‘cuius adventum et beneventani audientes, ita ipsi immenso sunt exilarati tripudio ut in urbe, me presente et audiente, ecclesiarum simul pulsarentur; et ab Archiepiscopio ad monasterium usque Sancte Sophie, cum ymnis et laudibus clericalis ordo processit’. 72 Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 3. 32 (p. 77; Roger II, p. 118): ‘Rege Capuam redeunte primtus eidem electo [William] deinde eiusdem Regis filio, qui supradictus est, Anfuso, clerus et populus singulas processiones facientes in urbem introduxerunt’. 73 Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 65 (pp. 54–55; Roger II, p. 102): ‘Cum ergo ad monasterium venisset, honorifice ut illum decebat, a fratribus obviam ei progredientibus cum himnis et laudibus suscipitur’; 3. 29 (p. 75; Roger II, p. 117): ‘dum iter ageret et Dominum oraturus ad monasterium Sancti Salvatoris Telesini divertitur, cui cum Abbas Alexander prenominatus, omnisque congregatio fratrum obviam processissent, honorifice, ut decuit, ab eisdem susceptus, Deo laudes concinnendo in Ecclesiam usque introducitur’. 74 Paul Oldfield, ‘Alexander of Telese’s Encomium of Capua and the Formation of the Kingdom of Sicily’, History, 102 (2017), 183–200. 75 Oldfield, ‘Alexander of Telese’s Encomium’, p. 198. 76 Alexander presents Roger moving west in 1134 through the Valle Telesina from Limata (an abandoned site, near present-day San Lorenzo Maggiore) (Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 61), to Telese (2. 65), and then on to Capua (2. 66–67). Similarly, Alexander describes Roger moving from Paduli near Benevento in August 1135 (3. 28) west along the Valle Telesina to Guardia (Guadia
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In this sense, the Campanian adventus accounts complement and bring to con‐ crete local realization the aura of royal splendour first conveyed much earlier in the History in Alexander’s description of Roger’s coronation in Palermo, on Christmas Day 1130.77 But whereas Alexander’s descriptions of laudes at Capua, Benevento, and Telese preserve traces of personal observance, the author resorts here to formula and effusion to describe the coronation ritual he probably had not actually seen: ‘one cannot write down or even imagine quite how glorious he was, how regal in his dignity, how splendid in his richly adorned apparel’, he writes with exuberant alliteration and assonance.78 Description of the coronation liturgy itself is limited: Roger was led to the cathedral in a ‘royal manner’ (more regio), and he was anointed with holy oil.79 Alexander is more generous in describing the luxury of the festivities that accompanied the coronation: the city was decorated ‘in a stupendous manner’, he writes: the palace walls were draped, and floors covered with multi-coloured carpets; the saddles and bridles of the ‘huge number of horses’ accompanying the king’s progress to the church were decorated with gold and silver; choice foods were served at the banquet in gold and silver dishes, and, in what seems to be near-unimaginable luxury for the abbot, ‘the very waiters were clad in silk clothes!’80 The stupor that Alexander suggests was instilled on those who saw these things, and certainly is the intended impact of the author’s account of them, is, as Eleni Tounta has argued, part of a broader theme of ‘terror regius’ (‘the fearsome power of the king’) in Alexander’s History, serving to communicate and promote the king’s awesome primacy over his subjects and over competing political forces in the territory.81
Falco, Chronicon beneventanum Adventus rituals also play a prominent role in Falco Beneventanus’s more annalis‐ tically structured work, known as the Chronicon beneventanum. In keeping with his more critical view of Roger II, Falco’s accounts of Benevento’s response to the
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Sanfremondi) (3. 29), Telese (3. 29–30) and Dragoni (3. 31), before turning south in the direction of the River Volturno to Caiazzo (3. 31) and then to Capua (3. 32). Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 4 (p. 25; Roger II, p. 79). Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 4 (p. 25; Roger II, p. 79): ‘non potest litteris expimi, immo mente extimari que et qualis quantave eius tunc esset gloria, quam magnus in regni decore, quamque etiam in divitiarum affluentiis admirabilis’. Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 4 (p. 25; Roger II, p. 79): ‘ibique unctione sacra linitus’. According to Falco, Anacletus sent Comes, cardinal priest of Santa Sabina (from 1123) to Palermo to perform the coronation; Chron. ben. [1130 4. 1] (p. 108); see Roger II, p. 184, n. 146. To Kantorowicz, this indicated papal approbation of the South Italian custom of anointing kings and princes (Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, p. 164). It was doubtless also sound political strategy on Anacletus’s part. Alexander, Ystoria Rogerii, 2. 4–6 (pp. 25–26, Roger II, p. 79). Eleni Tounta, ‘“Terror” and “territorium” in Alexander of Telese’s Ystoria Rogerii regis: Political Cultures in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily’, Journal of Medieval History, 40 (2014), 142–58 (p. 148).
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Norman king differ notably from that of his contemporary, Alexander of Telese. Indeed, it is Roger’s defeat and the victory of Count Rainulf II at Nocera 1132 that, Falco tells us, prompts the populus of Benevento to assemble at the cathedral shrine of St Bartholomew and at the monastery of Santa Sophia. There they gave thanks ‘to God and to the Apostle Peter’, and gathered candles and oil-lamps for the keeping of vigils in the two churches.82 Though he notes Roger’s return to Salerno in June 1135, Falco assiduously avoids any mention of the procession and laudes in honour of Roger that Alexander had observed, and when Roger enters Benevento’s gates for the first time in 1139, the chronicler’s description is flat.83 He describes the King’s processional route with the all the precision of one tracking an intruder, omitting any mention of the response of local monks, clergy, or citizens.84 Falco’s silence in this regard is rendered all the more eloquent in comparison with his portrayal of a joyous welcome of Innocent II earlier the same day (1 August 1139). The Beneventan populace received the pontiff, Falco writes, ‘with great honour and devotion […] as though they were gazing on St Peter in the flesh’.85 Benevento was, after all, a papal city. The most elaborate adventus description is reserved for the reception of Calix‐ tus II by the populus on 8 August 1120.86 In preparation for the pontiff’s arrival, Falco writes, the Amalfitans hung silk drapes and precious ornaments along the streets, between which they hung gold and silver thuribles burning cinnamon.87 Three groups of four citizens guided the pontiff’s feet and his horse’s reins along the processional route, the final four being named judges whom Falco must have known personally, while drums, cymbals, and lyres accompanied the procession.88 The political significance of the visit, on which, as Petrus Diaconus records, the
82 Chron. ben., [1132 10. 24] (p. 140; Roger II, p. 199). 83 Chron. ben., [1135 2. 1] (p. 172; Roger II, p. 215). 84 Chron. ben., [1139 9. 4–5] (p. 224; Roger II, p. 239). A markedly contrasting account of the visit of a secular ruler is provided in his description of the visit to Benevento of Empress Florida on 1 September 1137. Falco records not only the empress’s route through the city to the shrine of St Bartholomew, and her donations, but that ‘the whole population of Benevento hurried joyfully from every part of the city to gaze at the empress since we had not seen the visit of an emperor or empress for many, many years, and we exulted and thanked God since we had seen in our own time what our fathers, grandfathers and [even] great-grandfathers could not have seen’ (Chron. ben., [1137 12. 1–3], p. 190; Roger II, p. 223). 85 Chron. ben., [1139 9. 2] (p. 224; Roger II, p. 239): ‘quasi beatum Petrum in carne aspiciens’ (my translation). 86 Chron. ben., [1120 7. 1–5] (p. 56; Roger II, p. 158). 87 Chron. ben., [1120 7. 3] (p. 56; Roger II, p. 158); the Amalfitani were well-known merchants; the term may here refer more to commercial interests than to city of origin. Cf. William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. by Robert B. C. Huygens, CCCM, 63–63A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), 18. 4 (II, pp. 814–15). 88 Judges play a prominent role in the laudes papales described in the Liber Censuum: Le ‘Liber Censuum’ de l’église romaine, ed. by Paul Fabre and Louis Duchesne, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 2e série, 6 (Paris: Fontemoing, 1889–1905), II, p. 146.
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pontiff received the feality of Duke William of Apulia, is entirely out of view.89 What is of central import in Falco’s account is the popular acclaim enjoyed by the pontiff as he entered the city with unprecedented ‘triumph and joy’.90 On two occasions, Falco records the concern of the archbishop of Benevento to furnish worthier resting places for saints’ relics that had lain in tombs at the cathedral that were now deemed unsuitable. In May 1119, Archbishop Lan‐ dulf II (1108–1119), ‘having devised a plan for the salvation’ of the city (consilio salutis invento), ordered to be exhumed and displayed for veneration the bodies of seven early Christian martyrs.91 News spread quickly, and soon crowds of men and women, including the author, gathered to venerate the sacred relics with their kisses and tears. Two days later, the archbishop undertook to transform this relatively informal public veneration into a civic event worthy of record. Having sought the advice of his clergy, Landulf ordered a carefully orchestrated series of processions to the cathedral ensuring the regulated participation of all of the city’s clergy and people, by city district, across six days of festivities. Falco reports that the archbishop’s initiative instigated a kind of competitive creativity among the Beneventani. The abbots of the city ordered the construction of wooden floats (lignorum machinationes), and the priests of Civitas Nova had a wooden float ‘decked out in candles and huge lamps’. ‘Within it’, Falco writes, ‘we saw young men dancing with drums, and jingling citharas, and we saw large bells and many little bells within the float itself ’.92 Not wanting to be outdone, Archdeacon Alechisius, the rector of San Lorenzo-intra-muros ordered builders and watermen to make an enormous float in the shape of a boat that was to serve as a kind of portable bandstand.93 Once it was finished, the archdeacon had placed on it a heavy bell together with ‘many other types of metallic musical instruments, and many lit candles’. He added a man playing the lyre and blaring trumpets, and around the float danced horns, drums ‘wondrously played’, citharas, and various
89 Chron. mon. cas., 4. 68 (p. 532); see the discussion of the significance of the act in Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Langobarden, Normannen, Päpste: Zum Legitimitätspoblem in Unteritalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Bibliotheken und Archiven, 58 (1978), 137–80 (pp. 170–72). 90 Chron. ben., [1120 7. 5] (p. 56; Roger II, p. 158); see Graham A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 212–13. 91 Chron. ben., [1119 3. 1–21] (pp. 46–52; Roger II, pp. 154–56). My translation of the phrase ‘consilio salutis invento’ follows the interpretation of the editor (D’Angelo), p. 47; Loud gives ‘rejoicing in the way of salvation’ which seems to miss the strategic impulse of the archbishop’s action. Landulf II began the construction of a new cathedral seven years earlier in 1112; see Francesco Bove, ‘L’architecture de la cathédrale de Bénévent’, in La cathédrale de Bénévent, pp. 1–43 (pp. 31–34). The construction took several decades: the cathedral’s bronze doors were added only in 1150–1151. 92 Chron. ben., [1119 3. 11] (p. 48; Roger II, p. 155): ‘Civitatis autem Novae presibiteri, ut studiosiores prae omnibus viderentur, lignorum machinam quandam, circumquaque cereis lampadibusque immensis obductam, ad sanctorum corpora produxere’ (my translation). 93 For the identification of this church located near Santa Sophia and the Porta Somma, see Carmelo Lepore, ‘Monasticon beneventanum’, in Studi beneventani, 6 (1995), 25–168 (p. 77, n. 154).
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other kinds of instruments.94 The float was so large that it required oxen to drag it, and when it was nearing the cathedral, it had to be unhitched and carried by hand, for the street was too narrow. Once they arrived before the relics at the cathedral, the duly vested archdeacon and his clerics sang vigils, after which everyone returned home. The author’s perspective is both important and rare. Neither a member nor client of the warring military and political élites, nor a member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, as a notary and later judge Falco nevertheless occupied a position, had access to archives, and enjoyed a status that afforded him a privileged yet proximate view of the streets of Benevento and of those who processed upon them.95 Moreover, Falco’s work does not appear to have been commissioned by a powerful patron, and therefore he was not beholden to singular political or propagandistic goals that might be entailed by such a relationship.96 It is not without significance, then, that Falco explicitly compares the extraor‐ dinary response of the clergy and people of Benevento in 1119, to the adventus of the relics of the apostle Bartholomew three hundred years earlier. These had been brought to the city from Lipari under Prince Sicard (832–839), the last prince of a united principality of Benevento, and housed in a shrine built for the purpose at the instigation Bishop Ursus (831–841), Landulf ’s famed predecessor. By making the comparison, the author deftly associates Landulf with the role of defensor civitatis that Ursus had assumed amid political instability in the city and principate in the ninth century.97 Liturgy in Falco’s narrative is a city affair that is used to underline civic practices and civic space, with the urban bishop at its centre. Five years later, Landulf ’s successor, Archbishop Roffred II (1119–1130), drew inspiration from this highly popular episcopal strategy.98 He exhumed the body of St Barbatus (r. 633–682), the sainted bishop of Benevento, credited both with the elimination of pagan superstition, and with engineering the city’s successful resistance to the siege of Emperor Constans II (663). Roffred had the relics of his predecessor placed on the altar of St Sebastian at the cathedral for public veneration by ‘a great crowd of the laity, of both sexes, and all ages’.99 94 Chron. ben., [1119 3. 14] (pp. 48–50; Roger II, p. 155): ‘Qua demum peracta, super illam magni ponderis campanam, ut multa alia genera metallorum vociferantia et cereos multos accensos imponi precepit; hominem namque lirizantem et tubas stridentes ad astra ibi associavit; et circa illam cornua crepitantia, timpana mirabiliter percussa, citharae variique generis modulationes triupdiabant’ (my translation). D’Angelo notes the employment of figurae per adiectionem in the passage; D’Angelo, Chronicon Beneventanum, p. cxxxii. It may also be noted that Falco’s account encompasses the three standard divisions of musical instruments: wind, percussion, and strings. 95 For what is known of Falco’s life, see Edoardo D’Angelo’s introduction to his edition of the work, Chronicon Beneventanum, pp. vii–xiv. 96 D’Angelo, Chronicon Beneventanum, p. xlvi. 97 Carmelo Lepore, ‘L’Église de Bénévent et la puissance publique: Relations et conflits’, in La cathédrale de Bénévent, pp. 45–65 (p. 56). 98 Chron. ben., [1124 1. 1–14] (pp. 74–76; Roger II, pp. 169–70). 99 Chron. ben., [1124 1. 12] (p. 76; Roger II, p. 170).
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Then, like Landulf, he orchestrated a district-by-district series of wildly popular torch-light processions. On 31 May, the octave of the invention of the relics, the archbishop presided over their solemn interment beneath an altar that was then duly dedicated to the saint. Roffred then ‘climbed up into a prominent place that he might see and be seen by all’, and granted partial absolution to the assembled crowd of citizens, and to all those who would come to venerate the relics of their holy bishop from that day until the octave of the feast of Sts Peter and Paul (that is for more than 5 weeks, until 7 July). As Paul Oldfield has observed, in both instances, the carefully organized translation and veneration of relics of historical significance for the city served not only as a bulwark against inimical forces outside the city walls, but as a strategy to unify the frequently fractious parties within them.100 Indeed, it is in its direct engagement with the events of his city that Falco’s account differs from the succinct listings of an annalist. His Chronicle is peppered with contrafactual exclamations addressed to the reader – ‘O lector, si adesses!’ ‘si cerneres!’ ‘si aspiceres!’ – which serve to foster intimacy with his readers and listeners, and to underline the participant observer’s greater immediacy to the joy‐ ous celebrations he describes than his implied reader can claim.101 It is particularly as he recalls his participation in processions that Falco’s perspective subtly, per‐ haps unconsciously, lapses from the third-person into the first-person plural: ‘de‐ scendimus’, ‘remeavimus’, ‘reversi sumus’, ‘vidimus’, ‘festinavimus’, ‘osculati sumus’, ‘laudavimus’. Falco the notary-historian not only records his observation of others from his city-window, but addresses his ‘lector’ directly, defining the ‘we’ of the citizens of Benevento by recounting how he rushed into the streets to join his fellow ‘cives’ in procession.
Conclusion Four Southern-Italian historians; four differing uses of liturgy in historical writing. While knowledge and access to literary texts shaped the portrayal of the meaning of liturgy and the construction of the past in sophisticated monastic authors such as Leo Marsicanus and Amatus of Montecassino, it has been argued that abbot Alexander showed similar skill in the selection and placement of his accounts of the adventus rituals associated with his secular subject, and the lay, educated, street-observer Falco Beneventanus showed himself competent to make subtle
100 Paul Oldfield, Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 103. 101 Chron. ben., [1119 3. 13] (p. 50): ‘lector, si adesses, conspires’; [1119 3. 15] (p. 50) ‘O qualem, lector aspiceres insultationem, quale gaudium per totius civitatis partes cerneres’; [1120 7. 5] (p. 56): ‘lector, si adesses […] et […] aspiceres […] et re vera firmares’; [1124 1. 8] (p. 74) ‘O quale gaudium, lector, aspiceres’; [1127 1. 6] ‘si adesses […] aspiceres’; [1140 5. 4] (p. 236): ‘lector, si aspiceres’.
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allusions to the local liturgical past in order to colour his portrayal of a specific celebration and its significance for the history of his city. In the examples we have examined ecclesiastical status, knowledge, and power reveals itself to be less significant in the quantity or quality of liturgical description or allusion than narrative strategies that accord with the writers’ overarching themes. Liturgical description and allusion were not simply used to record past liturgical events or merely out of a habit born of formation and vocation. They were deployed in sophisticated strategies of character portrayal, allusions to and interpretations of the past, in the setting in motion a certain logic in a chain of events, and in the construction of theo-political ideologies. The web of associ‐ ations of medieval liturgical texts, objects, sites and practices, ingrained in the motor-memory of monastic and clerical authors, and, it would seem, also in a lay author such as Falco, may be more difficult for the modern reader to detect than they were for his contemporary readers and hearers to understand. It is tempting to reply wistfully to Falco ‘Oh author, would that we had been there!’. We can, however, try to read our historians’ works in a manner that is attentive to differing patterns and strategies in the use of liturgical detail; this is what I have attempted to do.
LECTOR, SI ADESSES! Table 1: A comparison of Chron. mon. cas. 3. 31 with its source text
Chron. mon. cas. 3. 31 (pp. 401–02) alterations in bold
Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 14
Nec modus est populis coeuntibus agmine denso Nec requies, properant in lucem a nocte, diemque Expectare piget. Campani coeunt populi, coit Apulia pubes Et Calabri et cuncti, quos alluit estus uterque, Qui leva et dextra Latium circumstrepit omne. Ipsaque celestium sacris procerum monumentis Roma Petro Pauloque potens rarescere gaudet Milia profundens ad menia celsa Casini. Vincit iter durum pietas amor et Benedicti, Vincit et alma fides. Presens Deus omnibus istic Creditur et summi Benedictus gloria Christi. Alma dies magnis celebratur cetibus, omnes Vota dicant sacris rata postibus, omnia guadent Terrarum et coeli. Nos quoque felices, quibus istum cernere Christus Et celebrare diem tribuit tantoque patrono Gratari et letos inter gaudere tumultus.
[49] Nec modus est populis coeuntibus agmine denso [50] nec requies, properant in lucem a nocte diemque [51] expectare piget […] [55] Lucani coeunt populi, coit Apula pubes [56] et Calabri et cuncti quos adluit aestus uterque, [57] qui laeua et dextra Latium circumsonat unda; […] [65] Ipsaque caelestum sacris procerum monumentis [66] Roma Petro Pauloque potens rarescere gaudet […] [68] milia profundens ad amicae moenia Nolae […] [79] Vicit iter durum pietas, amor omnia Christi [80] uincit et alma fides […] [42] […] praesens deus omnibus illic [43] creditur; inmensi Felix est gloria Christi. [44] Alma dies magnis celebratur coetibus, omnes [45] Uota dicant sacris rata postibus; omnia gaudent [46] Terrarum et caeli […] [104] Nos quoque felices, quibus istum cerenere coram [105] et celebrare diem datur et spectare patroni […] [107] gratari et laetos inter gaudere tumultus.
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Palm Sunday and Easter 1118 in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem * Sacred Topography, Liturgical Celebrations, and a Dynastic Crisis
Introduction The king […] entered [into Jerusalem] on that holy and festive day of Palms through the gate which looks towards the Mount of Olives […] then he spent the Holy Week there, visiting all the holy places […] and he celebrated the day of holy Easter in all honour and glory.1
In these words, Albert of Aachen presents his account of the Easter celebrations of April 1112 in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which were carried out in the presence of imperial envoys from Constantinople, who were visiting the royal Jerusalem court. In this passage, the chronicler reveals a close connection between liturgy and politics: the elites of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were aware of how to strengthen the Latin ruler’s authority by employing the most solemn liturgical celebrations. Six years later, when King Baldwin died, his funeral took place on Palm Sunday. Before burial in the Holy Sepulchre, his body was taken into the city during the liturgical procession with palm branches, and in the same procession, Baldwin of Bourcq , the successor to the royal throne, entered the Holy City. Then, the ritual of succession was completed on Easter Sunday when Baldwin II was anointed and crowned.
* I would like to thank prof. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin and Andrew Buck. My deep gratitude goes also to Johanna Dale, Pieter Byttebier, Paweł Figurski and to all participants of the seminar in Obrzycko (Poland) in June 2019, as well as to anonymous expert readers. 1 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana. History of the Journey to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. by Susan Edgington (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 834–35: ‘Rex […] ipsa sancta et celebri die Palmarum per portam que respicit ad montem Olivarum intravit […] Egit denique illic sanctam hebdomadam, loca sancta perlustrans […] diem vero sancti Pasche in omni honore […] regaliter celebravit’. Bartłomiej Dźwigała • Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw
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This essay seeks to examine the dynastic crisis in Latin Jerusalem in 1118, which reached its climax during Holy Week and Easter. Following in the foot‐ steps of Ernst H. Kantorowicz, both narrative and liturgical evidence will be considered.2 Analyzing chronicles and ordinals together, and reading narrative accounts along with prayers, antiphons, and rubrics enable us to deepen our understanding of both the events of 1118 and political theology in the Latin East. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was situated, on the one hand, on the periphery of Latin Christendom; but on the other hand, it should be regarded as a unique political and cultural phenomenon. According to Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was the prototype after which the reception of medieval princes was modeled’; thus, the uniqueness of the Latin kings of Jerusalem lies in the fact that they enjoyed extraordinary possibilities for demonstrating royal authority by maintaining a close connection to this prototype.3 The royal inauguration of Baldwin II has been examined by a number of scholars. In 2017, in a special issue of Journal of Medieval History devoted to liturgy in the Crusader States, Simon John dwelled upon liturgical and political culture in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. His article considers all inaugurations that took place in Latin Jerusalem (1099–1187), consequently, he approaches the topic more generally, leaving aside most liturgical evidence that can be found in this paper.4 Recently, Susan Edgington, in Baldwin I’s biography, explained the events of Palm Sunday and Easter 1118, referring to chroniclers’ accounts.5 What is proposed here is to study a specific content of liturgical celebrations that seem to provide additional meanings to political rituals.6 The liturgical books used in Holy Week and Easter 1118 in Latin Jerusalem have not survived into our times. In general, scholars agree that two volumes known as the Jerusalem Ordinal and the Barletta Ordinal are the main sources for researching the shape of the liturgical order in the first decades of the Latin King‐
2 See especially the introductory remarks in Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), pp. vii–ix. 3 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘The “King’s Advent” and the Enigmatic Panels in the Doors of Santa Sabina’, The Art Bulletin, 26/4 (1944), 207–31 (esp. p. 211). See also: Sebastian Salvado, ‘The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre and the Templar Rite: edition and analysis of the Jerusalem Ordinal (Rome, Bib. Vat., Barb. Lat. 659) with a comparative study of the Acre Breviary (Paris, Bib. Nat., Ms. Latin 10478)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Stanford University, 2011), p. 2, where it is even stressed that celebrating of liturgy in the holy sites was a raison d’être of the crusader monarchy. 4 Simon John, ‘Royal Inauguration and Liturgical Culture in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Journal of Medieval History, 44 (2017), 485–504. 5 Susan Edgington, Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100–1118 (Abingdon-New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 175–87. 6 Similar approach in Johanna Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century. Male and Female Accession Rituals in England, France and the Empire (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2019), p. 143 with further bibliography on the significance of liturgical feasts for royal inaugurations.
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dom of Jerusalem.7 The Jerusalem Ordinal was copied in 1150 for the Templars from an earlier book used by the Regular Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. Sebastian Salvado has examined and edited this source in his impressive PhD dissertation, where he stated that this is the most important source for Latin Jerusalem liturgy.8 Iris Shagrir has argued in favour of the Barletta Ordinal, indicating that despite it being a copy from 1220, it reflects the practices of the Regular Canons of the Holy Sepulchre without Templar influences.9 For this essay, it is assumed that reading both these ordinals together enables a thorough study of the liturgy in the first decades of Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.10 Equally important sources are the two earliest extant manuscripts from Latin Jerusalem, namely the Jerusalem Sacramentaries.11 Their production is dated by Cristina Dondi on 1128–1130, so they seem to be the closest liturgical evidence to the events of 1118.12 Both types of liturgical manuscripts: ordinals and sacramentaries complement each other and allow to study the context of liturgical celebration concerning the royal inauguration in 1118. Liturgical texts – rubrics, chants, prayers – should be treated not only as providing additional details about the various events but also as a source of insight into the internal communication of the community. Liturgy, as Cecilia Gaposchkin has recently stated, ‘was done by the community […] or by an individual on behalf of the entire community’.13 Evidence from both the Jerusalem and Barletta Ordinals helps us to see what was in currency within the community of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the context of the dynastic crisis in 1118. The aim of this essay is to study the process of communication
7 An edition of the Jerusalem Ordinal is contained in Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, pp. 466–695. For an edition of the Barletta Ordinal see: Charles Kohler, ‘Un Rituel et un Brèviare du Saint-Sepulchre de Jerusalem (12e–13e siècle)’, Revue de l’orient latin, 8 (1900–1901), 383–500. The texts of Palm Sunday’s liturgy from the same manuscript has been recently edited by Iris Shagrir in an appendix to her article: Iris Shagrir, ‘Adventus in Jerusalem: The Palm Sunday Celebration in Latin Jerusalem’, Journal of Medieval History, 41 (2015), 1–21, and Shargir’s edition is used in this essay. For analyses in which both manuscripts were used: Shagrir, ‘Adventus in Jerusalem’; Jay Rubenstein, ‘Holy Fire and Sacral Kingship in Post-Conquest Jerusalem’, Journal of Medieval History, 43 (2017), 470–84. S. Salvado explained interconnections of these two liturgical books: Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, pp. 46–53; see also Cristina Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. A Study and a Catalogue of the Manuscript Sources (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 64–66, 77–79. 8 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 7. 9 Shagrir, ‘Adventus in Jerusalem’, pp. 6–7. 10 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 47: ‘As a testament to the liturgical activity of eightyeight years of Frankish religious celebrations, this small quantity is surprisingly homogenous in its contents’. 11 The oldest extant Jerusalem Sacramentary is divided into two separate manuscripts: Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, MS 477 and Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 49. A copy of the abovementioned Jerusalem Sacramentary is: Paris, BnF, MS latin 12056. 12 For an examination of both sacramentaries and further readings see: Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, pp. 61–62. 13 M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Invisible Weapons. Liturgy and the Making of Crusade Ideology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017), p. 5.
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used by a part of the Latin Jerusalem elite who wanted to win unquestioning acceptance for Baldwin of Bourcq’s enthronement. Such a study contains various fields of research, from questions about what was communicated through the liturgy and how, to understanding how particular elements of the rituals were understood by the audience and participants.14 First, this essay explains the specific political circumstances of the crisis in 1118. It is necessary to know which parties struggled for power in the Latin Kingdom, why the succession of Baldwin II was so problematic, and how groundbreaking it was. These problems lead to the consideration of why such a central religious festivity was needed to establish Baldwin II’s royal power and how it served to construct the ideological background for his rule. The second part focuses on the most significant elements of the Palm Sunday liturgy. The third part examines the rituals of the Paschal Triduum to place Baldwin II’s coronation in a liturgical perspective.
Dynastic Crisis in Latin Jerusalem Alan V. Murray, among others, has examined the change of dynasty that took place in Jerusalem in 1118. Although Baldwin I was married three times, he didn’t have an heir. That is why the King’s death in 1118 led to a dynastic crisis that had far-reaching consequences for the Latin Kingdom. The first two rulers of the kingdom, Godfrey and his brother Baldwin I, had a third brother, Eustace of Boulogne, who should have been crowned according to hereditary principles, but he was in Boulogne at that time and was unable to appear in Outremer immediately. Instead, in the uncertainty of the moment, a very different claimant, Baldwin of Bourcq managed to become the third ruler of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, as Baldwin II. Baldwin did not belong to Godfrey and Baldwin I’s family, although some sources state that he was consanguineous.15 Baldwin II was a son of Hugh, Count of Rethel, and Melisende, daughter of Guy the Great, lord of Montlhéry. He was related to several great families from Francia: Montlhéry, 14 According to Carol Symes, because liturgical books were not a transcriptions of events, but they were prescriptive and/or proscriptive, it is worth considering non-liturgical texts that describe the same ritual in the same place and time, see: Carol Symes, ‘Liturgical Texts and Performance Practices’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy. Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 239–67 (p. 244). 15 ‘Creaverunt sibi regem Balduinum videlicet comitem Edessenum, regis defuncti cognatum’: Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127), ed. by Heinrich Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg: Winter, 1913), p. 616; Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, ed. by Robert B. C. Huygens, CCCM, 63–63A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), pp. 548–50. See: Alan V. Murray, ‘Kingship, Identity and Name-giving in the Family of Baldwin of Bourcq’, in Knighthoods of Christ. Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, Presented to Malcolm Barber (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 27–38 (p. 35). The consanguinity of Baldwin II and his predecessor is stressed in a royal document dated 1119–1120: Die Urkunden der Lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, ed. by Hans Eberhard Mayer and Jean Richard (Hanover: Hahn, 2010), p. 222.
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Rethel, Courtenay, and Le Puiset. These families were opposed to the ArdennesBouillon dynasty from which Godfrey and Baldwin I were derived – both in the Latin East and in Capetian France.16 After Baldwin of Bourcq became ruler, a sig‐ nificant number of nobles related to the House of Rethel moved to the crusader states and obtained influential positions within the ruling class.17 Crucially, all the succeeding Latin kings of Jerusalem up to the middle of the thirteenth century would be descendants of Baldwin II. From this perspective, the dynastic crisis of 1118 which took place and was settled during Holy Week marked a fundamental breakthrough in the history of the Latin East. However, when Baldwin I died on 2 April, there was much uncertainty re‐ garding who would become his successor. Historians have called the two rival parties ‘legitimists’ and ‘pragmatics’. The former supported Eustace, because of his dynastic right to rule as a brother of the previous monarchs, whereas the aim of the latter was to enthrone Baldwin of Bourcq, who, being the veteran of the First Crusade and count of Edessa for eighteen years, was able to take power quickly and stabilize the monarchy. Accounts on the dynastic crisis of 1118 in Latin Jerusalem are contained in several narrative sources written both in the Outremer and in the West. The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres is a unique source, written by a witness of and participant in the events. Unfortunately, probably because of his own involvement in the controversies around succession, Fulcher gives only a terse account, with‐ out narrating a course of events, but only the final outcome.18 A much more detailed narrative is contained in Albert of Aachen’s Chronicle. Albert’s description has a particularly high value because of its independence, as well as the external and contemporary perspective from which it was written. Albert devoted much space to narratives of the liturgical celebrations in the first two decades of Latin Jerusalem; thus, his Chronicle offers a unique opportunity to compare the events of 1118 with previous public manifestations of royal authority and prestige in the
16 Alan V. Murray, ‘Dynastic Continuity or Dynastic Change? The Accession of Baldwin II and the Nobility of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Medieval Prosopography, 13 (1992), 1–27; Alan V. Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Dynastic History 1099–1125 (Oxford: Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2000), pp. 124–27. See also the introductory sections in Hans E. Mayer, ‘Succession to Baldwin II of Jerusalem: English Impact on the East’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 39 (1985), 139–47 (p. 139). 17 Murray, ‘Dynastic Continuity or Dynastic Change?’, pp. 188–89. 18 Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana. On Fulcher: Verena Epp, Fulcher von Chartres. Studien zur Geschichtsschreibung des ersten Kreuzzuges (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1990), pp. 24–44; Jean Flori, Chroniqueurs et propagandistes. Introduction critique aux sources de la Première croisade (Geneva: Droz, 2010), pp. 219–25. Recent and significant contribution to studies on Fulcher’s Chronicle: Susan Edgington, ‘The Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium of Bartolf of Nangis’, Crusades, 13 (2014), 21–35; Jay Rubenstein, ‘Guibert of Nogent, Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres: Three Crusade Chronicles Intersect’, in Writing the Early Crusades. Text, Transmission and Memory, ed. by Marcus Bull and Damien Kempf (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2014), pp. 24–38.
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Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in conjunction with the liturgy.19 William of Tyre’s Chronicle, as well as Historia Nicaena vel Antiochena serve here as comple‐ mentary source material showing how the events of 1118 were perceived by the following generations in Latin Jerusalem.20 Importantly, Arnulf, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and highly influential figure, strongly supported Baldwin of Bourcq. Because Baldwin of Bourcq’s pro‐ motion to rule lacked dynastic justification, Patriarch Arnulf was determined to use the liturgy of Holy Week and Easter, a latent carrier of political meaning, to build up the authority and prestige of his candidate.
Death of the King and Palm Sunday An aim of Baldwin I’s last military expedition was, according to Albert of Aachen, to conquer ‘Babylon’ – that is, the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. In March 1118, the King, along with 200 knights and 400 infantry, marched through the desert of Sinai to reach the Nile Delta at Pelusium. The defenders, seeing the Jerusalemite forces, fled. The reasons for organizing this dangerous campaign remain unclear and the proposed explanations are not convincing.21 After spending a few days in Pelusium, Baldwin I became seriously ill, and an immediate return was or‐ dered.22 Ultimately, he passed away during this journey, and the Christian army had to carry the body of their dead monarch across enemy territory. Albert of Aachen provides a vivid account of Baldwin I’s last moments. The King made a speech in which he begged his fellows to carry his dead body to Jerusalem so that he could be buried in the Holy Sepulchre next to Godfrey’s tomb. In conversation with his knights as well as with his personal cook, Baldwin 19 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, pp. xx–ilx; Peter Knoch, Studien zu Albert von Aachen. Der erste Kreuzzug in der deutschen Chronistik (Stuttgart: Universität Bonn, 1966). See especially Flori, Chroniqueurs et propagandists, pp. 259–311, who states that Albert of Aachen’s Chronicle is the most significant account on the First Crusade. 20 Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, pp. 548–50; Balduini III Historia Nicaena vel Antiochena, Recueil des historiens des croisades. Historiens occidentaux, 5 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1895), p. 183; Deborah Gerish, ‘Remembering Kings in Jerusalem: The “Historia Nicaena vel Antiochena” and Royal Identity around the Time of the Second Crusade’, in The Second Crusade: Holy War on the Perpihery of Latin Christendom, ed. by Jason T. Rouche and Janus M. Jensen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 51–89. 21 Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 116; Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 117. The circumstances of Baldwin I’s last campaign and the succession of 1118 are explained also in: Hans E. Mayer, Melanges sur l’histoire du Royaume Latin de Jerusalem, Memoires de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Nouvelle série, 5 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1984), pp. 73–91. 22 The chroniclers agree in regard to the course of the events, however, they differently explain Baldwin’s illness: Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 609; Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, pp. 543– 44; Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, 864–65; Historia Nicaena vel Antiochena, p. 183. Susan Edgington pointed out a passage from a chronicle of Ibn al-Qulzumi, a Coptic Christian, who confirms Latin accounts, see: Edgington, Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100–1118, p. 176.
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also gave precise instructions for how to care for the body so that it would not decompose. Albert devotes special attention to the King’s body, which must be preserved because it would play a constituent role in the funeral rituals.23 Baldwin, after he revealed his last will to enthrone Eustace of Boulogne or Baldwin of Bourcq, or some other proper person, made his confession and received viaticum, which was a preparation for his last journey – from earth to heaven.24 He passed away at the village called Laris (al-Arish), there beginning his last journey into eternal life. Thus, the military expedition against Babylon became a funeral pro‐ cession from the deserts of Sinai to the Holy City. Albert also describes the King’s wish to have the proper funeral he deserves as a monarch.25 In this way, liturgy is placed at the centre of the narrative about the King’s death and the succession to the royal throne. The dead body of the ruler must be taken back to Jerusalem through enemy territory because a solemn funeral liturgy is crucial as a first step in the process of succession.26 In describ‐ ing a particularly interesting course of events, Albert’s narrative stresses that Jerusalemite forces had to march across dangerous areas and close to the city of Ascalon, where the troops adopted a battle formation with the King’s dead body as leader of the army. Thus, the chronicler shows us the dead King leading his knights in the last charge. Then, when the army reaches the Jerusalem mountains, the caravan transitions from a military campaign to a liturgical procession.27 The Jerusalemite army returned to the Holy City on the very day of Palm Sunday, when the Holy Week starts by a celebration of unique rituals.28 According to the Jerusalem Ordinal, on that day, the patriarch, after morning prayers in the Holy Sepulchre, with the relic of the True Cross, carried by the treasurer, and together with the congregations of Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, and Saint 23 On evisceration of a dead king’s body in the Middle Ages see: Ralph E. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Geneve: Droz, 1960), pp. 20–26. See also: Chris Given-Wilson, ‘The Exequies of Edward III and the Royal Funeral Ceremony in Late Medieval England’, English Historical Review, 124/507 (2009), 257–82 (p. 264), on embalming a royal corpse as a ritual of purification. 24 For an explanation of the similarity between an anointed ruler’s adventus and a way to heaven of a soul of the anointed one on the deathbed, see Kantorowicz, ‘The King’s Advent’, pp. 207–08: ‘The reception in the citadel of heaven corresponds to the receptions accorded kings or high dignitaries on their arrival at the gates of a city on earth’. 25 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 866: ‘Statim cum mortuus fuero, precor ut alvum meam ferro aperientes, interiora mea tollatis, corpus vero sale et aromatibus conditum corio aut tapetibus involatis, et sic ad catholicas exequias Ierusalem iuxta sepulchrum fratris mei referatur et sepeliatur’. 26 On royal funerals and rituals of succession, see general introductory remarks in: Nicole Marafioti, The King’s Body. Burial and Succession in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2014), especially pp. 11–13. 27 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 870: ‘Dehinc, cum extincto corpore regis in campestribus Ascalonis applicantes, erectis signis, ordinatis cuneis, in sola virtute militari confidentes, sine impedimento et aliquo adversariorum incursu transisse perhibentur, quousque montana Ierusalem ipso die sancto et celebri Palmarum unanimiter cum regio cadavere ingressi sunt’. 28 The following reconstruction is based on the manuscripts’ editions: Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, pp. 576–78; Shagrir, ‘Adventus in Jerusalem’, pp. 18–21, as well as Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, pp. 151–52, 234; Shagrir, ‘Adventus in Jerusalem’, pp. 6–11.
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Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat walked to Bethany, where they performed prayers and then returned to Jerusalem, following in Christ’s footsteps.29 At the same time, the whole community of Jerusalem with the Regular Canons of the Sepulchre congregated at the Temple Mount, where palms and olive branches were blessed by a bishop or prior of the Sepulchre. Subsequently, they marched in a solemn procession carrying palms and olive branches to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, towards the patriarch’s procession that was coming down from Mount of Olives with the relic of the Cross. In this valley, a meeting of the two processions took place, which was the key-point of the entire celebration: the two marching groups merged and began a solemn adoration of the Cross.30 The relic carried by the patriarch was venerated through a triple genuflection and prostration performed by the whole gathering, and, simultaneously, the antiphon Ave Rex noster was sung four times, the last time with a genuflection towards the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple. After that, the gathering thrice sang the antiphon Pueri Hebraeorum also with genuflections. Then, the patriarch with the king, along with other important figures ascended onto a monticule, where the Gospel was read and a sermon delivered by the patriarch.31
29 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 576 ‘dominicis vestigiis iherusalem revertuntur’. Wolf Zöller has recently pointed out that the emulation and revival of the lifestyle of Christ’ laid in a centre of Regular Canons’ spirituality and this idea strongly influenced Latin liturgy in Jerusalem in twelfth century: Wolf Zöller, ‘The Regular Canons and the Liturgy of the Latin East’, Journal of Medieval History, 43/4 (2017), 367–83; (pp. 380–81) for an explanation of the Palm Sunday liturgy from a perspective of the Regular Canons’ religious ideas. On crusading as a Christo-mimetic devotional undertaking see William Purkis, Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2008), pp. 8–10, 59–85. 30 For an analysis of the same element of the Palm Sunday celebrations in Chartres, see: Craig Wright, ‘The Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres’, in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages. Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography, ed. by Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 344–71 (pp. 347–48). Source material from Chartres is of particularly importance from a comparative perspective because Fulcher of Chartres might strongly have influenced the liturgy in the Holy Sepulchre, as C. Dondi has recently stated: Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular, pp. 57–60. On the liturgy of the cathedral of Chartres see: Margot E. Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres. Making History through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2010). See also a comparative study on Palm Sunday processions: David Chadd, ‘The Ritual of Palm Sunday: Reading Nidaros’, in The Medieval Cathedral of Trondheim. Architectural and Ritual Constructions in their European Context, ed. by Margrete S. Andas, Øystein Ekroll, Andreas Haug, and Niels H. Petersen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 254–78 (pp. 263–66). 31 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 577: ‘Postquem omnes hinc et illinc conveniunt ordinatis processionibus, electis sociis quatuor, autem quinque aliquintulum ante alios procedens cantor incipitur Ant. Ave rex noster et postea ipse et sociis eius et omnes pariter flectentes genua contra dominicam crucem, et contra patriarcham prosternuntur. Surgentes iterum incipiunt Ant. Ave rex noster et iterum tercio. Similiter ex alia parte quatuor aut quinque electi, contra Sepulchrum, et contra Templum cantant Ant. Ave rex noster Utque flectunt genua, tunc omnes simul cantant Fili David et sic finita Antiphona. Quo finita: finita: [sic] Cantor et sociis eius cantant Ant. Pueri hebreorum et dum ista cantant Ant., Omnes qui sunt ex alia parte flectunt genua. Quibus erectis illi IIII aut quinque ex illa qui sunt parte patriarche, cantant eandem Ant. Pueri hebreorum, hanc autem ter cantata, aliam
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In the narrative accounts, the meeting of the two processions in the Valley of Jehoshaphat is associated with the arrival of the Jerusalemite forces carrying the body of the dead King.32 Consequently, Baldwin I’s last return on Palm Sunday to Jerusalem was remembered as happening in this very moment when an entire gathering was adoring the Cross in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Such a precisely expressed association of the dead King’s last advent with this concrete point in the Palm Sunday liturgy contains numerous meanings for interpretation, from both political and theological perspectives. By the triple solemn singing of Ave Rex noster, the entire community of Jerusalem venerated their king within the frame‐ work of a public liturgical celebration. The relic of the True Cross, adored in this moment, played a role as symbol of both the Latin kingdom and Christ.33 The patriarch himself also imitated Christ by carrying the Cross.34 Notwithstanding, though the veneration of Christ and veneration of the King were in some sense inseparable, it is especially evident still that the Palm Sunday liturgy is focused on the royal dignity of Christ.35 The Latin rulers of the Holy City enjoyed unique possibilities for manifesting power through an imitation of Christ by locating themselves in the centre of the liturgical celebrations performed at the sites described in the Gospel. These ideas of the relationship between terrestrial royal power and the King of Glory ruling in eternity were especially strongly present in the imagination
32
33
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Ant. Pueri hebreorum vestimenta ter cantabunt alternatim cantantes, et alternatim genua flectentes. Iterum diachonos et subdiachonos parati accepta benedictione. Ascendunt in alto ubi ab omnibus possint videri. Post eos, ascendunt patriarcha, et rex, et persone. Finitis autem, cantor solus incipit Ant. Occurrunt turbe Qua finita: Legitur evangelium Cum appropinquaret, et postea patriarcha facit sermonem ad populum’. Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 615: ‘Die siquidem quo palmarum rami ex more deferri solent, ordinatione Dei et eventu inopinabili, ad processionem, quae de Monte Oliveti in vallem Josaphat tunc descendebat, caterva lugubris et dolendi funeris latrix advenit’. Exactly the same description as in Fulcher’s Chronicle in: Historia Nicaena vel Antiochena, p. 183; Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, p. 548: ‘in die festo, qui dicitur Ramis palmarum, cum de more populus universus in vallem Josaphat convenisset, ad solemnem et celebrem tantae diei processionem’; Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 870: ‘Eadem denique die a monte Olivarum domnus patriarcha Arnolfus cum clero suo post palmarum consecrationem descenderat, cui de templo Domini et de universis ecclesiis fratres occurrentes ad diem festum convenerunt, in ymnis et laudibus in celebratione diei sancte qua et Dominus Iesus, in asello residens civitatem sanctam Ierusalem ingredi dignatus est. Sic vero omnibus Christianorum conventiculis ad id sollempne in laude Dei congregatis, ecce rex defunctus in medium psallentium allatus est’. Giuseppe Ligato, ‘The Political Meanings of the Relic of the Holy Cross among the Crusaders and in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: an Example of 1185’, in Autour de la Première Croisade. Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (Clermont-Ferrand, 22–25 juin 1995), ed. by Michel Balard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), pp. 315–30; Alan V. Murray, ‘Mighty Against the Enemies of Christ: The Relic of the True in the Armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem’, in The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. by John France and William G. Zajac (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 217–38; Deborah Gerish, ‘The True Cross and the Kings of Jerusalem’, The Haskins Society Journal, 8 (1996), 138–55. Shagrir, ‘Adventus in Jerusalem’, pp. 12–13. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, 81–82.
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of those witnessing Baldwin I’s last entry to Jerusalem. The chroniclers clearly por‐ tray the transition from a glorious and solemn entry to the city to the mournful funeral procession.36 In this view, the Palm Sunday procession in 1118, entering Jerusalem with the dead king’s body, has a double character: the christomimetic liturgy communicates that the king’s soul is entering into the celestial Jerusalem, but it is also Baldwin’s last public manifestation of power, last royal adventus to the city in which he ruled.37 One might also consider what role the King’s body might have played in the Palm Sunday liturgy. The antiphons Ave Rex noster and Pueri Hebraeorum, which both end with ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini’, were sung and should be perceived in this context as welcoming the ruler ‘historically’.38 Then, according to the Jerusalem Ordinal, the patriarch delivers a sermon from an elevated spot upon which the dead King might also have been situated.39 When the patriarch’s sermon came to an end, the procession continued to the Golden Gate, through which, as Albert of Aachen stresses, the ‘Lord Jesus had entered when coming to his Passion’.40 At this gate a hymn Gloria, laus et honor tibi sit, rex Christe, redemptor was solemnly sung.41 This widely known Carolingian hymn served as a frame in which Baldwin I’s royal authority was manifested. The Latin king of Jerusalem appears in this perspective as an imitator of Christ entering through this very gate into the Holy City. At the same time, taking into consideration the words ‘Israel es tu rex, Davidis et inclyta proles’, he plays a role as successor to the kings of ancient Israel as king of the New Israel, which was an important ideological dimension of the political theology in the Latin Kingdom.42 Moreover, Baldwin I was seen as following in the footsteps of Emperor Heraclius, who had entered through the Golden Gate carrying the relic of the True Cross that 36 Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 615: ‘Quo viso, et sicut erat cognito, pro cantu luctum, pro laetitia gemitum, cuncti qui aderant dederunt. Plorant Franci, lugent Syri, et qui hoc videbant Sarraceni. Quis enim se continere posset, qui non ibi pio fleret?’; Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 870: ‘ecce rex defunctus in medium psallentium allatus est. In cuius visione voces suppresse et laudes humiliate sunt, fletus tam cleri quam populi plurimus auditus est’. 37 On the funeral procession as background for the royal adventus ceremony: Kantorowicz, ‘The “King’s Advent”’, pp. 207–10, 221; see also: Gordon Kipling, Enter the King. Theatre, Liturgy, and Ritual in the Medieval Civic Triumph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 201–09; Timothy Reuter, ‘A Europe of Bishops: The Age of Wulfstan of York and Burchard of Worms’, in Patterns of Episcopal Power: Bishops in Tenth and Eleventh Century Western Europe, ed. by Ludger Körntgen and Dominik Waßenhoven (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), pp. 17–38 (pp. 20–21). 38 Kantorowicz, ‘The “King’s Advent”’, p. 218. 39 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 577. 40 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 870. 41 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 577. Full text of the hymn Gloria, laus in: Poetae latini aevi Carolini, ed. by Ernest Duemmler, MGH Poetae 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), p. 558. Chadd, ‘The Ritual of Palm Sunday’, p. 268, where a usage of this hymn in various spiritual centres in Table 3. It shows clearly a similarity between Latin Jerusalem to Evreux and Rouen cathedrals. C. Wright shows that the antiphon Gloria, laus was sung at the city gate also in Bayeux, Sens, Paris, Metz: Wright, ‘The Palm Sunday Procession’, pp. 361–64. 42 Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 96–97.
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was recovered during his victorious campaign against the Sasanian Empire.43 The chronicles narrate that Baldwin I returned from the expedition against Babylon, not defeated but with spoils.44 The victorious King entered the Holy City in tri‐ umph through the Golden Gate to reflect his image, like that of Heraclius, as an ideal Christian duke and ruler.45 William of Tyre’s account on Palm Sunday in 1118 in Jerusalem must be analyzed separately because it differs from the other chronicles on an important point: it asserts that Baldwin of Bourcq, successor of the dead King, was intro‐ duced into the Holy City in the framework of the Palm Sunday solemn liturgical procession, along with Baldwin I’s body. Baldwin of Bourcq, with a group of his followers, arrived at the Valley of Jehoshaphat at the key moment in the liturgy, when the two processions merged and the Cross was adored, and, at the same time, the funeral procession with the King’s body approached from the other direction.46 Thus William sets the meeting of the dead King with the future King within the liturgical ritual. This account is to be treated as a testimony about how succeeding generations remembered Baldwin II’s accession to the throne. William, as Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the Crusader Kingdom, reflects the ideas and opinions circulating among the elite of the monarchy about past rulers and the circumstances of past successions.47 Importantly, Baldwin II’s inau‐ guration was remembered as taking place through the ceremony of royal adventus, conducted along with the last adventus of the dead King and during the solemn ritual of Palm Sunday, which was performed at the holy sites. In William’s narra‐ tive, the concrete point of the liturgy that became the starting point of the new royal dynasty was the adoration of the Cross in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Latin Jerusalem elites remembered the extraordinary circumstances of Baldwin II’s inauguration because he, rather than Godfrey or Baldwin I, was the founder of the dynasty that ruled up to William’s time. The connection between liturgical
43 Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood. The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image (LeidenBoston: Brill, 2004), pp. 175–76. 44 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 864: ‘Auri et argenti et totius preciosi ornatus nullus erat numerus quod illic repertum est’. 45 Simon John pointed out an importance of Heraclius’ legacy for the royal ideology in the Latin East: John, ‘Royal Inauguration and Liturgical Culture’, p. 496. An association between the Golden Gate and Emperor Heraclius present in imaginations of Latins in the East is attested by pilgrim Saewulf: Peregrinationes tres: Seawulf, John of Würzburg, Theodericus, ed. by Robert B. C. Huygens, CCCM, 139 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1994), p. 68. I explore this issue in: Bartłomiej Dźwigała, ‘Constantine, Helena and Heraclius in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 72/1 (2021), 18–35. 46 Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, pp. 548–49: ‘accidit casu, quod in die festo, qui dicitur Ramis palmarum, cum de more populus universus in vallem Josaphat convenisset, ad solemnem et celebrem tantae diei processionem, subito ex una parte comes cum suis ingrederetur: et e regione, domini regis funus, cum exsequiis importaretur, universa militia, quae cum eo in Aegyptum descenderat, domini sui funus de more prosequente’. 47 Peter W. Edbury and John G. Rowe, William of Tyre. Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 187.
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texts and the making of the authority and prestige of the new ruler as expressed in William of Tyre’s chronicle is striking.
Paschal Triduum The burial of Baldwin I next to the tomb of his brother marked a starting point for the liturgy of Holy Week and Easter. All of the chroniclers agree that Baldwin I’s funeral took place immediately after the Palm Sunday procession.48 It is likely that after the procession entered the Temple and the antiphons were sung as the last part of the Palm Sunday procession, the gathering formed a funeral procession that carried the King’s body to the Holy Sepulchre, where a ritual of royal burial took place. Crucially, the dead King’s body was deposed next to his brother’s tomb, in a courtyard on the east side of the Anastasis Rotunda, near the entrance of the Calvary: in other words, between the places of Christ’s resurrection and his crucifixion.49 Thus, the dead King’s body lay in the centre of Jerusalem’s sacred space, and in the centre of the king-making process.50 According to the narrative evidence, after Baldwin I’s burial, a debate and the election of Baldwin II’s took place.51 However, there is no precise indication about what specific day Baldwin II was elected to be the new king. Reading Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres, it should be assumed that the election was controversial, and will therefore have taken some time. William of Tyre additionally confirms that by narrating the debate in detail. One text that does, however, explicitly mention that Baldwin II’s election occurred on Palm Sunday is known as the Secunda pars historiae Iherosolimitanae.52 However, as Andrew Buck’s study shows, an anonymous author of Secunda pars should not be treated as a more reliable source of information than Albert and Fulcher, since he wrote from a later and north-eastern French perspective with an aim to promote a new
48 Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 616: ‘Igitur tunc ad urbem redeuntes, tam clerus quam populus, fecerunt quod dolori convenit et consuetudini. Et sepelierunt eum in Golgotha juxta ducem Godefridum, germanum suum’. Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 870: ‘decretum est communi consilio ut statim corpus exanime sepulture traderetur, quod diu reservatum et iam fetidum, diutius reservari grave et inconveniens ab omnibus referebatur. Nec mora, catholicis exequiis expletis, a domno patriarcha terre est commendatus, iuxta fratris uterini Godefridi sepulchrum’. 49 Jaroslav Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land 1098–1187 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 37–40. 50 William of Tyre explicitly associates Baldwin I’s tomb with the place of Christ’s crucifixion: Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, p. 550: ‘Introducto igitur funere regione in sanctam civitatem et in ecclesia Dominici Sepulcri juxta fratrem, ante locum qui dicitur Golgotha, sub monte Calvariae, honorifice sepulto’. 51 A debate and controversies narrated by: Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, p. 549. 52 Secunda pars historiae Iherosolimitanae, Recueil des historiens des croisades. Historiens occidentaux, 3 (Paris: Imprimerie imperiale, 1866), pp. 575–76.
PALM SUNDAY AND EASTER 1118 IN THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM
crusade in about 1150 and avoid doubts over succession of 1118 in Jerusalem.53 Baldwin II’s election on Palm Sunday is mentioned also in another source related to the region of Touraine, entitled Gesta consulum Andegavorum, however, it was influenced by Secunda pars.54 Thus, Baldwin II’s election on Palm Sunday is not certain. Given the lack of a precise date of election mentioned by Albert of Aachen as well as by William of Tyre, it is most probable that, after fierce controversy, Baldwin II was elected during Holy Week, and following Triduum celebrations could have served as confirmation of the election. After Baldwin I’s burial, and new ruler’s election, an elite of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem expected the Easter crowning of the new King, which was by no means an innovation. As Jay Rubenstein has convincingly argued, in 1101 Baldwin I received a festal crowning on Easter Sunday in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, also marking a triumph over Patriarch Daimbert in the struggle for full royal authority.55 This first Easter coronation was followed by two festal coronations (Festkrönungen) that celebrated his first coronation, and which each occurred on Easter, once in 1107 the other in 1112.56 There is no doubt that royal participation in the Easter liturgy in the Holy Sepulchre quickly became one of the important phenomena in the political culture of the Latin East. In the first and second decades of the crusader states, the Latin kings of Jerusalem manifested their power in the frame of the Easter liturgy, corresponding with the fact that the Latin liturgical order of the Holy Sepulchre became Easter-centered.57 Through the Easter elevation to the royal throne, Baldwin II followed in his predecessor’s footsteps. The Good Friday rituals in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem under Latin rule had their own unique character. Importantly, a prayerbook of Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem, known as the Melisende Psalter, contains formulas for the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday which were chosen as opening prayers to the book, thus revealing the high importance of that ritual for the royal court in Latin Jerusalem.58 The liturgy for that day focused on the relic of the Cross – the same relic that had been found by the crusaders after the conquest in 1099 – which quickly became the tangible sign that the Latin rulers of the Holy City enjoyed 53 Andrew Buck, ‘Remembering Outremer in the West: The “Secunda pars historiae Iherosolimitanae” and the Crisis of Crusading in Mid-Twelfth-Century France’, Speculum (forthcoming). My warm thanks to Andrew Buck for sharing this article before publication. 54 Chroniques d’Anjou, ed. by Paul Marchegay and Andre Salmon (Paris: Renouard, 1856), p. 154. See also: Nicholas Paul, ‘Crusade, Memory and Regional Politics in Twelfth-Century Amboise’, Journal of Medieval History, 31 (2005), pp. 127–41. 55 Rubenstein, ‘Holy Fire and Sacral kingship’, pp. 480–83. 56 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, pp. 748–49, 834–35. On festal coronations see also: Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship, pp. 136–39. 57 Sebastian Salvado, ‘Rewriting the Latin Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre: Text, Ritual and Devotion for 1149’, Journal of Medieval History, 43/4 (2017), 403–20. 58 Melisende Psalter, London, British Library, Egerton MS 1139, fols 21v–22r. The Queen Melisende’s prayerbook has been identified as produced in a scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and is dated c. 1135, see: Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular, pp. 62–63.
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God’s favour.59 This relic was solemnly adored during the ceremony in the chapel of Calvary. According to the Jerusalem Ordinal, after singing matins, deacons car‐ ried the precious relic in a procession from the treasury to the chapel of Calvary60 The very place of Christ’s crucifixion served as a space for commemorating the death of the Saviour and for venerating the victorious power of the Holy Cross. In front of the relic, which the Jerusalemite forces usually carried into battle against the enemies of Christ, a deacon recited the account of the Passion of the Lord from the Gospel. Then, the special solemn prayers for (among others) the Church, the pope, and the king were sung. The singing of the Orationes solemnes was one of the more public moments during the Good Friday liturgy.61 It should be noted here, that there is no direct evidence indicating a precise course of Baldwin II’s participation in Paschal Triduum rituals. Nonetheless, it is worth considering a probable significance of Good Friday as well as the Holy Saturday liturgy for the process of the inauguration of the new ruler in the Latin kingdom in 1118. Baldwin, who presumably at that moment was the elected but still uncrowned ruler, could easily exploit the rituals of the Paschal Triduum to confirm his royal dignity. Furthermore, a key role occupied by Patriarch Arnulf, suggested by Albert of Aachen and by William of Tyre, might have resulted in exploitation of the liturgy, as took place on Palm Sunday.62 Additionally, both sources mention that Baldwin II came to Jerusalem to participate in Easter celebrations.63 Despite not having a full account of Baldwin II’s role in the Paschal Triduum and Easter liturgy, the evidence associates the new ruler with liturgical rituals. Although liturgical books used in 1118 are not preserved, Jerusalem sacra‐ mentaries produced around ten years after Baldwin II’s accession to the throne, contain the solemn prayer for a king on Good Friday, which allows assuming their performance during here discussed celebration.64 Crucially, the ritual of
59 Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 495. 60 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, pp. 584–85. 61 The exceptionally public character of the Good Friday solemn prayers is stressed by: Ildar H. Garipzanov, The Symbolic Language of Authority in the Carolingian World (c. 751–877) (LeidenBoston: Brill, 2008), p. 67. 62 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 872, Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, p. 549. 63 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 872: ‘Venerat enim idem Baldewinus ad diem festum adorare in Jerusalem, de omnibus quae acciderant nescius’; Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, p. 548: ‘Anno igitur sui comitatus octavo decimo, regione sua in optata tranquillitate locata, proposuit Hierosolymorum regem, dominum, consanguineum et benefactorem suum, et loca sancta, devotionis gratia visitare’. 64 Jerusalem Sacramentary Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, MS 477, fols 55v–56r: ‘Oremus et pro christianissimo rege nostro N. ut deus et dominus noster subditas illi faciat omnes barbaras nationes ad nostram perpetuam pacem. Oremus. Flectamus genua. Levate. Omnipotens sempiterne deus in cuius manu sunt omnes potestates et iura regnorum, respice ad romanum benignus imperium, ut gentes quae in sua feritate confidunt, potentiae tuae dextera comprimantur’. Importantly, Paris, BnF, MS latin 12056, fol. 102r has ‘christianum’ instead of ‘romanum’. The significance of these prayers for an imperial and royal authority has been pointed out by: Gerd Tellenbach, ‘Römischer und
PALM SUNDAY AND EASTER 1118 IN THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM
the solemn prayers was performed in the chapel of Calvary, according to the narratives, in the presence of the dead King’s body that was buried on Palm Sun‐ day near the chapel’s entrance, and perhaps in the presence of the elected ruler. Through his most probable participation in this unique ritual, Baldwin II demon‐ strated his relationship with the symbols of crusader Jerusalem: the relic of the Cross, the place of Crucifixion, and the tombs of the previous Latin rulers: Godfrey and Baldwin I. Baldwin II’s possible visual presence during the solemn prayer for the king might have contributed to strengthening his authority. One of the most significant part of the Paschal Triduum in Jerusalem was the miracle of Holy Fire that takes place on Holy Saturday.65 From the very beginnings of the Latin Kingdom, this ritual had played a fundamental role for Baldwin I. In 1101, the King successfully employed the failure of this miracle on Holy Saturday to diminish the position of Patriarch Daimbert, which in consequence allowed him to celebrate the first Easter coronation in the Holy Sepulchre on the next day.66 In the next years of his reign, Baldwin I used the Easter fire to connect the solemn Easter liturgy with a public manifestation of the royal prestige and power.67 According to the Jerusalem Ordinal, in the key moment, it was the king who took an eminent role in the ceremony. According to the liturgical evidence, when the fire appeared in the Aedicule, the patriarch took the king’s candle, then entered the Aedicule and lit the king’s candle from the Holy Fire.68 The patriarch handed the candle to the king and then, as Abbot Daniel describes, the monarch ‘took his place, holding the candle with great joy’.69 The account of Abbot Daniel, written in 1107, is of great importance because it confirms that from the early years, Baldwin I as King had the special privilege of holding the first candle lit from the Holy Fire. The Latin monarch’s holding of the first candle lit from the Holy Fire manifested his position as mediator between God and the people, and portrayed him as a tangible and visible testimony to the power and grace of God. This gesture provides another example of the sacralization of royal power within the liturgy. Given the patriarch Arnulf ’s strong impact on the here discussed
65
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christlicher Reichsgedanke in der Liturgie des frühen Mittelalters’, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophischhistorische Klasse, 1 (1934/1935), 1–71 (pp. 26–29). See Andrew Jotischky, ‘Holy Fire and Holy Sepulchre: Ritual and Space in Jerusalem from the Ninth to the Fourteenth Centuries’, in Ritual and Space in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 2009 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by Frances Andrews (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2011), pp. 44–60; Alexei Lidov, ‘The Holy Fire and Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, East and West’, in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, ed. by Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, and Hanna Vorholt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 241–52. Rubenstein, ‘Holy Fire and Sacral Kingship’, pp. 480–83. Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 748: ‘in hac sacra sollempnitate dominice resurrectionis gloriose et catholice coronatus est’; Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 834: ‘diem vero sancti Pasche in omni honore et gloria propter legatos regis Grecorum iussu domni patriarche coronatus sollempniter ac regaliter celebravit’. Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, pp. 587–88: ‘Deinde patriarcha et regi si presens fuerit et ceteris omnibus oblatum ignem deferre vel mittere festinat’. Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185, ed. by John Wilkinson, Joyce Hill, and William F. Ryan (London: The Hakluyt Society, 1988), p. 169.
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events, it is hardly imaginable that such an important celebration as the Paschal Vigil would not serve as a space for confirming Baldwin II’s elevation to the royal throne. Presumably the new monarch, imitating his predecessor, appeared in front of the gathering when the Paschal candle was lit from the Holy Fire. This ritual was both religious and political, because the liturgy made manifest the continuity of the political body of the Crusader kingdom in its deep relationship with the place of Christ’s resurrection. According to the Jerusalem Ordinal, the king could have held the candle lit from the Holy Fire when the Te Deum laudamus and Exultet were sung solemnly.70 The singing of Exultet was an act of veneration for the royal dignity of the resurrected Christ introduced at the beginning of the chant in conjunction with a possible supplication for the new ruler occurring usually in the finale of the Exultet.71 The anointing and crowning on the following Easter Sunday marked the final stage in the process of king-making. However, vocabulary used by the chroniclers has caused discussion among modern historians over the Easter crowning of Bald‐ win II. Fulcher of Chartres, a member of the Crusader Jerusalem elite and witness to this events, mentions briefly that Baldwin II ‘die Pasche est consecratus’.72 On the other hand, Albert of Aachen uses both words: ‘unctus’ and ‘coronatus’.73 Nevertheless, given that Fulcher described Baldwin I’s inauguration by using the word ‘coronatus’ but for Baldwin II only state ‘consecratus’, some scholars have come to believe that Baldwin II was only anointed but not crowned on Easter 1118. Scholars as Hans E. Mayer, Allan V. Murray, Malcolm Barber, have stated so and have been trying to explain the lack of the word ‘coronatus’ in Fulcher of Chartres’s chronicle.74 As a one possible reason for avoiding coronation in 1118,
70 Salvado, The Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, p. 587: ‘Deinde patriarcha et regi si presens fuerit et ceteris omnibus oblatum ignem deferre vel mittere festinat. Quo miraculo viso patriarcha per gaudio lacrimando incipit Te deum laudamus duobus maioribus signis pulsantibus’. 71 Again, there is a difference between the two early Jerusalem sacramentaries: Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, MS 477, fol. 61r: ‘Precamur ergo te domine, ut nos famulos tuos, omnem clerum, et devotissimum populum, una cum papa nostro, et antistite nostro, et rege nostro, quiete temporum concessa in his festis paschalibus gaudiis conservare digneris’. In Paris, BnF, MS latin 12056, fol. 108r there is ‘imperatore nostro’ instead of ‘rege nostro’. See Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, 81–82; Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ‘A Norman Finale of the Exultet and the Rite of Sarum’, The Harvard Theological Review 34/2 (1941), 129–43; For a detailed examination of the Exultet and its political significance with an extensive bibliography see: Figurski, ‘The “Exultet” of Bolesław II of Mazovia and the Sacralisation of Political Power in the High Middle Ages’, pp. 90–98. It is worth noting that both of the early sacramentaries contain a prayer for a king in a In primis section of the Roman Canon: Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 49, fol. 76r; Paris, BnF, MS latin 12056, fol. 171v. On the prayer for a ruler in the Roman Canon and its significance for sacralization of power see: Figurski, ‘The “Exultet”’, pp. 73–110 (pp. 95–96), where is included extensive bibliography of this topic. 72 Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 616. 73 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 872. 74 Murray, The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, pp. 121–23; Barber, The Crusader States, pp. 119–20; Mayer, ‘Melanges sur l’histoire du royaume latin de Jerusalem’, pp. 77–78; Hans E. Mayer, ‘Das Pontifikale von Tyrus und die Krönung der Lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Forschung über Herrschaftzeichen und Staatssymbolik’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 21 (1967),
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they have pointed to a passage in William of Tyre’s chronicle describing Eustace of Boulogne, elder brother of Godfrey and Baldwin, who, while traveling to the Holy Land through Italy, had decided to resign from Jerusalem’s crown in response to a message about Baldwin II’s election, and they have drawn a conclusion that Latin Jerusalem elite had been waiting with coronation for Eustace’s renunci‐ ation.75 A different possible explanation for a lack of true coronation at Easter is that Baldwin II was actually only really crowned at Christmas 1119 along with his wife Morfia, who became the first Queen of Jerusalem under Latin rule.76 According to this opinion Baldwin II had waited until there appeared a possibility to perform a crowning of the royal couple. Nevertheless, a problem of wording in descriptions of royal inaugurations in narrative sources has been recently examined by Johanna Dale. Through a comparative approach, she has explained that the verb ‘consecrare’, used by Fulcher and Albert in regard to Bald‐ win II in 1118, actually means a complete ceremony of inauguration of the new monarch.77 Simon John has recently named this misunderstanding of narratives on Baldwin II’s inauguration as ‘quirk of historiography’.78 The Easter liturgy in 1118 in Jerusalem envisioned the ritual of royal unction and crowning that exhibited and confirmed the political ideas expressed by the al‐ ready mentioned rituals performed during Holy Week. The exceptional character of this ritual ought not to be overlooked. Easter Sunday marks the most important day in the liturgical calendar, and the Latins of Outremer enjoyed the privilege of celebrating this festivity at the very place where the Crucifixion and Resurrection took place. The Easter liturgy, therefore, was treated by the crusaders as central for their own spirituality and their political and social identity.79 The here discussed course of Baldwin II’s inauguration might have marked an important point in the process of making a liturgical order in crusader Jerusalem Easter-centered.
75 76
77 78 79
141–232 (pp. 152–53); Hans E. Mayer, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, 10th edn (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005), p. 98. Guillaume de Tyr, Chronique, p. 550. Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 635: ‘Cum autem post negotia pleraque perpetrate rex ab Antiochia regressus esset Hierusalem, cum uxore sua diademate regio die Nativitatis dominicae coronatus est in Bethleem’. See Heinrich Hagenmeyer’s commentary to this passage, where he has stressed that coronation in 1119 marked a fulfillment of the Baldwin II’s inauguration: Fulcherii Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana, p. 636. Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship, pp. 131–41. John, ‘Royal Inauguration and Liturgical Culture’, p. 494. Chants and prayers performed in the Holy Sepulcher on the day of the crusader conquest (15 July 1099) were based on the Easter liturgy: Le ‘Liber’ de Raymond d’Aguilers, ed. by John H. Hill and Laurita L. Hill, Documents relatifs à l’histoire des Croisades, 9 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1969), p. 151. A liturgical order in the Holy Sepulcher as Easter-centered has been examined in detail by Salvado, ‘Rewriting the Latin Liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre’, pp. 403–20. A key role played by Holy Week and Easter liturgy in sermons composed to propagate an idea of crusading has been examined by: Jessalyn Bird, ‘“Far be it from Me to Glory Save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6. 14): Crusade Preaching and Sermons for Good Friday and Holy Week’, in Crusading in Art, Thought and Will, ed. by Matthew E. Parker, Ben Halliburton, and Anne Romine (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2019), pp. 129–65.
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The crowning of the new ruler in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Easter concluded the sequence of the Holy Week celebrations that had led to the new monarch’s enthronement. Subsequently, according to Albert of Aachen, the gathering formed a procession to the Temple and the so-called Palace of Solomon, where a banquet took place during which royal vassals made oaths of loyalty to the new King.80 This course of events is strikingly similar to descriptions of the royal inauguration in the Crusader kingdom that are preserved in later sources.81
Conclusion This essay has demonstrated that a joint political-liturgical perspective leads to a better understanding of the communication and the construction of a vi‐ sion of the past in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. It also helps to place the unique political-religious culture of the Latin East in a broader context. The reign of Baldwin II was memorialized as having been inaugurated in the frame of Christo-mimetic liturgical rituals performed at the holy sites, potent with latent symbolism. In the difficult circumstances of the dynastic crisis and the context of a political struggle for power, Baldwin II and his followers fully exploited the po‐ tential of the liturgy and topography of Jerusalem to construct and communicate his royal authority.
80 Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana, p. 873. 81 John of Ibelin, Le Livre des Assisses, ed. by Peter Edbury (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 569–80.
VEDRA N SuLOVSkY
The Barbarossaleuchter Imperial Monument and Pious Donation
The Barbarossaleuchter in Aachen’s Marienkirche (Figure 1) belongs to a special type of chandelier called Kronleuchter or Lichterkrone in German, couronne de lumière in French and corona luminaria in Latin. The four surviving examples of the crown chandelier type can all be found in Germany, two of them being in Hildesheim, one in Großcomburg and one in Aachen.1 They all represent heavenly Jerusalem. I shall show that the Barbarossaleuchter, which has been attributed to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa’s (r. 1152–1190) commission and associated with the canonization of Charlemagne, is clearly a part of both, but not as a part of an overarching sacrum imperium programme as previous scholars supposed. More tangibly, I shall demonstrate the relevance of relics and the cult of saints for Aachen’s liturgy by showing that it is much more likely that these affected the artistic choices governing the making of the Barbarossaleuchter, than the previous theory, which held that it was all a grand imperial plan to oppose the sacral domination of the Papacy. A re-evaluation of the Barbarossaleuchter’s relationship to other contemporary sources from Aachen, such as the relic list of c. 1170 and the Annales Aquenses, which scholars have never utilized, but also the fourteenth-century Liber ordinarius of the Marienkirche, which Michael McGrade read, and sometimes misread, will clearly show the myopic nature of the regnant theories. Finally, this article should resolve the dating of the chandelier, which is crucial for any interpretation of the object. Several smaller points, which should be of interest to scholars of Aachen, Fred‐ erick Barbarossa and imperial ideology, will be addressed as well. Art historians will find a new tentative reconstruction of the chandelier’s lost images based on Aachen’s long-neglected lists of relics, as well as a better English translation of the inscriptions, which should make earlier, less accurate translations, redundant. The new translations shall be used to prove the existence of an otherwise unattested vow by Frederick Barbarossa to donate his crown to the Virgin in return for something, most probably the health and salvation of his new family. Some of these findings are major, other minor, but in their totality they fundamentally
1 Georg Minkenberg, ‘Der Barbarossaleuchter im Dom zu Aachen’, Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins, 96 (1989), 69–102 (p. 89). (Later: ZAGV). Vedran Sulovsky • University of Cambridge
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change how the Barbarossaleuchter, one of the most famous artworks from twelfth-century Germany, is understood. There are a couple of final remarks to be made before the reader is allowed to begin his travails through Aachen’s past. It will not have escaped the connois‐ seurs of Kantorowicz’ opus that he never, in fact, dealt with twelfth-century Aachen. Another famous scholar of medieval political ideology, Percy Ernst Schramm, did not explore the topic either. So, what is a predominantly art histori‐ cal piece doing in a collection inspired by one of the twentieth century’s greatest and most controversial medievalists? Curiously, the answer is: more than one would think. Kantorowicz (and Schramm) belonged to the interwar generation of German medievalists, who were notable for several reasons, but primarily for their loosening the grip of Pertz’s, Ranke’s, Waitz’s, Savigny’s, and Sickel’s positivist approach to sources. And yet, for both scholars’ German scholarly outlook one will not find a single work of theirs dedicated to Aachen proper. Their ideological history was writ large: kingdoms and empires, popes and emperors, Charlemagne and Byzantium were the leitmotifs of their resplendent Middle Ages – not small cities on the border of Germany, such as was Aachen. They investigated the coronation in de‐ tail through its formulaic and liturgical aspects, but never did the Marienkirche, the site of royal coronation, nor Frederick Barbarossa, become the centre of their attention. One has to turn to their followers and contemporaries, whose evolving views were tempered by their regional traditions, to find discussion of these. Where the pre-World War I generation of scholars discovered that the earliest chancery document containing the term sacrum imperium belonged to the year 1157, when Frederick Barbarossa’s conflict with Pope Hadrian IV (r. 1154–1159) erupted at the disastrous diet of Besançon, it was only the Austrian Alois Dempf ’s 1929 book Sacrum imperium that first explored at length the hypothetical deep meaning of the titular syntagm.2 His pupil, the Austrian Friedrich Heer, would go on to author the two-volume giant, Die Tragödie des Heiligen Reiches, in 1952– 1953, which rebranded a plethora of separate persons, objects, phenomena and processes as parts of a so-called sacrum imperium doctrine of the supremacy of the State over the Church.3 Subsequent scholars rarely openly cited Heer’s populist publication, but its influence on the perception of Barbarossa and Aachen can hardly be overestimated. In the 1950s, Ernst Günther Grimme began his work on Aachen, much of which was influenced by Heer’s conception of Frederick Barbarossa and his relationship to Aachen, and he continued to improve and update it until he died in 2003. Through his 50-year-long career he wrote about a dozen standard works on everything in the Marienkirche from c. 900 to c. 1450. Never a master of textual sources, he specialized in detailed contextual descriptions and finding 2 Alois Dempf, Sacrum imperium. Geschichts- und Staatsphilosophie des Mittelalters und der politischen Renaissance, 3rd edn (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1962). 3 Friedrich Heer, Die Tragödie des Heiligen Reiches, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1952–1953).
THE BARBAROSSALEUCHTER
alluring visual connections to what he saw in Aachen. Where earlier scholars knew the Barbarossaleuchter as a liturgical chandelier, Grimme saw a floating halo for the body of St Charlemagne (canonized under odd circumstances in 1165), whose reliquary shrine supposedly lay beneath the colossal crown. The sixteen German kings and emperors on the shrine’s lateral sides were for Grimme proof of an imperial programme to not only sanctify Charlemagne, but to sacralize the Empire itself in a titanic struggle between the Empire and the Papacy.4 His views remain dominant even unto this very day, although Renate Kroos and her school have managed to create several significant dents in his armour.5 Most recently, Ute Fessmann revitalized Grimme’s theories with an influx of fresh and enticing ideas.6 The exasperated reader must be tired of this historiographic tirade by now and wonder what all this has got to do with Kantorowicz. The answer, on the whole, is that while the idea that the Barbarossaleuchter was part of the sacrum imperium programme is not one of Kantorowicz’s, it is a lasting product of the same school of thought to such an extent that one will find references to him in most any scholarly work on post-Carolingian Aachen, in spite of him never having dedicated a study to the locality itself. One would nowadays expect Barbarossa’s Aachen to have been discussed in detail by Kantorowicz and Schramm, but, as is often the case, our memory of our predecessors is distorted by the present situation. Finally, the purpose of this article is to conceptually rescue the Bar‐ barossaleuchter from its subordination to the Karlsschrein, that has dominated scholarship since Grimme’s and Horst Appuhn’s work. Earlier scholars, including
4 Ernst G. Grimme, ‘Mittelalterliche Karlsreliquiare. Die Verehrung Karls des Großen, dargestellt anhand von Aachener Reliquienbehältern und anderen Werken der Goldschmiedekunst’, Aachener Kunstblätter, 16 (1957), 30–36; Ernst G. Grimme, ‘Das Armreliquiar Karls des Großen’, Aachener Kunstblätter, 29 (1964), 68–77; Ernst G. Grimme, ‘Karl der Große in seiner Stadt’, in Karl der Grosse: Lebenswerk und Nachleben, vol. 4: Das Nachleben, ed. by Wolfgang Braunfels and Percy E. Schramm (Düsseldorf: L. Schwann, 1967), p. 235; Ernst G. Grimme, Der Aachener Domschatz (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1972), pp. 54, 61, 64–65; Ernst G. Grimme, Goldschmiedekunst im Mittelalter. Form und Bedeutung des Reliquiars von 800 bis 1500 (Cologne: DuMont Schauberg, 1972), pp. 64–66, 68–78; Ernst G. Grimme, Der Dom zu Aachen: Architektur und Ausstattung (Aachen: Einhard, 1994), pp. 148–67; Ernst G. Grimme, ‘Die Ikonographie des Aachener Marienschreins’, in Der Aachener Marienschrein: eine Festschrift, ed. by Dieter P. J. Wynands (Aachen: Einhard, 2000), pp. 91–100; Ernst G. Grimme, Der Karlsschrein und der Marienschrein im Aachener Dom (Aachen: Einhard, 2002), especially pp. 9–67. 5 Renate Kroos, ‘Zum Aachener Karlsschrein. “Abbild staufischen Kaisertums” oder “fundatores ac dotatores”?’, in Karl der Große als vielberufener Vorfahr: Sein Bild in der Kunst der Fürsten, Kirchen und Städte, ed. by Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1994), pp. 49–61; Kerstin Wiese, ‘Der Aachener Karlsschrein: Zeugnis lokalkirchlicher Selbstdarstellung’, in Karl der Große und das Erbe der Kulturen, ed. by Franz-Reiner Erkens (Berlin: Akademie, 2001), pp. 257–74; Viola Belghaus, Der erzählte Körper: die Inszenierung der Reliquien Karls des Grossen und Elisabeths von Thüringen (Berlin: Reimer, 2005). 6 Ute Fessmann, Das Programm des Karlsschreins im Kontext seiner Zeit (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2019).
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Franz Bock, Max Creutz, Joseph Buchkremer, Erich Meyer, and Felix Kreusch, worked extensively on reconstructing the object from early modern descriptions, and more modern scholars, such as Georg Minkenberg, Herta Lepie, Hanna Wimmer, and Vera Henkelmann, have avoided the political implications of the dominant theory. The issue with their views is best exemplified in the work of Wimmer, the only art historian to openly confront Grimme’s thesis: she strongly disagreed with his ideas, but found no other way to explain the particularities of the Aquensian chandelier.7 While this article will not address all the problems of the Barbarossaleuchter, it will hopefully finally lay Grimme’s theory to rest, and also open up a new avenue of research.
Context The Barbarossaleuchter’s relevance for German history and historiography can hardly be overstated. It is considered to be the prime monument of Frederick Bar‐ barossa’s so-called sacrum imperium plan to restore imperial rule in Italy, to subject the pope to imperial authority and to resacralize the Empire. As the most spec‐ tacular object securely attributed to Frederick as a patron, the crown chandelier attracts political interpretations like a magnet. The most common interpretation is that it represents the heavenly crown that was hung above Charlemagne’s remains in or around 1165, when Barbarossa had the Carolingian canonized by Antipope Paschal III (r. 1164–1168). The chandelier would have represented the fulfilment of the canonization, that is, Charlemagne’s entry in heavenly Jerusalem, the home of all saints. Additionally, as the chandelier and the shrine containing the deceased Emperor’s body were located in the centre of the Marienkirche, they would have
7 Charles Cahier, ‘Couronne de lumière d’Aix-la-Chapelle, et monuments analogues du moyen âge’, in Mélanges d’archéologie, d’histoire et de littérature: collection de mémoires sur l’orfévrerie et les émaux des trésors d’Aix-la-Chapelle, de Cologne, etc., ed. by Charles Cahier and Arthur Martin, 4 vols (Paris: Mme Ve Poussielgue-Rusand, 1847–1856), III, pp. 37–54; Franz Bock, Der Kronleuchter Kaisers Friedrich Barbarossa im Karolingischen Münster zu Aachen und die formverwandten Lichterkronen zu Hildesheim und Comburg: nebst 20 erklärenden Holzschnitten und 16 von den Original-Kupferplatten des Aachener Kronleuchters abgezogenen Darstellungen (Leipzig: Weigel, 1864); Joseph Buchkremer, ‘Neue Wahrnehmungen am Kronleuchter im Aachener Münster’, ZAGV, 24 (1902), 317–31; Max Creutz, ‘Der Künstler und Werkmeister des Kronleuchters Friedrich Barbarossas im Münster zu Aachen’, Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein, 94 (1913), 51–67; Viktor Griessmaier, ‘Zu den Gravierungen des Aachener Kronleuchters’, in Josef Strzygowski Festschrift. Zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht von seinen Schülern, ed. by Siegmund von Hausegger (Klagenfurt: Kollitsch, 1932), pp. 72–75; Erich Meyer, Bildnis und Kronleuchter Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossas (Berlin: Mann, 1946); Felix Kreusch, ‘Zur Planung des Aachener Barbarossaleuchters’, Aachener Kunstblätter, 22 (1961), 21–36; Minkenberg, ‘Der Barbarossaleuchter’, pp. 69–102; Herta Lepie, Der Barbarossaleuchter im Dom zu Aachen (Aachen: Einhard, 1998); Hanna Wimmer, ‘The Iconographic Programme of the Barbarossa Candelabrum in the Palatine Chapel at Aachen: A Re-Interpretation’, Immediations, 2 (2005), 24–39; Vera Henkelmann, ‘Die Inszenierung der Aachener Marienkirche durch künstliches Licht im Mittelalter’, Aachener Kunstblätter, 66 (2014–2017), 13–44.
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been used as a part of the background in the German royal coronation, when the new king-to-be-emperor would receive his crown beneath the former and beside the latter. According to Grimme, the chandelier was complete only at the moment the new ruler arrived beneath the chandelier, because it would then have resembled the depiction of Frederick Barbarossa on his golden bulls (1152). The bulls’ crowned ruler with insignia standing in the centre of the walled city of Rome was thus supposedly imitated by the Barbarossaleuchter (presumably between 1165 and 1184).8 Additionally, Caroline Horch even suggested that the Cappenberg head (sometime between 1152 and 1158), an object she considered a portrait of Frederick Barbarossa, stood beneath the chandelier, thus fulfilling the same role in the emperor’s absence.9 No evidence can be found for either of the proposals linking the chandelier with the golden bulls or the reliquary head in Cappenberg, but the shrine of Charlemagne is more problematic, as is the heated scholarly debate around it.
Form and Inscriptions The Aquensian crown chandelier is constructed in the form of an octagon with curved sides. Each side of the chandelier’s octagon is located between two towers, and each of the sides contains a tower in the middle, adding up to sixteen towers in total. All other surviving crown chandeliers are circular, but a now lost example may have been octagon-based just like the Aquensian one.10 The Bar‐ barossaleuchter originally had forty-eight candles on top of its sides. The sixteen towers once contained eighty-eight figural reliefs, which I shall discuss at the end of the chapter; they are of particular relevance to my main argument. The towers’ bottom sides still contain eight engraved plates of Christ’s blessings from the Sermon on the Mount alternating with eight scenes from the life of Christ. There is an engraved plate with St Michael in the middle of the chandelier, just beneath the golden ball which connects all the chains. The Barbarossaleuchter’s diameter is 4.15 to 4.23 meters.11 The object’s perimeter is 16.55 meters, whereas the distance between each pair of its towers is 1.50 meters. While the precise measurements of a material object may often seem irrelevant to textual scholars, Kreusch demon‐ strated that in this case they are significant, and that the Barbarossaleuchter is
8 Grimme, Der Dom zu Aachen: Architektur und Ausstattung, p. 146; Ernst G. Grimme, ‘Das Bildprogramm des Aachener Karlsschreins’, in Karl der Große und sein Schrein in Aachen. Eine Festschrift, ed. by Hans Müllejans (Aachen: Einhard, 1988), pp. 124–35 (p. 133). 9 Caroline Horch, ‘Nach dem Bild des Kaisers’: Funktionen und Bedeutungen des Cappenberger Barbarossakopfes (Cologne: Böhlau, 2013), pp. 212–22. 10 Adelheid Kitt, ‘Der frühromanische Kronleuchter und seine Symbolik’, 2 vols (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Vienna, 1944), II, pp. 56–59. 11 Kreusch, ‘Zur Planung des Aachener Barbarossaleuchters’, p. 26; Lepie, Der Barbarossaleuchter im Dom zu Aachen, p. 7.
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in perfect harmony with the inner proportions of the Aquensian church.12 This means that the chandelier was designed to complement the church’s imagery and style. The sides of the octagon were once made up of three parts: the upper and lower segments are gilded copper and each contains an eight-verse inscription, the middle part has been missing for at least two centuries. There are at least two different options for what it might have contained, if analogy can be trusted as a method. The chandelier in Großcomburg (Figure 2), the best preserved of the remaining crown chandeliers, contains a frieze of men battling other men and wild beasts, which, in the eschatological context of the crown chandelier type, can be taken to mean the struggle between good and evil.13 The Heziloleuchter in the cathedral of Hildesheim (Figure 3), on the other hand, has on its inner side a frieze of palmettes. Since it has twenty-four segments, and each segment has six palmettes, this makes up the number 144, which corresponds to the length, width and height of the walls of heavenly Jerusalem according to the Rev. 21. 7.14 I would exclude the possibility of image-carrying medallions being located on it (as can be found on the Hartwigleuchter in Großcomburg), as no early modern source mentions or depicts them. Palmettes or drollery would not have left a lasting impression on the authors of our seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources, so this type of decoration might have been present on the Barbarossaleuchter. The full inscription follows with my own verse by verse translation: Symbolized by this image is heavenly Jerusalem, The vision of peace, where certain tranquillity awaits us. The famous John, by the grace of Christ harbinger of salvation, Which the patriarchs, the prophets and the virtue Of apostolic light founded through the life in accordance with the teachings, [That John] saw the city descend from the starry skies, Shimmering with the purest gold and shining with gemstones. In this homeland bring us, we beseech you, oh good Mary! The Catholic Caesar of the Romans, Frederick, Whose gifts make the clergy pay attention To the temple’s model in number and form Of this octagonal gift of a royal crown, That pious king piously vowed and fulfilled his vow to Mary, Therefore, star of the sea, who are brighter than the stars,
12 Kreusch, ‘Zur Planung des Aachener Barbarossaleuchters’, pp. 26–27. 13 Kitt, ‘Der frühromanische Kronleuchter und seine Symbolik’, II, p. 95. 14 Willmuth Arenhövel, Der Hezilo-Radleuchter im Dom zu Hildesheim. Beiträge zur Hildesheimer Kunst des 11. Jahrhunderts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Ornamentik (Berlin: Mann, 1975), p. 95. If not stated otherwise, I follow Biblia Sacra juxta Vulgatam Clementinam, ed. by Michael Tweedale (London: electronic edition, 2005).
THE BARBAROSSALEUCHTER
Take the munificent Frederick into your devout prayer, And join unto him his co-ruler, Beatrix.15 The upper inscription is more general, narrating to the viewer that the crown chandelier is a representation of heavenly Jerusalem, which John the Evangelist (according to medieval tradition) had seen. The inhabitants of the city are the patriarchs and the prophets, and also (metaphorically) the light of apostolic virtue. The inscription concludes by calling on the Virgin Mary to intercede for the community to reach this holy city.
Spatial, Temporal, and Liturgical References within the Inscriptions: Dating the Barbarossaleuchter The second inscription calls on the clergy to pay attention to the numerological and structural elements of the Barbarossaleuchter, which Frederick terms a royal crown given to the Virgin Mary. The final verses are simple, as Frederick asks the Virgin Mary to pray for him and his co-ruler Beatrix. These, however, also give us the terminus post quem and the terminus ante quem: Frederick married Beatrix only in June 1156, and she died in November 1184. Some scholars have suggested that the chandelier could not have predated the canonization of Charlemagne on 29 December 1165.16 This seems certain, but cannot be proven, as the inscriptions do not refer to Charlemagne. Whereas most art historians have dated the object to the period between 1165 and 1170, Andermahr dated it to the early 1170s on the basis of style.17 However, one should use the stylistic dating only as a general 15 Celica Iherusalem signatur imagine tali Visio pacis certa quietis spes ibi nobis Ille Iohannes gracia Christi preco salutis Qua(m) patriarche qua(m)q(ue) p(ro)ph(et)e deniq(ue) virtus Lucis apostolice fundavit dogmate vita Urbem siderea labentem vidit ab aetthra Auro ridentem mundo gemmis que nitentem Qua nos in patria precibus pia siste Maria. Caesar catholicus Romanoru(m) Frideric(us) Cum specie numerum cogens attendere cleru(m) Ad templi normam sua sumunt munera formam Istius octogone donu(m) regale corone Rex pius ipse pie vovit solvitq(ue) Marie Ergo Stella maris astris prefulgida claris Suscipe munificum prece devota Fridericum Conregnatricem sibi iunge suam Beatricem. 16 Minkenberg, ‘Der Barbarossaleuchter’, p. 91. 17 Bernhard Andermahr, ‘Zwischen Himmel und Erde. Die Bodenplatten des Barbarossa–Leuchters im Aachener Dom: Ein Beitrag zur staufischen Goldschmiedekunst im Rhein-Maas-Gebiet’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, 1994), pp. 138–50.
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guideline, meaning that it is most likely that the Barbarossaleuchter was made between 29 December 1165 and around 1175. Lepie suggested that the chandelier was completed for the coronation of Henry VI on 15 August 1169, on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.18 However, it is more likely that the chandelier would have been dedicated during one of Frederick’s visits, as he was its patron, and in 1169 Frederick was not present for his son’s coronation.19 Frederick turned up in Aachen in 1171 and arranged the building of the city’s fortifications, but otherwise nothing particularly interesting for Aachen is recorded about this visit. In 1174, on the other hand, the entire imperial family visited Aachen and Frederick, Beatrix, and the young Henry VI were all festively crowned.20 The Annales Aquenses, a set of annals written by the canons of Aachen from about 1175 until the 1190s in three phases, but completely ignored by scholars working on Aachen’s artistic heritage, dedicate several lines to the 1174 stay, mentioning the festivities, but also the visit of Saladin’s envoys. The entry is particularly interesting in that it gives the dating in both anno Domini and anno mundi style, where the anno mundi dating gives the round and symbolic number 6400 (= 8 × 8 × 100): ‘In 1174. In the 6400th year since the beginning of the world. The emperor was crowned in Aachen on Easter day, as were his son and the empress, and all this happened in the presence of the messengers of Saladin. An expedition into Italy was staged’.21 Given that the Barbarossaleuchter’s structure is almost entirely based on the number eight, and that Frederick’s solemn visit is recorded in such a special way, it seems most probable that the Barbarossaleuchter was dedicated on Easter, 24 March 1174 in the presence of the imperial family. This has far reaching implications for Aachen’s decorative, liturgical, and polit‐ ical outlook. Yet the numerological plain was not exhausted by this connection. While at first sight the number 1174 does not seem to bear any symbolic relationship to the years of Charlemagne’s reign, if one counts back eight years from the Easter 1174 inauguration of the Barbarossaleuchter to the canonization of Charlemagne, which occurred on 29 December 1165. A careful reader of the annals of the high medieval period would note that the year changed on Christmas day according to the local reckoning,22 so that what is currently written
18 Lepie, Der Barbarossaleuchter im Dom zu Aachen, p. 7. 19 Erich Meuthen, ‘Barbarossa und Aachen’, Rheinische Vierteljahresblätter, 39 (1975), 29–33; Die Regesten des Kaiserreiches unter Friedrich I. 1152 (1122) – 1190, ed. by Johann Friedrich Böhmer and Ferdinand Opll, 4 vols, Regesta imperii, 4/2 (Vienna et al.: Böhlau, 2001), III: 1168–1180, p. 22. 20 Anonymus, ‘Annales Aquenses’, in Annales aevi Suevici (Supplementa tomorum XVI et XVII). Gesta saec. XII. XIII. (Supplementa tomorum XX–XXIII), ed. by Georg Waitz, MGH SS, 24 (Hanover: Hahn, 1879), p. 38, ad annos 1171 et 1174. 21 ‘Annales Aquenses’, p. 38, ad annum 1174: 1174. Anni ab inicio mundi 6400. Imperator in pascha Aquis coronatus est, et filius eius et imperatrix, sub presentia nuntiorum Salahdin. Expeditio in Italia. 22 For example, Barbarossa’s charter DD F I. 500, given on 29 December 1165 for Bonne-Espérance (Friderici I. diplomata inde ab 1158 usque ad 1167, ed. by Heinrich Appelt, MGH DD, 10/2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1979), pp. 427–29 (DD F I. 500), which gives the date as ‘Data Aquisgrani in palatio imperiali
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as 29 December 1165, would have been written as 29 December 1166 at the time, thus providing the Aquensians with another perfect eight years between Charle‐ magne’s canonization and the setting up of the chandelier in his church. This date, in turn, was chosen as a reference to Charlemagne’s Christmas coronation of 800. Once again, the modern system would have it as 25 December 800, but the high medieval German one would write it as 25 December 801, thus achieving a perfect 365 years between Charlemagne’s imperial coronation in Rome and the Barbarossaleuchter’s inauguration. 365 is numerologically unrelated to the number 8, but it reflects the number of days in a year, and therefore the fullness of time. One might think that this system was faulty, as it would destroy the 800 years between the alleged date of Christ’s birth and Charlemagne’s coronation, however, Christ’s birth would fall on 25 December 1 ad according to that reckon‐ ing, still leaving exactly 800 until the aforementioned coronation. Interestingly, the 365 years between Charlemagne’s two elevations coincide with the number of bishops who allegedly consecrated Aachen’s Marienkirche in the Vita Sancti Karoli (between 1165 and around 1180, but most likely ready for Easter 1174). The leg‐ end, then, seems to have developed from this consciousness of the numerological significance of the date of Charlemagne’s canonization.23 While scholars connected the Barbarossaleuchter to Frederick’s support for the cult of Charlemagne, none of the textual sources do so directly. The necrology entry for 14 November (Beatrix’ death day) says that a corona was given to the Marienkirche by Empress Beatrix: ‘Empress Beatrix, who had given the church a golden crown and a golden vessel and a big chasuble and a pallium of red textile and a piece of the Lord’s Cross’.24 The so-called chasuble of St Bernard of Clairvaux, of which only the pearl decorations are original and which stylistically date to the second half of the twelfth century, is possibly the ‘casula magna’ (‘big chasuble’) given to Aachen by Beatrix.25 While it makes sense that the Empress’s gifts would have been preserved longer than others, the attribution is by no means certain. The ‘pallium de examita rufa’ (‘red samite pallium’) has never been identified with any of the surviving Aquensian objects. The ‘pars de ligno domini’ (‘piece of the Lord’s wood’) is almost certainly the piece of the True Cross which was encased in the staurotheke that Beatrix is holding in her
quarto kalendas ianuarii, anno dominice incarnationis millesimo centesimo sexagesimo sexto’. (Given in Aachen in the imperial palace on the fourth day before the kalends of January in the year of our Lord 1166). This is also how the various annals from the region around Aachen date the beginning of the new year. 23 Walter Kettemann, ‘Kirchweihe mit Papst Leo III., Karl dem Großen und 365 Bischöfen: Beobachtungen zur Genese einer Aachener Tradition in europäischem Kontext’, Geschichte im Bistum Aachen, 8 (2005), 1–30 (pp. 23–29). 24 Eduard Teichmann, ‘Das älteste Aachener Totenbuch’, in ZAGV, 38 (1916), 1–213 (p. 137 on 14 November): Obiit Beatrix imperatrix, que dedit ecclesie coronam auream et vas aureum et casulam magnam et pallium de examita rufa et partem de ligno domini. 25 Herta Lepie and Georg Minkenberg, Der Domschatz zu Aachen (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2010), pp. 122–23.
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veiled hands on the brachiary of Charlemagne. It is not likely that her staurotheke is depicted realistically, and it most likely represents the staurotheke as a type. Intriguingly, Aachen possesses a reliquary of the True Cross dated to around 1165, which is stylistically very close to the brachiary of Charlemagne.26 Moreover, since the reliquary is obviously a reworked earlier container, Giersiepen believes that the original had been the pectoral worn by Charlemagne in his tomb, and that Otto III had found upon opening it in 1000.27 If Beatrix had commissioned the restoration of Charlemagne’s pectoral cross, then her presence on the brachiary with it would be completely justified. Furthermore, the ‘vas aureum’ (‘golden vessel’) from the necrology entry for Beatrix could be the brachiary of Charlemagne. While the brachiary indicates its patrons Frederick and Beatrix visually, the Barbarossaleuchter does so by means of its inscription(s). Both objects treat Frederick as their chief patron, but Beatrix seems to have been relevant for their commissions, as she is the only other living member of the imperial family depicted. The necrology, however, mentions that Beatrix presented the chapter of Aachen with a ‘corona aurea’ (‘golden crown’), and this almost certainly means the Barbarossaleuchter. Yet the entry for Frederick in the same necrology glosses over any imperial donations: ‘Emperor Frederick died’.28 This seems to indicate that, since Beatrix died before her husband, the canons of Aachen attributed all of the couple’s artistic donations to the Empress. One should also note that Frederick’s many gifts and privileges given to Aachen are not even mentioned in the necrology, but that in no way invalidates his status as a patron. Scholars glossed over the fact that Frederick never mentioned either Adela of Vohburg (his first wife) or Beatrix in an exorare clause until 1164. The baffling absence can be explained: Beatrix had only given birth to a male heir in 1164, and around the same time Frederick started mentioning his wife not only as a political figure at his court, but also as a member of his family.29 Once his dynasty was secure, Frederick was willing to tie himself more firmly to his second wife and empress in the liturgical orations he commissioned. Combined with the high likelihood that Frederick commissioned the crown chandelier for Easter
26 Helga Giersiepen, Die Inschriften des Aachener Doms (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1992), p. 21. 27 Giersiepen, Die Inschriften des Aachener Doms, p. 21; Thietmar of Merseburg, Thietmari Merseburgensis episcopi Chronicon, ed. by Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG NS, 9 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1935), p. 186. 28 Teichmann, ‘Das älteste Aachener Totenbuch’, p. 94 (on 11 June): ‘Obiit Fridericus imperator’. 29 Frederick mentioned Beatrix’ political intercessions in Friderici I. diplomata inde ab 1152 usque ad 1158, ed. by Heinrich Appelt, MGH DD, 10/1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1975), pp. 320 (DD F I. 191) and 325 (DD F I. 194) and Friderici I. diplomata inde ab 1158 usque ad 1167, p. 90 (DD F I. 279), p. 105 (DD F I. 291), p. 377 (DD F I. 466), p. 452 (DD F I. 515). The exception is Friderici I. diplomata inde ab 1152 usque ad 1158, p. 342 (DD F I. 204) from 1158, where Frederick commissioned the monks to pray for the soul of his father and his wife Beatrix, but the entire context of the charter is taken over from a charter of Conrad III, and only his wife’s name was changed. See Conradi III. et filii eius Heinrici diplomata, ed. by Friedrich Hausmann, MGH DD, 9 (Hanover: Hahn, 1969), pp. 34–35 (DD Ko III. 20).
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1174, it seems quite likely that the Barbarossaleuchter was the fulfilment of the otherwise unattested vow that the inscription mentions: that Frederick would give a crown (clearly referring to the Barbarossaleuchter) to the Virgin. That the vow is otherwise unknown is not particularly troubling, as Frederick’s reign after 1162 has to be reconstructed from a variety of minor and auxiliary sources due to the lack of any contemporary historical account of his reign after Rahewin completed the Gesta Friderici. It would not be the only occasion when Frederick made vows related to a crown: in 1159 he famously vowed not to wear his crown until Milan submitted to his rule, and he festively wore it only in 1162.30 While a crown chandelier and a royal crown are different types of objects, in the twelfth century both objects were called corona, which is exactly what the verse inscription plays upon when describing Frederick’s gift. It is time to come back to Kreusch’s calculations: the Barbarossaleuchter is a corona that reflects Aquensian tradition in both its form and numerological system. And yet, perhaps, there is something more to the two inscriptions than meets the eye. They mirror Alcuin’s (?) inscription for the dedication of Charlemagne’s palatine church, which was supposedly still extant in the twelfth century. While the Carolingian inscription was written on the frieze of the ground floor’s entablature, which Einhard in the Vita Karoli Magni calls corona, Frederick’s inscription was on the hanging chandelier, also called corona.31 It is impossible to tell if the twelfth-century canons would have been aware of Einhard’s use of this term, or if they still used it themselves, so it is not provable that the Hohenstaufen crown-chandelier was designed to reflect the inscription of the Carolingian corona: When the living stones are joined by the bond of peace, In which all is harmonized with even numbers, The work of the lord, who built this entire hall, will shine brightly, And completion will be given unto the pious zeals of men, Of whose everlasting splendour the structure will remain, If what is completed the author protects and rules over. Thus God wishes that this temple, That Charles the prince founded, be of stable foundation.32 30 John B. Freed, Frederick Barbarossa. The Prince and the Myth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), p. 291. 31 Einhardi Vita Karoli Magni, ed. by Oswald Holder-Egger, 6th edn, MGH SRG, 25 (Hanover: Hahn, 1911), p. 32: ‘in margine coronae, quae inter superiores et inferiores arcus interiorem aedis partem ambiebat, epigramma sinopide scriptum, continens, quis auctor esset eiusdem templi, cuius in extremo versu legebatur: KAROLUS PRINCEPS. Notatum est a quibusdam eodem, quo decessit, anno paucis ante mortem mensibus eas, quae PRINCEPS exprimebant, litteras ita esse deletas, ut penitus non apparerent’. 32 The translation is my own and follows the interpunction given by Dümmler’s Latin text in Poetae Latini aevi Carolini. Tomus primus, ed. by Ernst Dümmler, MGH Poetae, 1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881), p. 432: Cum lapides vivi pacis conpage ligantur,
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Since the fire of 1146 evidently damaged the upper parts of the Marienkirche, and the Barbarossaleuchter was designed to replace the earlier lighting system, it is possible that the canons wanted to imitate the Carolingian inscription, whether it was lost in the fire or not.33 It is very unlikely that the Hohenstaufen inscription corresponds to the Carolingian one coincidentally because both belong to the type of ecclesiastical dedications, and the Barbarossaleuchter follows the Carolin‐ gian church’s form. While our sources do not record where exactly the Carolingian frieze inscrip‐ tion began, it is unlikely that the words ‘the ruler Charles’ (‘Karolus princeps’) were located anywhere other than on the frieze part just above the eastern arch connecting the inner octagon with the sanctuary. This would mean that the dedicatory poem began on the southeastern frieze. The Barbarossaleuchter’s in‐ scription, on the other hand, is known to have begun on the part to the northeast. This was not by chance, as the numerous parallels between both levels of the chandelier’s inscription and the Marienkirche’s liturgical layout demonstrate. The upper inscription begins by referencing heavenly Jerusalem and the vision of peace on the two easternmost parts of the frieze. This was towards the sanctu‐ ary, where it was normally only the canons who could stay there for a prolonged period of time. Clearly, they were the audience of this part. The word ‘hope’ (‘spes’) is also interesting here, as it appears opposite not only the Marienaltar on the ground floor, but also the upper floor’s Salvatoraltar, which contained the relics of St Speus (‘Hope’).34 The third verse, which mentions John the Evangelist, is on the eastern of the two southern parts of the frieze, where the altar of St John the Evangelist was located.35 The fifth verse mentions the apostolic light on the southern of the two western parts of the frieze, and this is opposite the later altar of St Simon and St Jude, but also where a charter of 1207 mentions
Inque pares numeros omnia conveniunt, Claret opus domini, totam qui construit aulam, Effectusque piis dat studiis hominum, Quorum perpetui decoris structura manebit, Si perfecta auctor protegat atque regat: Sic deus hoc tutum stabili fundamine templum, Quod Karolus princeps condidit, esse velit. For a list of the extant English and German translations, see William J. Diebold, ‘The New Testament and the Visual Arts in the Carolingian Era, with special reference to the sapiens architectus (1 Cor. 3. 10)’, in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. by Celia Chazelle and Burton van Name Edwards (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 141–53 (pp. 144–45). See also the most recent work on the inscription: Günther Binding, ‘Kirchenbau als Bedeutungsträger: Ein Deutungsproblem’, in Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 73 (2012), 97–106. 33 ‘Annales Aquenses, p. 37, ad annum 1146. 34 ‘Dedicatio altarium S. Mariae Aquensis’, ed. by Friedrich Baethgen, MGH SS, 30/2, ed. by Adolf Hofmeister (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1934), p. 780. 35 Kathrin Steinhauer-Tepütt, Die Altäre der Aachener Marienkirche. Standorte, Funktionen und Ausstattung (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2019), pp. 94–96.
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that relics of these two apostles could be found within the columns.36 The city descending from the skies, which the sixth verse mentions, would have appeared on the northern of the westward-looking friezes, which is where both the emperor on his throne in the western bay, but also the laypeople, who would enter the church from the northwest, would immediately be able to read it. This was not chance: the inscription thus mentioned heavenly Jerusalem, the key concept of the chandelier, on parts facing the clergy and the laity. No clear reason appears for the Virgin Mary to be mentioned on the northern side of the chandelier, unless one considers that she (north) and John the Evangelist (south) were now flanking the image of Christ in majesty (dome, centre), but also the Salvatoraltar (by this time known as the Holy Cross altar), which was in the eastern gallery of the Marienkirche.37 In both cases Mary and John would have been next to, but also beneath the cross, just as was typical for the iconography of the crucifixion. The lower inscription is less biblical and speaks more clearly about the donors and their gift. The first verse mentions Emperor Frederick, and the second already tells the clergy to pay attention to the numerological structure of the object. These two verses faced eastward, and so towards the sanctuary, where the clergy were reminded of their patron, but also his intentions. The two southern verses (3–4) mention the Marienkirche’s and the Barbarossaleuchter’s octagonal form. If it is true that Alcuin’s (?) inscription began above the southeastern arch, then its second verse, which mentions equal or even numbers, would have faced these verses mentioning the octagonal crown, thus inviting a comparison between the two. The western verses (5–6) refer to Frederick’s vow to the Virgin Mary and address her directly. These verses face the imperial throne in the western gallery, showing Frederick’s and the Virgin’s name to the Emperor and his entourage. They also hover above the church’s main entrance, which pilgrims would have used. Thus, the eastern verses declared Frederick the patron of the work to the clergy, and the western ones did the same to the imperial court and pilgrims. The northern verses (7–8) ask that the Virgin pray for Frederick and his wife, Beatrix. These verses, together with verse 6, in which the invocation of the Virgin begins, and which was facing the laypeople’s entrance, were meant for the eyes of the laity. The many parallels between the Barbarossaleuchter on the one hand, and the Marienkirche’s layout on the other hand, convincingly shows that the object was planned with great care and attention to detail, both artistically and politically. Each member of the audience was addressed in one way or another: the clergy of Aachen, the imperial court, the laity of Aachen, the itinerant pilgrims. The relevant altars were also referred to: those of Christ the Saviour, the Holy Cross, the Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist. The imperial throne and the closely related relics of St Simon and St Jude were also used as a part of the intricate spatial plan of the chandelier. Furthermore, the chandelier’s inscriptions were divided by a lost band (discussed above), similarly to how the Carolingian corona 36 Aachener Urkunden 1101–1250, ed. by Erich Meuthen (Bonn: Hanstein, 1972), pp. 240–41, no. 50. 37 Steinhauer-Tepütt, Die Altäre der Aachener Marienkirche, pp. 65–72.
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(inscription frieze) divided the two floors of the church, or how the Ottonian situla’s floors were divided by a jewelled band. The Carolingian corona (frieze) and the Hohenstaufen corona (chandelier) were not the only coronae of that type in Aachen, however. St Corona (now infamous due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic), whom Otto III brought to Aachen in 997, was, according to her and St Victor’s Passio, a sixteen-year-old girl who was tied to two trees until her body was ripped apart. For Aachen it was important that her sixteen years could also be divided into two, thus achieving two perfect eights, just as Aachen’s two floors have.38 Frederick’s Aquensian advisers apparently did not pass by the chance to evoke the numerical symbolism of St Corona’s age on the Barbarossaleuchter through its two levels, or two eights. While Frederick Barbarossa commissioned the Barbarossaleuchter and Wib‐ ertus executed it, this does not clarify who conceived its programme, nor has any likely candidate been found.39 Be that as it may, it seems incontrovertible that the Barbarossaleuchter, even though it was commissioned by the Emperor, was influenced by the canons of Aachen and Aquensian traditions. This already tells us that the crown chandelier was more than just a monument of imperial propaganda, and that the needs of the Aquensian convent church were taken into account during the making of the crown chandelier.
The Engraved Plates: The Christological Cycle and the Beatitudes Lepie has shown (Figure 4) that the two cycles of engraved plates are arranged so that the scene most appropriate for Easter, that of the three Marys at the empty tomb, is depicted on the easternmost tower, which is located above Aachen’s high altar and whence the first rays of light would have appeared on Easter morning. Lepie also demonstrated that the second and third beatitude (Mt. 5. 4– 5) apparently exchanged places already in the planning phase, and that this is possibly not an error, as St Clement, Origen, the Syriac Bible, and one alternative Latin Bible translation already have the order of the second and third beatitudes reversed.40 Lepie’s scheme is as follows (capital letters stand for the Christological cycle, numbers stand for the beatitudes; for a visualization of the plan see below):
38 Ludwig Falkenstein, Otto III. und Aachen (Hanover: Hahn, 1998), pp. 113–15; Edoardo d’Angelo, Otricoli e i suoi santi. Storia, liturgia, epigrafia, agiografia (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 2012), pp. 83–85. 39 See the discussions in Max Creutz, ‘Der Künstler und Werkmeister des Kronleuchters Friedrich Barbarossas im Münster zu Aachen’, Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein, 94 (1913), 51–67 (p. 56); Teichmann, ‘Das älteste Aachener Totenbuch’, p. 18. 40 Lepie, Der Barbarossaleuchter im Dom zu Aachen, pp. 10–11.
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A The Annunciation. 1 First beatitude: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.41 B The Nativity. 2 Third beatitude: ‘Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted’.42 C The Adoration of the Magi. 3 Second beatitude: ‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land’.43 D The Crucifixion. 4 Fourth beatitude: ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill’.44 E The Three Marys at the Tomb. 5 Fifth beatitude: ‘Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy’.45 F The Ascension. 6 Sixth beatitude: ‘Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God’.46 G Pentecost. 7 Seventh beatitude: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God’.47 H Christ in Majesty. 8 Eighth beatitude: ‘Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.48 St Michael: Similar to the beatitudes is the image of St Michael on the quatrefoil directly under the sunlike golden sphere. St Michael is depicted as an angel holding a scroll with the words: ‘Now is come salvation, and strength’.49 While in the Revelation this angel is not named, the Glossa ordinaria may offer an explanation: just after speaking of the war St Michael and his angels led against the Devil and his angels, the Glossa mentions the proclamation of a return to the state of salvation and virtue.50 It seems very likely that the reader would have attributed the announcement of the conflict’s end to its leader, St Michael. Since the Devil there persecutes the Woman of the Apocalypse, in whom the Middle Ages saw the Virgin Mary, it seems that St Michael’s appearance on the chandelier was almost necessary as a part of the object’s dedication to the Virgin and its inauguration on Easter, which foreshadowed the Resurrection and final victory over evil.
41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
‘Beati pauperes spiritu quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum’. ‘Beati qui lugent quoniam ipsi consolabuntur’. ‘Beati mites quoniam ipsi possidebunt terram’. ‘Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt justitiam quoniam ipsi saturabuntur’. ‘Beati misericordes quoniam ipsi misericordiam consequentur’. ‘Beati mundo corde quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt’. ‘Beati pacifici quoniam filii Dei vocabuntur’. ‘Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum’. ‘Nunc facta est salus et virtus’. Anselm of Laon, ‘Glossa ordinaria’, in Walafridi Strabi Fuldensis monachi opera omnia, PL, 114 (Paris: Migne, 1852), col. 732.
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The Towers, their Lost Silver Reliefs, and the Iconographic Programme in General Arenhövel thought that the towers represent both the gates of heavenly Jerusalem and the foundation stones at the same time.51 There had once been a discussion on exactly how many relief figures were populating the now-empty towers, but Buchkremer found that eighty would be reached by counting two larger figures per each smaller round tower (2 × 8 = 16), then adding four larger figures for the ground floors of each larger tower (4 × 8 = 32), and then adding four smaller figures for the upper floors of each larger tower (4 × 8 = 32). This equals eighty figures in total, where forty-eight are larger and thirty-two are smaller.52 However, Minkenberg showed that the two larger square towers had perforated tympana, which might have contained images of their own.53 It seems extremely unlikely that these holes would not have been filled, but it is hard to imagine even the smallest of relief figures being placed here. Ornamental fillings, on the other hand, would seem more appropriate, but this is pure guesswork on my part. The reliefs were lost during the eighteenth century. Looking at the towers from a numerological point of view, one notices imme‐ diately that the eighty reliefs (excluding the small ornamental ones) make the perfect counterpart to the Aquensian inner octagon (8 × 10 = 80) and outer hexadecagon (16 × 5 = 80), but also the sixteen towers of the Barbarossaleuchter (16 × 5 = 80) or even to the eight larger and eight smaller towers (8 × 10 = 80), if they are counted separately. As Pseudo-Isidore says, the number ten signifies perfection, but also the entirety of the Church.54 And what, if not the entirety of the Church, comprised heavenly Jerusalem? This seems to resolve the problem of the possibility of 88 relief figures, but it also opens another question: who was depicted on the Aquensian crown chandelier as a representative of the Church? The only certainty is that the crown chandelier contained images of the prophets, who are alluded to by the first of Frederick Barbarossa’s two inscriptions. The same verses allude to the apostles more vaguely, but it seems legitimate to include them in the count. We thus have twelve apostles and possibly sixteen prophets, so altogether twenty-eight saints. However, the list of prophets could be expanded or reduced as needed. Honorius Augustodunensis and Sicard of Cremona both recognize different orders of saints located on crown chandeliers. Both, however, see them present only through the symbolic meaning of the metals used to create a crown chan‐
51 Arenhövel, Der Hezilo-Radleuchter im Dom zu Hildesheim, p. 95. 52 Joseph Buchkremer, ‘Neue Wahrnehmungen am Kronleuchter im Aachener Münster’, ZAGV, 24 (1902), 317–31 (pp. 327–28). 53 Minkenberg, ‘Der Barbarossaleuchter’, pp. 80–81. 54 Pseudo-Isidore of Seville, ‘Liber numerorum in sanctis Scripturis occurentium’ in Sancti Isidori Hispalensis episcopi opera omnia, PL, 83 (Paris: Migne, 1850), V, p. 190.
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delier.55 The orders present on the chandelier, according to Honorius Augusto‐ dunensis, are: martyrs (gold), virgins (silver), the chaste (bronze), the married (iron), writers defending the Church (‘scriptis ecclesiam munientes’ – towers), those who do good deeds (candles) and the virtuous (precious stones).56 Sicard names fewer orders: martyrs (gold), virgins (silver), doctors of the Church (bronze), the chaste (iron), the virtuous (precious stones).57 All these metals were present on the Barbarossaleuchter: the chains were iron, the walls gilded copper (standing in for bronze, apparently), the relief figures were silver, whereas the central segment of the walls probably contained precious stones, and was thus taken down and melted down for its material value and the gemstones that could be reused. The gilding was golden, and possibly the missing segment as well. It should be noted that Sicard only counts the materials, whereas Honorius sees both the materials and the constructive elements of the chandelier as representing the various saints. It seems plausible that the groups both our writers agree upon were represented on the chandelier, which means martyrs, virgins, doctors and confessors. However, a 1620 engraving by Gerhard Altzenbach depicts the chandelier, but populated with what Meyer interpreted as soldiers and rulers.58 While baffling, his argument is not as solid as it seems: first of all, the artist depicts the Aquensian chandelier as having twelve towers, of which six are large and six are small. He thus depicts six chains with three spheres each, and omits the quatrefoil of St Michael. Moreover, the larger towers have only one storey, just like the smaller ones. Therefore, the Altzenbach engraving is untrustworthy, and this includes Meyer’s identification of the figures.59 Then again, it is possible that some of the figures present on the chandelier were indeed soldiers, particularly as several soldier saints were present through their relics in Aachen. What follows is guesswork, but illustrative of what the chandelier’s Ecclesia might have looked like. The forty-eight larger reliefs clearly correspond to the forty-eight candles on top of the chandelier’s wall segments, but the earliest inventory of Aquensian relics from the late twelfth century might offer further clues. The manuscript containing the inventory was certainly written between Charlemagne’s canonization in 1165 and translation in 1215, as it refers to his translatio as being on 29 December, which corresponds to the 1160s event, and
55 Honorius Augustodunensis, ‘Gemma animae’, in Honorii Augustodunensis opera omnia ex codicibus MSS. et editis nunc primum in unum collecta accedunt Rainaldi Remensis, Adalberti Moguntini, Oldegarii Tarraconensis archiepiscoporum, Gerardi Engolismensis, Stephani de Balgiaco Augustodunensis, episcoporum; Odonis abbatis Sancti Remigii, Gaufridi Grossi, monachi Tironiensis opuscula, epistolae, diplomata, PL, 172 (Paris: Migne, 1854), col. 588; Sicard of Cremona, Sicardi Cremonensis episcopi Mitralis de officiis, ed. by Gábor Sarbak and Lorenz Weinrich, CCCM, 228 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), pp. 61–62. 56 Honorius Augustodunensis, ‘Gemma animae’, col. 588. 57 Sicard of Cremona, Mitralis de officiis, p. 62. 58 Erich Meyer, Bildnis und Kronleuchter, pp. 4–5. 59 Meyer, Bildnis und Kronleuchter, p. 4.
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not to the later state of affairs. Erika Eisenlohr analyzed the manuscript from a palaeographical point of view and concluded that it was written between 1166 and 1173, whereas Frederick’s 1174 charters were included shortly after their promulgation.60 The relic inventory most likely dates to the same period as the manuscript, just like the other texts in it, but an earlier dating cannot be ruled out entirely. In any case, the relic inventory would have reflected the state of the veneration of saints in Aachen at the time when the Barbarossaleuchter was commissioned. The inventory explicitly names relics of Christ, the Virgin, John the Baptist, and seventy-four different saints, who fit the following categories: nine apostles and evangelists, thirty-six martyrs, fifteen confessors and fourteen virgins.61 It is hard to correlate these saints to the Barbarossaleuchter’s forty-eight can‐ dles and large reliefs, but one should not expect the two to match completely, especially as the inventory claims that many other saints’ relics are present in Aachen. One should, however, suppose that there was a great deal of overlap between the two, and that the canons of Aachen chose to depict the saints they considered more important for the Marienstift (the convent of Saint Mary as an institution, as opposed to the church itself) on the larger reliefs as a part of the four traditional orders of saints. The other reliefs most probably depicted the prophets and the virtues, and possibly other saints as well. Such a chandelier, then, would have contained ties to both Charlemagne’s cult and to the Marienkirche’s liturgy, as Charlemagne had supposedly gathered those relics and brought them to Aachen. To summarize the iconography of the Barbarossaleuchter: doing good deeds (symbolized by the beatitudes) and the imitation of Christ (symbolized by the Christological cycle) were methods to gain entry to the heavenly city, its guardians were the four orders of saints, who had achieved sainthood each in his or her own way, and each of whom was a model to the Christians who yearned for salvation, including the canons. The forty-eight saints were the light of the world, but the supreme origin of light is, as St Michael proclaims on his quatrefoil, God himself, who is like the sun. The relative simplicity of the iconographic message was a valuable asset for the canons, for they could easily adapt the golden crown for various liturgical purposes, including, but not limited to the high mass and important saints’ feasts, such as the festa triplicia. A further clue to the purpose of such an iconographic programme for a crown chandelier can be found in the so-called Karlsdekret, a forged charter attributed to Charlemagne, which Frederick Barbarossa confirmed on 8 January 1166.62
60 Erika Eisenlohr, ‘Paläographische Untersuchungen zum Tafelgüterverzeichnis der römischen Könige (Hs. UB Bonn, S. 1559). Ein Beitrag zur Tätigkeit des Scriptoriums des Aachener Marienstiftes in der 2. Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts’, ZAGV, 92 (1985), 5–74 (pp. 7, 64–68). 61 Heinrich Schiffers, Karls des Großen Reliquienschatz und die Anfänge der Aachenfahrt (Aachen: Volk, 1951), pp. 81–83. 62 Friderici I. diplomata inde ab 1158 usque ad 1167, p. 433 (DD F I. 502).
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The relevant passage states: ‘Therefore I completed the egregious construction of this esteemed basilica not only because of my wish and desire, but out of divine grace, and I collected the relics of the apostles, martyrs, confessors and virgins from various lands and realms, but chiefly from those of the Greeks, brought them here to this holy place, so that by their intercessions the realm is strengthened and indulgence be granted to sinners’.63 The canons of Aachen believed that Charlemagne had collected relics from the four orders of saints and that he had brought them to Aachen and placed them in the Marienschrein’s (possibly) Carolingian predecessor. The same thought can be found in Aachen’s oldest extant inventory of relics: the more important saints are enumerated by order (first the apostles and evangelists, then the martyrs, confessors, and virgins), but the lesser ones are just mentioned by category: ‘and of the other apostles, martyrs, confes‐ sors, and virgins, whose names and number only God knows’.64 Charlemagne’s canonization and liturgical worship only strengthened this belief, and it is most likely that the Barbarossaleuchter was designed as to facilitate the worship of many different saints by pilgrims. This also means that the Barbarossaleuchter was intended as a part of the elaboration of the cult of St Charlemagne, since it highlighted the deeds which made him a confessor. This was obvious to the canons, but only possibly to pilgrims and other visitors. Interestingly, the four orders of saints are represented by twelve members in the litany of the French coronation ordo XVIII (the so-called Ordo of SaintBertin), dating to around 1200, and ordo XIX (the so-called Ordo of 1200). Other ordines include the litany, which is often subdivided into the same four categories, but the number of saints varies, as do their names.65 Various royal, imperial, and papal laudes contain similar lists in their litanies, but none of them reflect this exact division of four times twelve saints.66 A litany for the German coronation ordo has not been preserved, nor does Aachen have one that matches. Exactly how the Barbarossaleuchter fulfilled its liturgical purpose is difficult to assess, since we do not know all the days on which it was lit. According to the second oldest (preserved) necrology (mid-thirteenth century), this happened 63 Aachener Urkunden 1101–1250, p. 114, no. 2: ‘Itaque tam egregio opere huius eximię basilicę non solum pro voto et desiderio meo, verum ex divina gratia ad unguem peracto, pignora apostolorum, martirum, confessorum, virginum a diversis terris et regnis et precipue Grecorum collegi, quę huic sancto intuli loco, ut eorum suffragiis regnum firmetur, peccatorum indulgentia condonetur’. 64 Codex diplomaticus Aquensis, p. 28, no. 41: ‘et aliorum apostolorum, martyrum, confessorum, virginum, quorum nomina et numerum Deus scit’. 65 Ordines Coronationis Franciae. Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages, ed. by Richard A. Jackson, 2 vols (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995–2000), II, pp. 242, 252–53. Warm thanks to Johanna Dale for bringing the numerical similarity to my attention. Cf. Johanna Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century. Male and Female Accession Rituals in England, France and the Empire (York: York Medieval Press, 2019), pp. 57–58. 66 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae. A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), pp. 15–16, 42–43, 108, 115, 117, 123–24, 134, 144, 159, 167.
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on 13 January (St Servatius), 21 January (St Agnes), 5 August (the date of the Transfiguration feast in Aachen), 21 October (the 11,000 virgin companions of St Ursula), 22 November (St Cecilia), 25 November (St Catherine of Alexandria) and 4 December (St Barbara). However, these feast days were only commemo‐ rated due to various private donations after the chandelier’s creation. Minkenberg was certain that the chandelier had been lit on Christmas day, days on which relic processions took place, and the coronation day, but also on St Charlemagne’s feast days. His original feast day was 29 December, which is the anniversary of his canonization, but this was replaced with the anniversary of his death (28 January) because Thomas Becket’s feast also fell on 29 December. This happened sometime after early 1173, when Becket was canonized. Interestingly, the most royal of feast days, that of King David and Emperor Charlemagne, thus became a day dedicated to a great martyr who fell while protecting the rights of the Church against a domineering king – Henry II of England. After 27 July 1215, when Frederick II completed the Karlsschrein (as the reliquary shrine of St Charlemagne is known) and Charlemagne’s remains were translated into it, this date became the transla‐ tion day of St Charlemagne.67 This elaborate commemoration ceased during the French occupation of Aachen in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, so Bock, writing in 1864, noted that the chandelier was lit only on Christmas, Corpus Christi, and Charlemagne’s feast day.68 In 1902 the chandelier was electri‐ fied, but this has since been reversed, and now the Barbarossaleuchter is lit on every major holiday and on special occasions.69
The Functions of the Barbarossaleuchter That finally leads us to the chandelier’s functions. Honorius Augustodunensis and Sicard of Cremona agree on the three standard functions for the crown chandelier type: 1) lighting and decoration, 2) a reminder of the crown of life, 3) a represen‐ tation of heavenly Jerusalem.70 Of course, as with every object commissioned by Frederick Barbarossa, scholars have focused on its ‘hidden’ political message, and how it visualized his ideals of sacral rulership. Grimme, when discussing the chandelier, noted that it seems incomplete without the ruler present beneath it (Figure 5), for in that case, the scene would be similar to the recto of Frederick Barbarossa’s golden bulls with the crowned and insignia-bearing ruler appearing inside the walls of Rome.71 This would identify Aachen with Rome, the city depicted on both the royal and imperial golden bull’s verso sides. Frederick’s
67 68 69 70 71
Minkenberg, ‘Der Barbarossaleuchter’, p. 95. Bock, Der Kronleuchter Kaisers Friedrich Barbarossa, p. 33. Minkenberg, ‘Der Barbarossaleuchter’, p. 95. Honorius Augustodunensis, ‘Gemma animae’, col. 588; Sicard of Cremona, Mitralis de officiis, p. 61. Grimme, Der Dom zu Aachen, p. 146; Grimme, ‘Das Bildprogramm des Aachener Karlsschreins’, p. 133.
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inscription, however, claims only that the Barbarossaleuchter is a votive gift to the Virgin Mary, which leads us back to the custom of a monarch giving his crown to the Virgin Mary. Additionally, in 2019 Steinhauer-Tepütt showed that the Petrusaltar was lo‐ cated but a few meters west of the Marienaltar (the high altar) in the rectangular Carolingian choir, that is, in the outer hexadecagon.72 While the Petrusaltar was definitely not under the Barbarossaleuchter, the two were still not completely un‐ related to each other as the chandelier’s light would fall upon the Petrusaltar and its reliquary shrine of St Charlemagne, also known as the Karlsschrein. However, the theory of God crowning the emperor or St Charlemagne is now obsolete, as neither of the two would fill the required position within the church during any attested ceremony. Looking upward from directly underneath the crown chandelier, one peers into the now-restored Carolingian dome mosaic (Figure 6). While the current iteration of the dome is not original, its magnificence is worthy of its predecessor, and its iconography more or less corresponds to what we know about the Carolin‐ gian mosaic.73 On the golden background of the luminous skies above, Christ sits in majesty on his celestial throne, blessing with his right hand and holding the book of life in his left hand. His throne has a backrest and a suppedaneum (‘footrest’), his halo is a cross-in-circle one, and his throne is located on a rainbow, though judging from Ciampini’s engraving (Figure 7) a globe would have been more likely.74 Beneath him the twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse were rising from their thrones and giving Christ their crowns. Frederick’s giving of the Barbarossaleuchter would have paralleled this final detail of the dome mosaic. There is one moment in the Aquensian liturgy which shows the clear link between the crown chandelier and the mosaics: on the dedication day of Aachen’s Marienkirche (17 July), during the first responsory of the third nocturn of matins, a text based on the Book of Revelation was sung.75 In the Transalpine regions the text usually goes as follows: ‘I have seen the holy city, New Jerusalem, descend from heaven as prepared by God, and I heard a voice from throne saying: Behold the tabernacle of God among men, and He will live with them’.76 However, as 72 Steinhauer-Tepütt, Die Altäre der Aachener Marienkirche, pp. 77–79. 73 For the best account of what the Carolingian mosaics looked like, see Anton von Euw, ‘Karl der Grosse als Schüler Alkuins, das Kuppelmosaik des Aachener Domes und das Maiestasbild in Codex C 80 der Zentralbibliothek Zürich’, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte, 61 (2004), 1–20. 74 Giovanni Ciampini, Vetera monimenta, in quibus praecipue musiva opera sacrarum, profanarumque aedium structura, ac nonnulli antiqui ritus, dissertationibus, iconibusque illustrantur, 2 vols (Rome: Ex typographia Joannis Jacobi Komarek Bohemi apud S. Angelum custodem, 1699), II, plate XLI. 75 Michael McGrade, ‘Affirmations of Royalty: Liturgical Music in the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Aachen. 1050–1350’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 1998), p. 165. 76 C. Clifford Flanigan, ‘The Apocalypse and the Medieval Liturgy’, in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. by Richard Kenneth Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 334: ‘Vidi sanctam civitatem Jerusalem novam descendentem de caelo a Deo paratam, et audivi vocem de throno dicentem: Ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus, et habitabit cum eis’.
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McGrade pointed out, in Aachen the part ‘descendentem de caelo’ is missing.77 In my view, the reason ‘descendentem de caelo’ is lacking is that the liturgy of the hours would be sung after the chandelier would have been lit, so heavenly Jerusalem’s representation would already be floating in the centre, whereas God’s throne in heaven would always be there. Therefore, it was enough to sing ‘I have seen the holy city Jerusalem’ (‘Vidi sanctam civitatem Jerusalem’). McGrade believed that the canons of Aachen lowered and lit the Barbarossaleuchter also on the day of St Charlemagne (28 January) while they were singing the hymn Urbs Aquensis, a chant in honour of the Frankish Emperor. However, he openly admits that he found no proof for his claims, and I could find none to support his theory in Aachen’s liturgical manuscripts.78 Urbs Aquensis is sung during the first vespers after the collects, but this is while the Barbarossaleuchter is already lit.79
Conclusion Although the Barbarossaleuchter is a complex object with multiple meanings and functions, its primary function was not as a part of the sacralization of Frederick Barbarossa’s Empire. To begin with, it was the main source of light on Aachen’s greater feast days, and it fulfilled its purpose as part of the liturgy of the saints by representing heavenly Jerusalem, the home of the saints. Visually it served as the focal point of the central octagon, and as an object of contemplation as it depicted various saints, beatitudes and the life of Christ. Where the Carolingian dome merely depicted heaven in general, the Barbarossaleuchter elaborated upon its scheme and gave particular examples of sanctity, especially from among locally relevant saints. It was a material representation of heaven, which the canons, the people of Aachen, and occasionally the imperial court would have appreciated. The complex and studiously referential nature of the Barbarossaleuchter’s inscrip‐ tions cycle has never been noticed before by scholars, but it would be extremely difficult to believe that they did not serve some higher purpose, at least of a meditative kind. On the other hand, it was also the materialization of Frederick Barbarossa’s mysterious vow, which was most likely related to his begetting an heir. It is most probable that Frederick commissioned the Barbarossaleuchter with the Easter visit of 1174 in mind, as he, Beatrix, and Henry VI festively wore their crowns on that occasion, and the Annales Aquenses emphasize this event especially.
77 McGrade, ‘Affirmations of Royalty’, p. 165. 78 Michael McGrade, ‘“O rex mundi triumphator”: Hohenstaufen Politics in a Sequence for Saint Charlemagne’, Early Music History, 17 (1998), 183–219 (pp. 208–12). 79 Liber ordinarius, Aachen, Domarchiv, MS G1, fol. 60r.
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While Aachen’s Marienkirche, a proprietary church owned by the emperor, may have been an obvious choice of imperial munificence in the twelfth cen‐ tury, it is unclear whether Frederick engaged in similar activities elsewhere. Only when scholars have scrutinized all the evidence of Frederick’s artistic commissions will it be possible to judge how his Aquensian interventions fit his propaganda in general.80 While his crown chandelier in Aachen did not hang directly above St Charlemagne’s remains or his reliquary shrine, no one could visit the Marienkirche in the later part of the Middle Ages and fail to notice the huge floating crown donated by Frederick Barbarossa, and conclude that he was Charlemagne’s most zealous imitator. Finally, the whole idea of a sacrum imperium programme in Aachen and the Emperor completing the image of the Barbarossaleuchter with his presence are based on no evidence whatsoever: 1) the location of the Petrusaltar’s is not where Grimme wanted it to be; 2) the royal coronation took place east of the octagon; 3) Charlemagne is not even mentioned on the Barbarossaleuchter; 4) the silver reliefs most likely depicted the various orders of saints and virtues, and not kings and warriors; finally 5) none of the terminology associated with sacral kingship can be found in any of the Aquensian sources. One can therefore safely say that the Barbarossaleuchter was not a part of any sacrum imperium programme, but that it constituted a part of Frederick Barbarossa’s bid to adorn the coronation church of the German-Roman king, the Marienkirche, which Charlemagne had founded and in which his body lay.81 And since the Barbarossaleuchter was very versatile for staging the liturgy of saints whose relics Charlemagne had collected in Aachen, it seems certain that Frederick Barbarossa commissioned the crown chandelier to emphasize Charle‐ magne’s merits in achieving divine intercession and mercy in both Aachen and the Empire. The Barbarossaleuchter thus elaborated on the history of Salvation, which pilgrims were interested in, as were the emperors who were crowned amidst such sacral wealth. To be clear: there was an imperial plan, and the chandelier should be considered imperial propaganda, but the nature of this programme had much more to do with Charlemagne’s memory in Aachen than with 19th-century concepts such as the conflict between the Church and the State, which was not perceived as such in the High Middle Ages.
80 For the most recent summary of Frederick’s commissions, see Peter Felix Ganz, ‘Friedrich Barbarossa: Hof und Kultur’, in Friedrich Barbarossa. Handlungsspielräume und Wirkungsweisen des staufischen Kaisers, ed. by Alfred Haverkamp (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1992), pp. 623–50. 81 Additionally, see my two articles on sacrum imperium’s historiography, provenance, meaning, and purpose: Vedran Sulovsky, ‘The Concept of “sacrum imperium” in Historical Scholarship’, History Compass, 17/8 (2019), 1–12; Vedran Sulovsky, ‘“Sacrum imperium”: Lombard Influence and the “Sacralisation of the State” in the Mid-twelfth Century Holy Roman Empire (1125–1167)’, German History, 39/2 (2021), 147-72.
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Figure 1. The Barbarossaleuchter (c. 1165–1121 March 1174). Courtesy of the Cathedral chapter (Domkapitel) of Aachen. Photos taken by Andreas Steindl.
Figure 2. Hartwigleuchter in Großcomburg (twelfth-century). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/ Comburg_Hartwigleuchter.jpg. [accessed 16 May 2019].
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Figure 3. Heziloleuchter in Hildesheim (between 1054 and 1079). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/ Hildesheim_St._Godehard_Heziloleuchter.JPG. [accessed 16 May 2019].
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Figure 4. Iconographic scheme of Frederick Barbarossa’s crown-chandelier according to Herta Lepie, Der Barbarossaleuchter, image not numbered, p. 9.
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Figure 5. Frederick Barbarossa’s imperial golden bull (1155–1190) Percy E. Schramm, Die deutschen Kaiser und Könige in Bildern ihrer Zeit (751–1190), 2nd edition, ed. by Florentine Mütherich (Munich: Prestel, 1983), images 209a–209b, p. 460.
Figure 6. Aachen dome mosaics (1872–1913). Image by the author.
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Figure 7. Ciampini’s etching of Aachen’s dome mosaics (1699) Ciampini, Vetera monimenta, II, plate 41, between p. 134 and p. 135.
ERIk NIbLAEuS
‘One Harmonious Form’ * Liturgy and Group Formation in Central-Medieval Denmark
Introduction 700 years after his death, the founder of Copenhagen, Absalon, Bishop of Roskilde (1158–1192) and Archbishop of Lund (1177–1201), was commemo‐ rated with a statue in the centre of the city. The statue gives little clue to Absalon’s episcopal profession: he is on horseback, in full armour, and swings a battle-axe in his right hand. The warlike image is based on the heroic account of his deeds by his clerk Saxo Grammaticus, in his Gesta Danorum (c. 1190–1208). Saxo’s Absalon was, famously, ‘as much a pirate as a prelate’, a man who was happy to abandon mass for battle halfway through – for, after all, ‘what kind of sacrifice do we think could be more joyful to divine power than the slaughter of the treacherous’?1 It is a striking statement of episcopal ideals. Another contempora‐ neous assessment of Absalon, by the Benedictine chronicler Arnold of Lübeck (Chronica Slavorum, 1177–1214), used a quite different register of praise. Accord‐ ing to Arnold, Absalon was ‘a pious man of great counsel, utmost intelligence, and outstanding honour’, with a particular love for the Cistercian order (Saxo, by contrast, was unappreciative of monastic life).2 Arnold prominently noted one episode in Absalon’s career: ‘thanks to his efforts, all Danish churches, previously discordant, were made uniform in their divine services’.3 In this chapter, I discuss Absalon’s reforms as the culmination of a century of liturgical activity at Lund cathedral, and what they can tell us about a story which is usually told on Saxo’s
* I am most grateful to the fellow contributors of this volume for their comments during the workshop in Poznań in preparation of this publication, and to Lars Kjær, who read an earlier version of this chapter. All mistakes and misjudgments remain my own. 1 Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. by Karsten Friis-Jensen and trans. by Peter Fisher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2015), II, XIV. 21. 3, p. 1116: ‘non minus [pirata] […] quam [pontifex]’; XVI. 5. 1, p. 1512: ‘Quod enim sacrificii genus scelestorum nece diuine potentie iocundius existimenus?’. 2 Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, ed. by Georg Pertz, MGH SRG, 14 (Hanover: Hahn, 1868), c. 18, pp. 173–74: ‘vir religiosus et magni consilii, summe discretionis et precipue honestatis’. 3 Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, c. 18, p. 173: ‘Huius industria omnes ecclesie totius Danie prius discordantes uniformes in officiis divinis facte sunt’. Erik Niblaeus • University of Cambridge
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terms: the changing shape of the regnum Danorum in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.4 More clues to Absalon’s liturgical reforms come from Danish annalistic mater‐ ial, under the year 1187. The so-called Annales Dano-Suecani noted (under 1188, but in all likelihood mistakenly) that ‘the religious services were put in order in Lund cathedral’.5 According to the Annales Essenbecenses, ‘a Danish breviarium was compiled’.6 Breviarium should not be taken to mean ‘breviary’ (that is, a book collecting the liturgy of the hours) here. In medieval terminology, the word could be used to mean any kind of abbreviated compilation, and in a liturgical context, it often referred to an ordinal , which would suit the circumstances in this case very well.7 The ordinal, which emerged in its canonical form in the eleventh century, was a book laying out the structure of the mass and hours in a particular place over the course of the year.8 It did not contain the full texts of the liturgi‐ cal items (chants, prayers, readings) themselves, but only incipits organized by rubrics, which varied greatly in extent between books. It could thus only be used in conjunction with other books (or by a celebrant with an exceptional memory), but it was eminently useful for instituting or disseminating changes across the yearly temporal and sanctoral cycles. Absalon’s Danish ordinal has not survived, but some excerpts have been found in the notes of the antiquarian Cornelius Hamsfort [the younger] (1546–1627), including the preface, which gives more details of the compilation process and the rationale behind it, and which I have analyzed more closely below.9 This chapter is also intended as a response to an important scholarly devel‐ opment of the last few decades: the glorious advent of liturgy in the medieval historical mainstream (a very modest response, I should add, from one of its 4 Saxo’s views on the later parts of Absalon’s archiepiscopate are unknown, as the Gesta Danorum end in 1185, almost a quarter of a century before he finished them. It is possible that Saxo’s strongly aristocratic ideals clashed with the sacralized, liturgical kingship cultivated by Cnut VI (1182–1202). See also forthcoming work by Lar Kjær, ‘St Niels of Aarhus, Kingship and the Holy in Medieval Denmark, 1146–1241’. 5 Annales Dano-Suecani, ed. by Erik Kroman, in Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, ed. by Erik Kroman (Copenhagen: Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1980), s. a. 1188, p. 302: ‘ordinatum est officium in ecclesia Lundensis’. 6 Annales Essenbecenses, ed. by Erik Kroman, in Danmarks middelalderlige annaler, s. a. 1187, p. 277: ‘breuiarium Danicum compositum est’. 7 Paul Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Büchertitel, 2 vols, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophich-historische Klasse 1948/4 and 1953/3 (Munich: Verlag der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1949 and 1953) I, pp. 11–18. 8 Aimé-Georges Martimort, Les ‘ordines’, les ordinaries et les cérémoniaux, Typologies des sources du Moyen Age occidental, 56 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991); Edward B. Foley, ‘The “Libri ordinarii”: An Introduction’, Ephemerides Liturgicae, 102 (1988), 129–37. 9 The excerpts were edited in Niels Skyum-Nielsen, ‘En nyfunden kilde til Absalons historie’, Historie/ Jyske Samlinger, 19 (1991), 244–64. Other than the preface, the notes are cursory, and interspersed with expressions of displeasure at the popishness of the rite. Skyum-Nielsen’s edition was published posthumously, from his notes, and the text is in need of thorough reconsideration. See further below, note 43.
‘ONE HARMONIOUS FORM’
beneficiaries).10 Scholars of political liturgy such as Ernst Kantorowicz or Percy Ernst Schramm, whose academic careers began in prewar Germany, were ahead of their time in this respect.11 They were historians of medieval politics who took liturgical sources seriously at a time when the study of medieval liturgy was almost wholly in the hands of professional churchmen, whose expertise and familiarity with the sources is certainly awe-inspiring, but whose aims were more often reconstructive and taxonomical than analytical, whose methods were often arcane, and whose interests rarely strayed beyond the textual into practice and meaning. In the postwar years, another field pioneered by Germanophone historians, the study of aristocratic memoria, made innovative use of liturgical sources, but at first for primarily prosopographical purposes and only gradually qua liturgy.12 It was only with the adoption of anthropological approaches by some (mostly) early medieval historians in the 1970s and ‘80s that religious ritual began to be integrated into political and social histories; and it is really only since the turn of the millennium that this tendency has gained enough momentum that it can be said to dominate over more traditional approaches, at least in Anglophone scholarship.13 The new wave of medieval liturgical studies is multiform, but has some defining characteristics: first, it is multi-disciplinary, and based on conversations between musicologists, palaeographers, art historians, historians, theologians, and so on; second, it stresses practice over text (and the methodological and epistemological problems inherent in uncovering medieval practice); and third, it highlights an almost irrepressible diversity of practices as a defining characteristic of medieval liturgy.14 By contrast, questions of control, reform, and standardization greatly preoccu‐ pied traditional liturgists. However, they only rarely stopped to reflect on the incentives which drove medieval actors to attempt liturgical reforms, or to think critically about claims to uniformity of practice. Often, they took over the com‐ monplace assumption in medieval sources, on which more below, that the church was constantly in decline and in need of periodic rejuvenation. Contemporary
10 Miri Rubin, ‘Liturgy’s Present: How Historians Are Animating a “New” History of Liturgy’, in Liturgy’s Imagined Past/s: Methodologies and Materials in the Writing of Liturgical History Today, ed. by Teresa Berger and Bryan D. Spinks (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2016), pp. 19–38; Understanding Medieval Liturgy: Essays in Interpretation, ed. by Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015). 11 Robert E. Lerner, Ernst Kantorowicz: A Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), pp. 55– 171; János Bak, ‘Percy Ernst Schramm (1894–1970)’, in Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, ed. by Helen Damico and Joseph B. Zavadil (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), pp. 247–62. 12 See, for example, ‘Memoria’: Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter, ed. by Karl Schmid and Joachim Wollasch (Munich: Fink, 1984). 13 For some pioneering examples, see Janet L. Nelson, ‘Ritual and Reality in the Early Medieval ‘Ordines’’, Studies in Church History, 11 (1975), 41–51; Arnold Angenendt, ‘Taufe und Politik im frühen Mittelalter’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 7 (1973), 143–68; Patrick Geary, ‘L’humiliation des saints’, Annales, 34 (1979), 27–42. 14 Laid out in the introduction to Understanding Medieval Liturgy, ed. by Gittos and Hamilton, pp. 1–10.
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scholars tend to be much more suspicious of such claims, and the idea that unifor‐ mity of practice of any kind was achievable in the age before the printing press has been comprehensively rejected. For scholars of political liturgy, with some very important Carolingianist exceptions, questions of uniformity and diversity, of liturgical control and liturgical freedom, have usually not even been an issue.15 Their focus has, for the most part, been on so-called ‘occasional rites’ – rituals of consecration, penitence, and excommunication in particular – not the regular performance of mass and the hours per circulum anni; and consequently on sym‐ bolic representation, not administration. Kantorowicz’s famous diagnosis of a shift from liturgy to law as the dominant organizing principle of power in the eleventh and twelfth centuries is symptomatic of how historians of medieval politics have often associated liturgy with a more archaic, charismatic rulership.16 But, as Jinty Nelson has shown, both the dichotomy of liturgy and law and the diagnosis of a central-medieval shift are problematic.17 Early medieval princes conceptualized their rule in juridical terms too; and late-medieval princes continued to place great value on representation and ritual. Furthermore, liturgy too had an administrative and normative element, and could be closely analogous to law in both language and practice; much like the secular state, it drew on and reflected a literate system of governance. This is the dynamic that I would like to explore in the following pages.
The Province of Lund and the Kingdom of the Danes In 1103, following a visit to Rome by King Erik Ejegod (‘the ever-good’, r. 1095– 1103) of Denmark, Pope Paschal II granted metropolitan authority to the see of Lund. In the following year, Asser (bishop since 1089, died 1137) acceded to the archbishopric. Until then, all Scandinavian bishops had, technically, been subject to the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen.18 Hamburg-Bremen’s metropoli‐ tan rights, which had their (murky) origins in a papal and imperial missionary mandate from the ninth century, were, however, contested, and most scholars agree that the archbishops’ real power in the north was severely circumscribed. Norwegian kings seem to have ignored Hamburg-Bremen entirely and controlled their own episcopate from the beginning, following their conversion in the late
15 Cf., for example, Yitzhak Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald, Henry Bradshaw Society: Subsidia, 3 (London: Boydell & Brewer, 2001); Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789–895 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), pp. 115–54. 16 The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 87–97. 17 Janet L. Nelson, ‘Liturgy or Law: Misconceived Alternatives?’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. by Stephen Baxter, Janet L. Nelson, and David A. E. Pelteret (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 433–50. 18 Erik Niblaeus, Mission and Medieval Empire: Germany and Scandinavia, c. 1000–1200, forthcoming.
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tenth century.19 In both Denmark and Sweden there had been attempts to raise a local bishop to metropolitan status in the mid-eleventh century.20 Modern histo‐ rians have, almost uniformly, agreed on the factors which drove this development: as political structures in Scandinavia were becoming increasingly centralized, as Christian kings adopted new styles and practices of rulership, and as the awareness of co-belonging as a people, brewed in the Scandinavian kingdoms, it was natural that each of the three kingdoms would need its own archbishop, and the creation of archiepiscopate of Lund was a first step.21 This process continued in the following decades, with some hiccups – the pope was briefly persuaded to give the Hamburg-Bremen archbishops their Scandinavian mandate back in the 1130s, and they continued to lobby to have it reinstated until the 1180s – and concluded with the grants of metropolitan authority over Norway and the Norsespeaking communities in the Atlantic to Nidaros/Trondheim in 1152/1153 and to Uppsala over Sweden in 1164.22 The general prevalence of the view that the underlying impetus behind the creation of the province of Lund was a desire for national self-determination should not be taken to mean that all modern Scandinavian historians are fervent nationalists. In fact, it is quite similar to how Saxo described it: as an attempt to ‘liberate the patria and the domestic church from Saxon primacy, so that they need not follow foreigners in matters of religion’.23 Saxo’s aristocratic and xenophobic patriotism should not be likened to modern nationalism, but he did write expressly to glorify the patria, and, like many other chroniclers, his perspec‐ tive was overwhelmingly regnal, to use Susan Reynolds’s term.24 He viewed the Church and the episcopate as part of the regnal public order, a religio publica which was not necessarily subordinate to the king, but bound by the organizing principles of the Danish kingdom.25 In Saxo’s history, bishops became bearers
19 Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, ed. by Bernhard Schmeidler, MGH SRG, 2 (Hanover and Leipzig: Hahn, 1917), III. 17, pp. 159–60. 20 Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis, III. 15, pp. 155–57 (‘Archbishop’ Osmund of Sweden); Gregory VII mentioned in a letter that Alexander II had negotiated with the Danish king about a Danish archbishopric: Registrum Gregorii VII, ed. by Erich Caspar, MGH Epistolae selectae 2.1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1920), II. 51, pp. 192–94. 21 For a historiographical overview in English (concentrating on Norway, but with references to the other Scandinavian kingdoms) see Sverre Bagge, ‘Christianization and State Formation in Early Medieval Norway’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 30 (2005), 107–34. 22 For context, see Helmut Beumann, ‘Das päpstliche Schisma von 1130, Lothar III. und die Metropolitanrechte von Magdeburg und Hamburg-Bremen in Polen und Dänemark’, in Helmut Beumann, Wissenschaft vom Mittelalter: Ausgewählte Aufsätze (Cologne: Böhlau, 1972), pp. 479–500. 23 Saxo, Gesta Danorum, II, XII. 5. 2, pp. 878–81): ‘[P]atriam ac domestica sacra Saxonica prælatione liberari petivit, ne religionis ratione exteris admodum obsequi cogeretur aut eius disciplinam ab alienigenis petere necesse haberet’. 24 Saxo, Gesta Danorum, I, praefatio 1. 1, pp. 2–3; Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 250–331. 25 Erik Niblaeus, ‘Lords and Lordship in Saxo Grammaticus’s “Gesta Danorum”’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 15 (2019), 203–44.
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of that public order by royal decree, and the social ideal was an ‘indissoluble concord between regnum and sacerdotium’.26 With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that Saxo privileged the liberation of domestica sacra in his account of how Lund acquired metropolitan status. But there are reasons to be sceptical of Saxo’s account, both because of his patriotic priorities and because of his vantage of a later generation.27 First of all, the archdiocese of Lund was distinctly not a regnal province at its inception: it claimed metropolitan rights over all of Hamburg-Bremen’s northern suffragans. Archbishop Asser demonstrated the new hierarchical order when he consecrated the crypt of the new cathedral of St Lawrence in 1123 with relics of all three Hamburg-Bremen saints – Willehad, Ansgar, Rimbert – a gesture, it seems to me, of appropriation and of stepping into his predecessors’ shoes.28 The three Scandinavian kingdoms were unstable entities for most of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the regnal order familiar today was far from a given conclusion. It is unlikely that Archbishop Eskil (r. 1137–1177, died 1181) fought the establishment of the archbishopric of Nidaros, but he manifestly had a big say in the establishment of the archbishopric of Uppsala, effected in Paris, where both Pope Alexander III and Eskil were in exile: in his foundational diploma, Alexander decreed that the new archbishop and his successors were to be perpetually subject to the primacy of Lund.29 Lund’s Swedish primacy came to be almost as contested as the Hamburg-Bremen mandate.30 Furthermore, for all that the Norwegian suffragans of Nidaros were not formally subject to Lund, they nonetheless ended up being the object of Absalon’s patronage: the exiled Archbishop Erik of Nidaros arrived in Denmark in 1190. By 1199 the rest of the Norwegian episcopate had joined him, and they remained there until 1202.31 Second, it is worth thinking of the grant of metropolitan status to Lund in a larger, European perspective. Was there a general expectation that regnal governance and some form of supra-diocesan episcopal administration should
26 Saxo, Gesta Danorum, II, XI. 7. 20, pp. 816–17: ‘[inextricabilis] regni sacerdotiique [concordia]’. 27 Saxo can be contrasted with the only contemporaneous source, the Icelandic skald Markús Skeggjason’s memorial drápa for Erik Ejegod, which celebrated Lund as a centre for all Norsespeaking peoples: Markús Skeggjason, Eiríksdrápa, stanza 25, ed. by Jayne Carroll, in Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 2: From c. 1035 to c. 1300, ed. by Kari Ellen Gade, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, 2, 2 vols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), I, p. 454. 28 Necrologium Lundense: Lunds domkyrkas nekrologium, ed. by Lauritz Weibull (Lund: Berling, 1923), p. 80. 29 Diplomatarium Danicum: 1. Række, ed. by Lauritz Weibull and others, 7 vols (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1952–1990), II, 1., nos 153–54, pp. 285–91. 30 Carl F. Hallencreutz, ‘Riksidentitet, stiftsidentitet och den vidare Europagemenskapen’, in Kristnandet i Sverige: Gamla källor och nya perspektiv, ed. by Bertil Nilsson (Uppsala: Lunne, 1996), pp. 243–68 (pp. 261–63). 31 For context, see Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway, c. 950–1300 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010), pp. 40–65.
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coincide? No straightforward answer is possible.32 One powerful canonical norm could be found in a forged letter from Pope Pelagius II included in the ninthcentury Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, which defined a province as containing ‘ten or eleven cities and one king, under whom there should be the same number of lower-ranking secular officials, and one bishop (i.e. the archbishop) with ten or eleven more bishops as suffragans and judges’.33 Horst Fuhrmann traced the early history of this definition, which became widespread over the course of the eleventh century and was a mainstay of twelfth-century canon law.34 It could be used by regional actors keen to curry papal favour. On the other hand, real archdioceses which bore any resemblance to the pseudo-Isidorean ideal were exceedingly rare. After all, the dominant Christian regna contained several eccle‐ siastical metropolises.35 The number of suffragan sees within a province varied greatly. With the breakup of the Carolingian Empire, several provinces came to straddle regnal borders; and this remained the case as East and West Francia morphed into Germany and France. When new archdioceses were founded in the central-medieval centuries, it could happen for a variety of reasons, and in the interests of various actors. In those cases where a papal diploma recording the foundation survives, it tends, understandably, to stress the relationship between the metropolitan and the papacy (as symbolized by the pallium), rather than between the archbishop and his suffragans, or with the secular ruler.36 When a king or emperor was closely involved in the foundation, we can sometimes see instances where a new province was justified because it corresponded to a particular regnum or a particular ethnic
32 Raymonde Foreville, ‘Royaumes, métropolitains et conciles provinciaux’, in Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della ‘societas christiana’ dei secoli XI–XII: Papato, cardinalato ed episcopato: Atti della quinta Settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola 1971 [no ed.], Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medioevo, 7 (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1974), pp. 272–313; reprinted in Raymonde Foreville, Gouvernement et vie de l’Eglise au Moyen-Âge (London: Variorum, 1979), ch. VII. 33 Decretales pseudo-Isidoreanae et Capitula Angilramni, ed. by Paul Hinschius (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1863), p. 724: ‘scitote certam provintiam esse, quae habet decem vel undecim civitates et unum regem et totidem minores potestates sub se et unum episcopum aliosque suffragatores decem vel undecim episcopos iudices’. 34 Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Patriarchaten’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung, 39 (1953), 112–76; 40 (1954), 1–84; and 41 (1955), 95–183; Horst Fuhrmann, ‘“Provincia constat duodecim episcopatibus”: Zum Patriarchatsplan Erzbischof Adalberts von Bremen’, Studia Gratiana, 11 (1967), 389–404. 35 Henri Leclercq, ‘Métropole’, in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. by Fernand Cabrol, 15 vols (Paris: Letouzey & Ané, 1907–1953), XI, cols 786–90; Steffen Patzold, ‘Eine Hierarchie im Wandel. Die Ausbildung einer Metropolitanordnung im Frankenreich des 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts’, in Hiérarchie et stratification sociale dans l’Occident médiéval (400–1100), ed. by Dominique Iogna-Prat, François Bougard, and Régine Le Jan, Collection Haut Moyen Âge, 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), pp. 161–84; Daniel Carlo Pangerl, Die Metropolitanverfassung des karolingischen Frankenreichs, MGH Schriften, 63 (Hanover: Hahn, 2011). 36 See, for example, the Scandinavian foundation diplomas above, notes 22 and 29; or the foundation diploma for the archdiocese of Esztergom: Diplomata Hungariae antiquissima, ed. by Györffy György (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1992), I, no. 4, pp. 22–24.
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grouping, if often post facto. For example, Otto the Great’s foundation of the arch‐ bishopric of Magdeburg was certainly an imperial initiative, but also a distinctly Saxon one, taken by Otto ‘in the hope of eternal reward and for the defence of [his—EN] […] fatherland’, in Thietmar of Merseburg’s words.37 The Lives of St Stephen of Hungary connected the diocesan organization of the kingdom and the creation of the archbishopric of Esztergom in 1001 with the extension and intensification of Arpád power (likely concealing a messier reality).38 The difficult and disrupted history of the earliest Polish diocesan organization, on the other hand, precluded any such narratives.39 When the archbishopric of Salerno was founded in 1058, a complex combination of external and internal factors lay behind it, with no clear overlap with princely political ambitions.40 Thus, the relationship between the regna and ecclesiastical provinces in central-medieval Europe was complicated, and depended both on political contingencies and on longstanding tradition. Some metropolitans tried to acquire authority on a regnal basis, and articulated their attempts as claims to primacy over their fellow archbishops, which could result in infected disputes or tortuous compromises.41 In the Kingdom of the Germans archbishops raced to trump one another with special papal privileges, with the result that, by the mid-eleventh century, every German archbishop could brandish a document proving his par‐ ticular pre-eminence within the kingdom.42 In general, however, there is little justification for speaking of ‘national churches’ in this period in the way that medievalists sometimes used to do. There is no doubt that the development of the diocesan organization and the process of ‘state-formation’ in twelfth-century Scandinavia were entwined and interdependent. They were, however, by no means exactly parallel, as in the supposedly self-evident teleologies so often assumed in the scholarship. Liturgical sources, which by their very nature present us with glimpses into a vast intertextual network of contacts, dependencies, and
37 Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, ed. by Robert Holtzmann, MGH SRG NS, 9 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1935), II. 20, p. 62; Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg, trans. by David Warner (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. 106: ‘ob spem remuneracionis aeterne defensionemque […] patriae’. 38 Nora Berend, Przemysław Urbańczyk, and Przemysław Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages: Bohemia, Hungary and Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 333–35, with references. 39 Berend, Urbańczyk and Wiszewski, Central Europe in the High Middle Ages, pp. 330–02. For more detail, see Roman Michałowski, The Gniezno Summit: The Religious Premises of the Founding of the Archbishopric of Gniezno, East Central and Easter Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 38 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), with references to previous literature. 40 Valerie Ramseyer, The Transformation of a Religious Landscape: Medieval Southern Italy 850–1150 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp. 125–58. 41 For examples from Brittany, Britain, and Ireland, see Foreville, ‘Royaumes, métropolitains et conciles provinciaux’, pp. 281–91. 42 Egon Boshof, ‘Köln, Mainz, Trier – Die Auseinandersetzung um die Spitzenstellung im deutschen Episkopat in ottonisch-salischer Zeit’, Jahrbuch des Kölnischen Geschichtsvereins, 49 (1978), 19–48.
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cultural transfer, can help us a subtler idea of this development than the narrative sources on their own.
The Ordinal Preface As noted above, the preface is one of the few passages surviving from Absalon’s ordinal. It is brief, but rich in implications, and worth quoting in full: In the month of July Absalon held a general meeting at Lund, to set out the sacred services for all of Denmark, and to redact and correct divergent and corrupt ceremonies into one harmonious form. It was in the sixth year of King Cnut, Absalon’s thirtieth as bishop of Roskilde, and his tenth as prelate of Lund. To that place came the most wise men in sacred things as envoys of the bishops, summoned by Absalon: the provost Sven from Bishop Niels of Viberg; the provost Esbern and Master Thomas from Bishop Sven of Aarhus; Master Rudolph and Thomas the priest from Bishop Homer of Ribe; Bishop Thrugot of Børglum sent the priest Åge and John the canon from Vestervig; Bishop John of Odense sent the priests Peter and Godfred; Valdemar, bishop elect of Schleswig, sent Sven the provost. From the church of Roskilde, the priests Abraham and Albert were in attendance, as were the canons John and Benedict from Dalby, and, from the metropolitan see, Andreas the deacon and Martin the priest. Absalon offered to those assembled a rite of sacred services, the singing of ceremonies, and the fixed alternation of hymns throughout the Danish kingdom. The aforementioned eminences were named as its authors.43 The meeting was, thus, not a provincial synod, but a public gathering (comitia publica) of experts. It is telling that canons regular from the houses at Dalby and
43 Skyum-Nielsen, ‘En nyfunden kilde’, pp. 249–50 (my translation). Note again that some of the exact wording, as well as the extent to which Hamsfort might have reworked or shortened it, remain unclear: ‘Mense Iulio comitia Lundis publica sacris per Daniam constituendis et dissonis collapsisque cerimoniis in consentientem formam redigendis emendandisque Absolon habuit. Fuit annus Canuti regis sextus, Absolonis in episcopa(tu) Roscildensi XXX, pontificatus Lundensis decimus. Eo ab episcopis ablegati euocante Absolone uenerunt sacrorum peritissimi patres, a Nicolao episcopo Vibergio Sueno præpositus, a Suenone Arhusio episcopo præpositus Esbernus et magister Thomas, ab Homero Ripensi episcopo magister Rudolphus et Thomas præsbyter. Thrugotus episcopus Burglanensis Achonem præsbyterum et Ioannem canonicum de Vesteruig, Ioannes episcopus Othoniensis Petrum et Godifredum præsbyteros, Voldemarus electus Slieuicensis Suenonem præpositum miserunt. Ex ecclesia Roscildensi aderant Abrahamus et Albertus præsbyteri, e Dalbuensi Ioannes et Benedictus canonici, e metropolitane Sueno archidiaconus, Andreas diaconus et Martinus præsbyter. In comitiis Absolon ritus sacrorum tradidit, ceremonias canendi, hymnos alternis uicibus per ecclesiam Daniam edocuit. Nominati patres auctores sunt facto’.
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Vestervig were in attendance, in addition to the representatives of the cathedral chapters: the liturgical and organizational know-how of canons regular could be of great help to reform-minded prelates. Archbishop Conrad I of Salzburg (1106– 1147), for example, strategically employed canons who followed the strict Augus‐ tinian ordo novus (disseminated from the abbey of Springiersbach in the Moselle valley) in order to raise his archdiocese from what he constantly bemoaned as its ruinous state.44 At around the same time as Conrad’s reforms, the cathedral chapter at Lund itself had experimented with the only slightly less strict ordo antiquus (from Marbach in Alsace).45 The canons of Dalby, some six miles east of Lund, seem to have played an important role at the cathedral chapter since its inception.46 There are reasons to believe, as I note in the next section, that some, fundamental elements of the Lund ordinal were based on texts circulating amongst south-German Augustinian and Benedictine houses. Otherwise, the preface contains elements found in other ordinal prefaces: a note of where, when, and by whom it was issued – an authorization, literally – to lend it normative validity; as well as a sentence about why it was needed.47 This is worth unpacking a bit, in comparison with other analogous or related texts. First, there is the necessity of correction following corruption: the rite needed to be restored, because it had collapsed. This is a commonplace in any public justification of church reform (meant here in its broadest sense, of no particular ideological flavour).48 Other ordinal prefaces made the same point more elaborately: in a distant and undefined past, the sacred ceremonies had been studiously cared for, but, because of the sinfulness of man, the inevitable oblivion which came with the passing of time, or the ‘ignominy of the moderns’, they had fallen to such a state that they no longer served as the honourable path to God and salvation.49 The compilers of ordinals often claimed their efforts to have been 44 Stefan Weinfurter, Salzburger Bistumsreform und Bischofspolitik im 12. Jahrhundert: Der Erzbischof Konrad I. von Salzburg (1106–1147) und die Regularkanoniker, Kölner historische Abhandlungen, 24 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1975). 45 Consuetudines Lundenses: Statutter for kannikesamfundet i Lund c. 1123, ed. by Erik Buus (Copenhagen: Det danske Sprog-og Litteraturselskab, 1978). On the date, see Anna Minara Ciardi, ‘När tog lundakanikernas Consuetudines egentligen i bruk? Reflektioner kring texttradering och traditionsförmedling i 1120–talets Lund’, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift, 104 (2004), 11–21. 46 Locus celebris: Dalby kyrka, kloster och gård, ed. by Stephan Borgehammar and Jes Wienberg (Gothenburg: Makadam, 2012). 47 Comparable to the well-known preface of the Law of Jutland of 1241, for example: Danmarks gamle landksabslove med kirkelovene, ed. by Peter Jørgensen and Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen, 8 vols (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1933–1961), II, p. 3. For similar statements in ordinals: Ordinale Exoniense: Exeter Chapter ms. 3502 collated with Parker ms. 93 with two appendices from Trinity College, Cambridge ms. B.XI.16 and Exeter Chapter ms. 3625, ed. by John N. Dalton, 4 vols (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1909–1940), I, p. 1; Ordinarius Lincopensis och dess liturgiska förebilder, ed. by Sven Helander, Bibliotheca theologiae practicae, 4 (Lund: Gleerup, 1957), p. 287. 48 Sarah Hamilton, Church and People in the Medieval West, 900–1200 (Harlow: Pearson, 2013), pp. 60– 118. 49 Sacramentaire et martyrologe de l’Abbaye Saint-Remy: Martyrologe, calendrier, ordinaires et prosaire de la métropole de Reims, ed. by Ulysse Chevalier (Paris: Picard, 1900), p. 92: ‘modernorum ignominia’.
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reconstructive, and to have judiciously consulted the ancient and foremost books that they could find in order to finally put on parchment a lasting and immutable guidance to the correct order of services.50 Then, there is the implied ideal, the social and religious good that Absalon’s conference aimed to achieve: agreement and consonance. The language is analo‐ gous to secular ideals of peace and consent, but the metaphor of harmony that might have been used by a ruler to announce an alliance or an end to hostilities here becomes reality: with the ordinal, everyone could sing from the same hymn sheet. Again, it is a commonplace, and the reasoning is similar to other ordinals. Ordinals (supposedly) enabled the divine services to be celebrated ‘uniformly’, ‘in concord’, or ‘unanimously’ (uniformiter, concorditer, unanime). Some made the rationale behind the ideal of uniformity explicit. The preface to the ordinal of the canons of Saint-Victor’s in Xanten (1258× 86) cited Paul’s advice to the Romans (15. 6) that Christians should glorify God ‘with one mind, and with one mouth’ and – more forcefully – Psalm 67. 7: ‘God… maketh men of one manner to dwell in a house’.51 Liturgical conformity strengthened the community, and allowed Christians of different backgrounds, who had previously been divided in a manner more befitting to the marketplace than the choir, to come together as one.52 But it also served to distinguish them from other churches, as it was appropriate that people living in different places should do things differently. The compiler of the Xanten ordinal quoted the old proverb: ‘when in Rome…’.53 In terms of practical group formation, it is easy to see how such an approach might have worked for the cloistered canons of Saint Victor, who performed the mass and office under one roof. The liturgy formed part of a house’s ‘institutional identity’, by highlighting both its distinctive customs and its links to other houses, as Susan Boynton has shown with respect to the abbey of Farfa.54 Bernard of Clairvaux’s efforts to reform the Cistercian liturgy in the 1140s is a helpful exam‐ ple of how such ambitions could be extended across a network of institutions
50 Der Liber ordinarius der Abtei St Arnulf vor Metz (Metz, Stadtbibliothek Ms. 132, um 1240), ed. by Alois Odermatt, Spicilegium Friburgense, 31 (Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1987), p. 53; Der älteste Liber Ordinarius der Trierer Domkirche: British Museum, Harley 2958, Anfang 14. Jh.: Ein Beitrag zur Liturgiegeschichte der deutschen Ortskirchen, ed. by Adalbert Kurzeja, Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, 52 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), p. 431. 51 Der älteste Ordinarius des Stiftes Xanten, Die Stiftskirche des hl. Viktor zu Xanten, ed. by Friedrich W. Oediger (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1963), II. 4, col. 47. 52 Der älteste Ordinarius, II. 4, col. 47: ‘contentiones in choro, quales nec in foro fieri deceret’. 53 Der älteste Ordinarius, II. 4, col. 47: ‘Hinc etiam vulgariter dici solet: “Dum fueris Rome, Romano vivito more; et cum sis alibi, vivito sicut ibi”’. For similar reasoning, see Ordinaires de l’église cathédrale de Laon (XIIe et XIIIe siècles) suivis de deux mystères liturgiques, ed. by Ulysse Chevalier (Paris: Picard, 1897), pp. 189–91 (mid-thirteenth-century ordinal by the deacon Adam de Courlandon). 54 Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000– 1125 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).
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in the new religious orders.55 For an unambiguously outward-looking church, such as a metropolitan cathedral, the story is slightly different. The ordinal of the cathedral of Magdeburg, a few decades later than the lost Lund ordinal, and with a considerably more detailed preface, offers a helpful parallel here.56 The Magdeburg canons, too, noted that, because of the diversity of places, Christians performed the liturgy in different ways; even though that uniformity within one church, for all celebrants ‘according to their standing and order’, was necessary for them to be able to serve God in the right way.57 But, for all that churches have different customs, some are better than others and worth imitating. Metropolitan cathedrals had to be particularly honourable and holy in their divine services, so that they could serve as an inspiration for those churches that were subject to them, as their mater et patrona.58 The language here is that of maternal solicitude rather than hierarchical decree. Perhaps this is a more realistic view of the role played by Absalon’s reform in the Danish church than the enforced uniformity claimed by Arnold of Lübeck. There was canonical precedent which decreed that all churches in a given province should follow the liturgical custom of the metropolitan cathedral, but the extent to which archbishops could or even would attempt to put this into practice varied across the medieval west.59 In later medieval southern England, for example, it was not the metropolitan cathedral in Canterbury, but Salisbury, which claimed its use to be liturgically authoritative.60 Statements to the effect that a church or a book 55 The Primitive Cistercian Breviary (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Ms. lat. oct. 402) with Variants from the ‘Bernardine’ Cistercian Breviary, ed. by Chrysogonus Waddell, Spicilegium Friburgense, 44 (Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 2007), pp. 30–32. 56 Preserved in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS lat. theol. 4to 113 (s. xv); the text was dated to the mid-thirteenth century by Georg Sello, who edited a few small excerpts from a related but lost manuscript in Georg Sello, ‘Dom-Altertümer’, Geschichtsblätter für Stadt und Land Magdeburg, 26 (1891), 108–200. 57 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS lat. theol. 4 to 113, fol. 1r: ‘in gradu sui status et ordinis’. The theme of the diversity of liturgies amongst the gentes goes back to liturgists in Carolingian Francia and beyond: Christina Pössel, ‘“Appropriate to the Religion of Their Time”: Walahfrid’s Historicisation of the Liturgy’, in Writing the Early Medieval West: Studies in Honour of Rosamond McKitterick, ed. by Elina Screen and Charles West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 80–97. On tolerance of religious diversity in the Central Middle Ages, see Giles Constable, ‘The Diversity of Religious Life and Acceptance of Social Pluralism in the Twelfth Century’, in History, Society and the Churches: Essays in Honour of Owen Chadwick, ed. by Derek Beales and Geoffrey Best (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 9–47; reprinted in Giles Constable, Culture and Spirituality in Medieval Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1996), ch. VIII. 58 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS lat. theol. 4to 113, fol. 1v. 59 For examples included in Gratian’s Decretum (Corpus Iuris Canonici editio Lipsiensis secunda post Aemilii Ludouci Richteri curas, Pars Prior: Decretum Magistri Gratiani, ed. by Emil Friedberg (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1879); digital edition at https://geschichte.digitale-sammlungen.de//decretum-gratiani/ online/angebot [accessed 23 March 2021]) see the decree of the council of Gerunda in c. 31 D. II de cons.; or the Council of Toledo in c. 13 D. XII. 60 Matthew Cheung Salisbury, The Secular Liturgical Office in Late Medieval England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 171–222; Richard W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 412–44.
‘ONE HARMONIOUS FORM’
followed the use of Sarum were often, in practice, statements of correctness or appropriateness rather than real indicators of conformity with Salisbury practice – much like, in the Early Middle Ages, claims that a particular ceremony was ‘Roman’ by no means meant that it had been retrieved from an actual Roman source.61 A liturgical use was quite malleable in the hands of local actors. Modern critical editions have sometimes had a misleading effect here, by effectively suppressing variation in favour of one central, ‘authoritative’ text that is often either an anachronistic hybrid or based on a single witness which represents nothing other than itself.62 This is not to say that claims to liturgical uniformity do not matter; or that initiatives whose public justification was the establishment of liturgical uniformity were meaningless. But it does mean that all such claims have to be understood against the background, first, of the context in which a given use was produced; and, second, of how and to what extent it could be effectively disseminated.
Models and Influence It is impossible to reconstruct Absalon’s lost ordinal with perfect precision, but we can get some idea of what it might have looked like, at least in part, from later Lund sources – in particular the printed missal (1514) and breviary (1517), and a manuscript breviary from 1477 – as well as from later ordinals which seem to have been closely modeled on the Lund liturgy.63 Six more-or-less com‐ plete Scandinavian ordinal manuscripts have survived: two from the diocese of Linköping in Sweden (Ordinarius Lincopensis = OLinc), and four from the diocese of Skálholt, which represent the metropolitan authority of Nidaros/Trondheim in Norway with only very minor Icelandic adjustments (Ordo Nidrosiensis = ON).64 The following discussion relies to a great degree on the masterly and careful editions of the Linköping and Nidaros ordinals, by Sven Helander and Lilli
61 Yitzhak Hen ‘The Romanization of the Frankish Liturgy: Ideal, Reality, and the Rhetoric of Reform’, in Rome Across Time and Space: Cultural Transmissions and the Exchange of Ideas, c. 500–1400, ed. by Claudia Bolgia, Rosamond McKitterick, and John Osborne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 111–24. 62 See Henry Parkes, ‘Questioning the Authority of Vogel and Elze’s Pontifical romano-germanique’, in Understanding Medieval Liturgy, ed. by Gittos and Hamilton, pp. 75–102; Matthew Leung Salisbury, ‘Rethinking the Uses of Sarum and York: A Historiographical Essay’, in the same collection, pp. 103–24. 63 Breviarium Lundense nuper revisum atque castigatum (Paris: J. Philippe, 1514); Missale Lundense av år 1514: Faksimiledition med efterskrift och register, ed. by Bengt Strömberg (Malmö: Kroon, 1946); Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek C 477: see Toni Schmid, ‘Breviarium Lundense 1477’, Scandia, 2 (1929), 282–84. 64 OLinc: Stockholm, Riksarkivet Skoklostersamlingen, Avd. I, nr 2 in 4o (Vadstena Abbey, 1376× 1406); Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, C 428 (Vadstena Abbey, s. xv). ON: Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, 679 40 (Iceland, s. xiii4/4); MS 680a 4o (Iceland, s. xiii3/4–3/3), MS 678 4o (Iceland, c. 1300), and 791 4o (Iceland, s. xiii2).
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Gjerløw respectively.65 ON is the closest in time to the meeting at Lund, dating to 1205× 1224; OLinc is considerably later (c. 1400), but Helander’s comparison with later Lund material showed even more parallels with Lund than in the case of ON. A detailed comparison between these later sources and the excerpts from Absalon’s ordinal copied by Hamsfort still needs to be done, but from preliminary observations they are very close to OLinc.66 Lund’s influence outside of Denmark is notable, and testament to the success of the liturgical expertise gathered by Absalon in 1187, both in terms of its structure and format and in terms of its content. Manifestly, even when formal Church hierarchies did not dictate it, Lund’s custom and books were attractive to other centres. In the case of ON, the Lund liturgy likely came to Norway when the exiled episcopate returned from Denmark in 1202 following the death of King Sverre.67 Gjerløw’s edition could reconstruct the revisions that it underwent in Norway: more elaborate rites for St Olav, some adjustment along the lines of Bernold of Constance’s widespread canon-legal guide for the liturgy, Micrologus, and the addition of important material from English sources.68 In Sweden, poor in sources and resources, the process is more difficult to reconstruct; but it seems that, for all that the primacy of Lund might have been resisted in terms of jurisdiction, the metropolitan authority of Uppsala remained limited, and Danish books provided useful and authoritative models.69 Neither Gjerløw nor Helander was content to leave their analysis at demon‐ strating the reliance of ON and OLinc on a lost Lund source – they also attempted to trace some of the prehistory of that source: that is, to compare the instances where ON and OLinc agreed, and which could reasonably be postulated to go back to Lund, with earlier English and Continental sources, to see what material might have been available and considered authoritative to the compilers of the Lund ordinal. This is a complex discussion and cannot be adequately represented here. Much work remains to be done, too, especially given the wealth of compara‐ nda that are now available in digital format, both in the form of fragments and complete books, and which would have been scarcely accessible to Gjerløw and Helander.70 But some general points are worth bringing out. First, in terms of 65 Ordinarius Lincopensis, ed. by Sven Helander; Ordo Nidrosiensis ecclesiae (orðubók), ed. by Lilli Gjerløw, Libri liturgici provinciae Nidrosiensis medii aevi, 2 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1968). 66 The rubrics for Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday contain several direct verbal parallels: SkyumNielsen, ‘En nyfunden kilde’, pp. 252–54 and Ordinarius Lincopensis, pp. 329–37. 67 Ordinarius Nidrosiensis, pp. 29–38. 68 Ordinarius Nidrosiensis, pp. 91–110. 69 Ordinarius Lincopensis, 103–254. Lund scribes were writing books that would later be found in Sweden already in the first half of the twelfth century: Åslaug Ommundsen, ‘Danish Fragments in Norway and their Connection to Twelfth-Century Lund’, in Nordic Latin Manuscript Fragments: The Destruction and Reconstruction of Medieval Books, ed. by Åslaug Ommundsen and Tuomas Heikkilä (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 184–220; Sven Rossel, ‘A Survey of the Latin Manuscript Fragments in Danish Collections with Special Consideration given to the Gospel Books of the Archdiocese of Lund’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2020). 70 On fragments, see Nordic Latin Manuscript Fragments, ed. by Ommundsen and Heikkilä, passim.
‘ONE HARMONIOUS FORM’
structure and rubrics, the Lund ordinal relied on a model closely related to the ordinal of the Benedictine abbey of Rheinau in Swabia from the early twelfth century, edited by Anton Hänggi.71 In particular, Gjerløw showed, it was close to the variant called RhC in Hänggi’s edition (c. 1100), a manuscript not from Rheinau itself but of unknown origin, but part of the network of reformed monastic centres which had adopted the customs of Hirsau.72 Gjerløw’s analysis has been complemented, more recently, by Peter Wittwer’s edition of the Liber ordinarius of Zurzach, a day’s travel down the Rhine from Rheinau.73 The Zurzach ordinal is late, from around 1370, but mentions on several occasion a breviarium antiquum, an older authoritative model, which Wittwer has argued was a book from the house of canons regular of Marbach in Alsace, and which would have been the source for both the Rheinau ordinal and the lost Lund ordinal.74 There are several layers of reconstruction and postulation here which can be difficult to prove with certainty. But it seems clear that one of the principal sources of the Lund ordinal was a text in some ways connected with a network of Benedictines and canons regular in southwestern Germany, whose ordinals had been developed in the years around 1100, in institutions which self-consciously carried on the reform initiatives of Pope Gregory VII – the south German Gregorian circle, as Ian Robinson has called them.75 In 1094–1103, for example, Marbach became something of a refuge for convinced anti-imperial churchmen under the leadership of Manegold of Lautenbach.76 This fits well with the better attested aspects of Lund’s twelfth-century liturgy – its chapter book from 1123 which, as noted above, contained an adapted version of the Marbach customary; or its Gospel books, which tapped into the artistic skills of the monks of Helmarshausen on the Weser.77 By the reign of Absalon, the Gregorian-ness of his sources was likely no longer apparent or meaningful in the way that it would have been to an earlier generation. But the process of tracing and reconstructing them alerts us to how attractive and authoritative the liturgical expertise of reformed, German religious houses remained even to a secular Danish prelate.
71 Der Rheinauer Liber ordinarius (Zürich Rh 80, Anfang 12. Jh.), ed. by Anton Hänggi, Spicilegium Friburgense, 1 (Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1957). 72 Ordinarius Nidrosiesis, pp. 85–90. 73 Der Zurzacher Liber Ordinarius und seine Beziehungen zur Marbacher Liturgie: Aargauische Kantonsbibliothek Aarau Handschrift MsBNQ 52, um 1370, ed. by Peter Wittwer, Spicilegium Friburgense, 40 (Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 2004). 74 Der Zurzacher Liber Ordinarius, pp. 24–45. 75 Ian S. Robinson, ‘The Bible in the Investiture Contest: The South German Gregorian Circle’, in The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Honour of Beryl Smalley, ed. by Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), pp. 61–84. 76 Der Zurzacher Liber Ordinarius, pp. 109–16. 77 See, for example, Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, ‘Buchkultur im geistlichen Beziehungsnetz: Das Helmarshausener Skriptorium im Hochmittelalter’, in Helmarshausen: Buchkultur und Goldschmiedekunst im Hochmittelalter, ed. by Ingrid Baumgärtner (Kassel: Euregioverlag, 2003), pp. 77–122.
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Conclusion: The Politics of Liturgical Reform and Transmission ‘Political liturgy’ is, like its more frequently spotted cousin political theology, not an innocent phrase – when modern historians use it, it usually refers to the political theatre of fascism.78 Medievalists must be alert to such associations, just as we must be alert to the pitfalls of anachronism, and to the risks of reading our sources through spectacles used to a world of mass communication, in which the speakers who disseminate ideas of group-belonging reach audiences far beyond the dreams of medieval chroniclers.79 This is important when thinking of liturgy as not just theatre, but as administration as well. From the point of view of most twelfth-century bishops, the metropolitan remained (as Timothy Reuter described his predecessors in earlier centuries) ‘a colleague who had some honorific privileges but was empowered to give advice rather than instructions’.80 This said, for all that it might have masked a less impressive reality, the language of uniformity which justified Absalon’s liturgical reforms was powerful. Manifestly, their impact would have been felt on a much wider scale than Saxo’s unwieldy and flamboyant Latin chronicle. But the register of belonging and group-formation which they communicated was quite different from that of intensifying secular power, let alone modern nationalism. Liturgical reforms were enacted on the basis of several complementary nor‐ mative frameworks. Ceremonies were honourable or correct because they were internally coherent; because they were ‘Roman’; because they were ancient; and because they were the same ceremonies as those performed by others within the same Ecclesia. The glimpses that we have of the development of the liturgy at Lund over the course of the twelfth century, and of the lost ordinal of Absalon, make it clear that we are only dealing with a ‘Danish use’ in a quite superficial sense. If anything, it is the connections made across regnal boundaries that become apparent: to networks of liturgical knowledge – prestigious because it was expert – in Germany and elsewhere, and to the churches of Norway, Iceland, and Sweden, where the same processes of influence, adoption, and adaptation were replicated.
78 For example, Emilio Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy, trans. by Keith Botsford (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). The interest of Schramm and Kantorowicz in political ritual cannot be divorced from that context either: Martin Ruehl, ‘In This Time Without Emperors: The Politics of Ernst Kantorowicz’s Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite Reconsidered’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 63 (2000), 187–242. 79 On ‘speakers’ and national consciousness in the Middle Ages, see František Graus, Die Nationenbildung der Westslawen im Mittelalter, Nationes, 3 (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1980). 80 Timothy Reuter, ‘A Europe of Bishops: The Age of Wulfstan of York and Burchard of Worms’, in Patterns of Episcopal Power: Bishops in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century Western Europe, ed. by Ludger Körntgen and Dominik Waßenhoven (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), pp. 17–38 (p. 34).
jOHANN A DALE
Saint Oswald on Bishop Richard’s Vestments * Liturgy and Politics at Old Saint Paul’s
The earliest inventory surviving from Old Saint Paul’s was compiled on 23 August 1245 and was published by William Sparrow Simpson in 1887.1 It is written on the opening fly-leaves of the so-called Statuta Majora and records the treasures of the cathedral , from chalices and censers, through shrines and relics, to vestments and books.2 The items are not simply listed, but most are described in some detail including the many pieces of liturgical clothing, which comprise the bulk of the inventory. It sets out the design of copes and clasps (‘morses’), chasubles, tunicles and dalmatics before a lengthy section of vestments and things pertaining to them, in which are described two sets of vestments belonging to a Bishop Richard. The first, of red samite, was embroidered with lions and flowers and the amice decorated with rows of pearls. The associated stole and maniple were decorated with a tree and a pair of birds and pair of lions.3 The second set of vestments were even more eye catching, being of indigo samite with apparels em‐ broidered with images of the apostles. The stole and maniple were also adorned by the apostles who were joined by Saints Nicholas and Oswald and Erkenwald and Edmund. The amice was enriched with pearls and grains of gold.4 The section of * This research has been funded by a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Thanks to Grzegorz Pac for his perceptive comments on my paper at our workshop in Obrzycko, Poland. Feedback from attendees at the joint Early Middle Ages and History of Liturgy seminar at the Institute of Historical Research in London in November 2019 was also extremely constructive. Thanks to Professor Maureen C. Miller for her very helpful comments and suggestions and also to Nicholas Vincent for his astute and humorous input. 1 William Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories of the cathedral church of St Paul, London, dated respectively 1245 and 1402’, Archaeologia, 50 (1887), 439–524. 2 London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/313/B/021/MS25509, fols 5v–8v. 3 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 486: ‘Vestimentum Ricardi Episcopi habet paruras de rubeo sameto breudato cum leonibus incedentibus caudis erectis et floribus interlaqueatis. Stola et manipulus de eodem panno, in quorum extremitatibus breudatur arbor cum duabus avibus et leonibus. Amictus est de aurifrigio puro cum barris de margaritis’. 4 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 487: ‘Vestimentum aliud ejusdem [Ricardi Episcopi] habet paruras indici sameti breudatas apostolis, nominibus singulorum suprascriptis. Stola et manipulus ejusdem panni et breudurae; Apostoli cum albis faciebus. In extremitate stolae breudantur Sanctus Nicholaus et Oswaldus; manipuli, Erkenwaldus et Edmundus. Medium amictus breudatur cum puro aurifrigio tracto, cum margaritis et granis auri’. Johanna Dale • University College London
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vestments and things pertaining to them includes several other magnificent sets of liturgical clothing belonging to other named bishops and members of their entourages. A Bishop Gilbert, for example, had a vestment embroidered with stars and crescents with the Old Testament figures of Abraham and Melchizedek on the stole and the Twelve Apostles on the amice.5 Another set of vestments made of red samite were embroidered with images of martyrs, confessors and virgins and a star pattern. The stole and maniple were also of red samite and their ends were decorated with images of Peter and Paul, John and Andrew.6 Bishop Richard’s vestments with their pairs of saints on the stole and maniple were not exceptional in their overall design, as these other examples show. Indeed, by the later Middle Ages the lining up of images down the front of copes became so common that by the fifteenth century embroidered saints were produced separately and then could be placed into the bands running down the front of a cope, enabling the buyer or commissioner to arrange the saints to create specific visual pairings.7 Bishop Richard’s vestments were part of a wider phenomenon of the dec‐ oration of liturgical textiles, but in their specific manifestation they can also tell us a great deal about individual and communal contexts. That this kind of decoration should not be seen as incidental, but instead as an integral part of the expressive language of the liturgy and of clerical identity has been eloquently elucidated by Maureen Miller.8 Her insight, that ‘the distinctive attire of the clergy symbolized claims both to holiness and to power’, is particularly instructive when considering the interaction between liturgy and politics.9 However, before we can analyze the iconography of the second set of Bishop Richard’s vestments, which is the ultimate aim of this essay, there is some groundwork to be done. In this essay I shall firstly demonstrate that the bishop in question is Richard fitz Nigel (r. 1189–1198), before proving that the Oswald on his vestments is Oswald of Northumbria, king and martyr, rather than his namesake the saintly Bishop of Worcester. Having done so, I shall be able to show how Richard fitz Nigel harnessed the cult of a saint-king favoured by the Norman and Plantagenet monarchs, and already firmly embedded in the liturgical life of Saint Paul’s, to emphasize his dual identity as bishop of London and royal servant. By the time the inventory was written, London had seen no fewer than three bishops named Richard. With a little careful reading of the inventory, however,
5 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 486. 6 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 488. 7 Uta-Christiane Bergemann, ‘Serial Production of Embroidered Orphreys in the Late Middle Ages’, in Iconography of Liturgical Textiles in the Middle Ages, ed. by Evelin Wetter, Riggisberger Berichte, 18 (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2010), pp. 171–82. Thanks to Professor Miller for drawing this reference to my attention. 8 Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014). For a study of liturgical vestments in Byzantium see Warren T. Woodfin, The Embroidered Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 9 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, p. 208.
SAINT OSWALD ON BISHOP RICHARD’S VESTMENTS
we can be quite certain that the Bishop Richard referred to here is Richard fitz Nigel (or Richard III alias Richard of Ely as he is elsewhere described in the inventory) rather than his namesakes Richard of Beaumais I (r. 1108–1127) or Richard I’s nephew, Richard of Beaumais II (r. 1152–1162). The section on vestments not only lists episcopal vestments, but also those of other members of the community. However, within the list the bishops appear in the order in which they reigned. The section opens with a vestment of ‘Gilberti Episcopi’, most likely to be identified as Gilbert Foliot (r. 1163–1187) rather than Gilbert Universalis (r. 1127–1134) when we examine the list and following the logic of it presenting the bishops in sequence.10 Next comes our Bishop Richard, then Bishop William (of Sainte-Mère-Eglise, r. 1198–1221), Richard fitz Nigel’s successor, then Bishop Eustace (of Fauconberg, r. 1221–1228) and the final bishop mentioned in the section, Bishop Roger (Niger of Beeleigh, r. 1228–1241).11 As the inventory was compiled early in the reign of his successor, Fulk Basset (r. 1241–1259) it seems clear why Roger Niger is the last bishop mentioned. The significance of the list beginning with Gilbert Foliot, and why no vestments of earlier bishops appear to have survived, remains a puzzle, but could be explained by the fact that the new cathedral, begun in or soon after the 1087 fire, which had destroyed its predecessor, was largely finished during Gilbert’s reign.12 Perhaps it was not until Gilbert’s episcopate that a permanent treasury for safely storing such vestments came into being. Beyond the chronological ordering of the list, there is more internal evidence to allow for the confident identification of Bishop Richard with Richard fitz Nigel. The most decisive argument is provided by the description of a vestment belonging to Roger the Chaplain: The other vestments of the same [Roger the chaplain] with dark samite apparels embroidered with the Majesty and the apostles with white faces without superscriptions. The stole and maniple of indigo samite embroidered with images of the apostles and prophets, designated by name. In whose extremities are embroidered Saints Thomas and Oswald, Nicholas and Edmund.13
10 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 486. 11 Eustace’s vestments are described as being ‘de opera Sarracenico’. Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 489. 12 Derek Keene, ‘From Conquest to Capital: St Paul’s c. 1100–1300’, in St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London 604–2004, ed. by Derek J. Keene, Arthur Burns, and Andrew Saint (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 17–32 (p. 20). 13 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 487: ‘Vestimentum aliud ejusdem [Rogeri capellani] cum paruris nigri sameti breudatis cum majestate et apostolis cum albis faciebus sine superscriptione. Stola et manipulus de indico sameto breudati ymaginibus apostolorum et prophetarum, nominibus designatis. In quorum extremitatibus breudantur Sanctus Thomas et Oswaldus, Nicholaus, et Edmundus’.
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The similarity of the iconography here and the presence of three out of four of the same saints as found on Bishop Richard’s vestments makes apparent that these vestments were in some way related. This is explained by the fact that the two men stood in close relationship to one another: Roger was Richard fitz Nigel’s chaplain. He appears to have been in Richard’s service before Richard’s promotion to the bishopric as he witnessed at least one of his charters as dean of Lincoln.14 He held the prebend of Oxgate from c. 1192 to c. 1213, having already been rewarded with the perpetual vicarage of the church of Black Notley (Essex) in 1190 or 1191, soon after Richard’s elevation to the episcopal throne.15 A further set of vestments can probably also best be understood alongside those of fitz Nigel and his chaplain Roger: a set belonging to Master Henry of Northampton. Like fitz Nigel’s they were indigo. The main pattern of the embroidery comprised lions, eagles and trees, but like Richard and Roger the ends of Henry’s maniple and stole were embroidered with human figures. St Thomas and the cathedral’s patron St Paul were to be found on his stole. On his maniple, Erkenwald was accompanied by a ‘bishop Richard’.16 Sparrow Simpson suggested that it was perhaps Richard de Belmeis I who was depicted on Henry’s maniple, but given his close association with Richard fitz Nigel, and the fact that iconographical similarities suggest that the vestments of these three men in some way comprised a matching set, it is surely more likely that Richard fitz Nigel was represented on Henry of Northampton’s vestments, alongside his saintly episcopal predecessor.17 The liturgical cult of Erkenwald, whose body had been translated to a new shrine behind the altar in 1148, was integral to the identity of the cathedral community so we are not faced with a problem of identification as far as he is concerned.18 There were, however, multiple saints called Thomas, though the 14 David P. Johnson, English Episcopal Acta 26: London 1189–1228 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. xlix. 15 ‘Prebendaries: Oxgate’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300, Volume 1: St Paul’s, London, ed. by Diana E. Greenway (London: The Athlone Press, 1968), pp. 67–69; British History Online: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1066-1300/vol1/pp67-69 [accessed 25 March 2019]; in one of fitz Nigel’s charters as Bishop of London Roger is explicitly described as the Bishop’s chaplain: ‘magistrum Rogerum capellanum nostrum’. Johnson, English Episcopal Acta 26, p. 23. 16 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 487: ‘Vestimentum aliud ejusdem habet paruras indici sameti breudatas leonibus, aquilis, arboribus sibimet superpositis. Stola et manipulus ejusdem sameti breudantur ymaginibus. In eorum extremitatibus breudatur Thomas et Paulus; Erkenwaldus et Ricardus episcopus. Medium amicti de filo auri tracto florigeratum margaritis. Urlatur aurifrigio stricto in extremitatibus adaucto’. 17 Henry held the prebend of Cantlers, probably until his death in 1192. ‘Prebendaries: Cantlers’, in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300, pp. 36–38. British History Online http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1066-1300/vol1/pp36-38 [accessed 1 May 2019]. The connection between the vestments of the three men makes it plausible to date the creation of Richard and Roger’s vestments close to the start of Richard’s episcopate. 18 On the Saxon and Norman cult of Erkenwald see The Saint of London, The Life and Miracles of St Erkenwald: Text and Translation, ed. by E. Gordon Whatley (Binghampton: State University of New York, 1989), pp. 57–70; for the later Middle Ages see Eamon Duffy, ‘St Erkenwald: London’s
SAINT OSWALD ON BISHOP RICHARD’S VESTMENTS
geographical, political, and liturgical context makes the identification as Thomas Becket highly plausible. As John Jenkins has recently outlined, Becket’s cult was particularly strong in London from its very beginning.19 Thomas’s close associa‐ tion with the city in the late twelfth century is demonstrated by William fitz Stephen’s detailed description of London in the famous prologue to his 1173– 1174 Life of the recently martyred saint. Moreover, as will be discussed below, Richard fitz Nigel himself founded an altar dedicated to Becket at Saint Paul’s.20 St Nicholas, also found on the vestments of both Richard and Roger, could refer to the fourth-century bishop of Myra or the ninth-century pope, but more likely the former whose cult was rather more prominent in England and whose feast is found in Saint Paul’s calendars.21 According to James Malcolm, there was also an altar dedicated to Nicholas of Myra at Saint Paul’s.22 St Edmund, found on the vestments of both Richard and Roger, can only refer to the martyred king of East Anglia, as Edmund of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, was still alive at the time these vestments were made and was only canonized the year after the inventory was compiled.23 Edmund of Abingdon’s cult was soon popular at the cathedral, which possibly had an altar dedicated to him by 1254.24 By the time another inventory was compiled in 1295, the cathedral also possessed relics in the form of a number of the sainted archbishop’s vestments, including the alb, chasuble, and dalmatic in which he had been buried.25 No altar or relics of
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Cathedral Saint and His Legend’, in The Medieval English Cathedral: Papers in Honour of Pamela Tudor-Craig, ed. by Janet Backhouse, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 10 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2003), pp. 150–67. John Jenkins, ‘St Thomas Becket and Medieval London’, History, 105 (2020), 652–72. Other saints called Thomas by the time of Richard fitz Nigel’s episcopate were Thomas the Apostle, Thomas the Hermit and Thomas of Maurienne, Abbot of Farfa. On the cult of Nicholas of Myra in eleventh- and twelth-century Normandy and England see Charles Jones ‘The Norman Cult of Saints Catherine and Nicholas’, in Hommages à André Boutemy, ed. by Guy Cambier (Brussels: Latomus, 1976), pp. 216–30. Thanks to John Jenkins for making me aware of this essay. James P. Malcolm, Londinium redivium; or an ancient history and modern description of London (London: Nichols and Son, 1803), III, p. 43. On the life and cult of the Archbishop see Clifford H. Lawrence, St Edmund of Abingdon: A Study in Hagiography and History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960). On the cult of the king and martyr in post-Conquest England see Tom Licence, ‘The Cult of St Edmund’, in Bury St Edmunds and the Norman Conquest, ed. by Tom Licence (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2014), pp. 104–30. An indulgence granted by Albinus, Bishop of Brechin in 1254 references the altars of St Edmund the archbishop and confessor and St Edward the king at Saint Paul’s in London. There is no other surviving evidence that I know of for altars dedicated to either of these saints in Saint Paul’s. Both Edmund and Edward did have altars in Westminster Abbey, so it could be that these is some confusion here. William Sparrow Simpson, Documents Illustrating the History of St Paul’s Cathedral (London: Camden Society, 1880), p. 5. William Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, ed. by Henry Ellis (London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, etc., 1818), p. 314. Edmund of Abingdon died in France and was buried at Pontigny. His body was translated in 1247, the year after his canonization, so it is possible the cathedral could have acquired the vestments in which he was buried on that occasion. A chasuble, stole, and maniple of Andalusian workmanship that, according to tradition, belonged to Edmund
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Edmund of East Anglia are to be found in the records of Old Saint Paul’s from Richard’s time as bishop, but the community had offered sanctuary to the martyr king’s body during the Danish wars of the early eleventh century, and the vestiges of this memory ensured that Edmund of East Anglia’s feast remained significant in terms of the cathedral’s liturgy.26 The final saint mentioned in both vestment descriptions is Oswald and it remains to discern whether the Oswald that appears on the stoles of both the bishop and his chaplain can be shown to be Oswald, king and martyr, rather than his namesake, the Bishop of Worcester. In attempting to prove that the Oswald in question is the Northumbrian king I shall first consider his cult in its wider context and point to its importance to the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England, with Peterborough providing both a focus of royal interest in Oswald and a link to his cult at Saint Paul’s. I shall then interrogate the liturgical evidence for his cult at London’s cathedral in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, showing that Oswald of Northumbria was far more important to the cathedral community than has previously been recognized and certainly more important than Oswald of Worcester in this period. I shall then analyze the evidence for Richard fitz Nigel’s liturgical activities within the cathedral, and discuss the iconography of these vestments, which will serve to demonstrate that it was indeed Oswald of Northumbria that was represented on them. Finally, I shall argue that fitz Nigel’s support of Oswald’s cult and his decision to have the Northumbrian king, amongst other saints, embroidered on his vestments exemplifies the intertwining of liturgy and politics in the High Middle Ages. ‘You have crowned him with glory and honour and set him over the works of your hands’.27 As the opening of the Mass for Oswald’s feast (5 August) from the Sarum Missal, which draws on Ps. 8. 6–7, makes apparent, Oswald of Northumbria’s terrestrial kingship foreshadowed his coronation as a martyr saint. This office also makes abundant use of Ps. 20, a hymn of praise to God for Christ’s exaltation after his Passion, which is saturated with the language of coronation and royalty. It is unsurprising, therefore, to find that Oswald was a favoured saint of Anglo-Norman kings, for whom he provided a model of royal power that linked them to England’s Anglo-Saxon past. Henry I, by being crowned on Oswald’s feast day, explicitly linked his earthly coronation with Oswald’s celestial transformation, and Henry’s successors also demonstrated a lively interest in the saint-king’s cult.28 This royal interest took place in the context of widespread devotion to Oswald. survive at the Church of Saint-Quirace, Provins (Seine-et-Marne). See The Art of Medieval Spain, a.d. 500–1200, ed. by John P. O’Neill (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), p. 107. 26 Alan Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints and the Liturgy’, in St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church, pp. 113–22 (pp. 115 and 117). 27 Francis H. Dickinson, Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae ecclesiae Sarum (Burntisland: E Prelo de Pitsligo, 1861), p. 840: ‘Gloria et honore coronasti eum: et constituisti eum super opera manuum tuarum’. 28 Johanna Dale, ‘Inauguration and the Liturgical Calendar in England, France and the Empire, c. 1050– 1250’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 37 (2015), 83–98 (pp. 88–89).
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As David Rollason has shown, his cult was widely disseminated in post-Conquest England: his feast is found in many church calendars and his relics were spread across the British Isles (and, indeed, the Continent).29 The importance of location to saintly cults has long been recognized and scholars are used to the, somewhat false but nonetheless useful, dichotomy between local and universal saints.30 A saint like Oswald is perhaps best understood as falling somewhere between these two categories, never quite attaining the status of a universal saint but with a widely diffused cult that was important in multiple localities, not least because the dissection of Oswald’s body on the battlefield in 642 ensured that his corporal remains were prized relics at a number of religious foundations.31 The most prominent sites of Oswald’s veneration in post-Conquest England were Durham, where his head was found in the coffin of St Cuthbert on its opening in 1104, and Peterborough, which had obtained the right arm of St Oswald, previously at Bamburgh, in somewhat murky circumstances, some time before 1066.32 At both Durham and Peterborough Oswald was commemorated both in the liturgy (manuscripts containing offices for the saint’s feast day survive from both foundations) and in hagiography.33 In the early twelfth century, Reginald, a monk of Durham, wrote a Vita of Oswald, and in the thirteenth century the court poet Henry of Avranches composed a verse Life of Oswald at the request of the abbot and monks of Peterborough.34
29 David Rollason, ‘St Oswald in Post-Conquest England’, in Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, ed. by Clare Stancliffe and Eric Cambridge (Stamford: Watkins, 1995), pp. 164–77. On the continental cult see Robert Folz, ‘Saint Oswald roi de northumbrie, étude d’hagiographie royale’, Analecta Bollandiana: Revue critique d’hagiographie, 98 (1980), 49–74; Peter Clemoes, The Cult of Oswald on the Continent ( Jarrow: St Paul’s Church, 1983); Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel, ‘Edith, Judith and Matilda: The Role of Royal Ladies in the Propagation of the Continental Cult’ in Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, pp. 210–29; Michael Curschmann, Der Münchner Oswald und die Deutsche spielmännische Epik: Mit einem Exkurs zur Kultgeschichte und Dichtungstradition (Munich: Beck, 1964). 30 Alan Thacker, ‘Loca Sanctorum: The Significance of Place in the Study of the Saints’, in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. by Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 1–43; Catherine Cubbitt, ‘Universal and Local Saints in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Local Saints and Local Churches, pp. 423–53. 31 Alan Thacker, ‘“Membra Disjecta”: The Division of the Body and the Diffusion of the Cult’, in Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, pp. 97–127. 32 On the Durham head relic see Richard N. Bailey, ‘St Oswald’s Heads’, Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, pp. 195–209 (pp. 195–201). In the twelfth century William of Malmesbury expressed some doubt about whether Oswald’s arm was actually at Peterborough – William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, ed. and trans. by Michael Winterbottom and Rodney M. Thomson, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), I, pp. 448–49 and 480–83. 33 Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS F. 4 is an antiphonary from Peterborough, which contains a full cycle of chants for Oswald’s feast on folios 258r to 262r. Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O. 3. 55 contains an imperfect version of a similar office from Durham on folios 68v to 69v. 34 Reginald of Durham’s life survives in two manuscripts and an unsatisfactory nineteenth century edition. See Victoria Tudor, ‘Reginald’s Life of St Oswald’, in Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, pp. 178–94; Henry of Avranches’ Life likewise survives in two manuscripts and an exemplary
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Outside of such major centres of veneration, which provide the richest evi‐ dence for Oswald’s cult and have understandably attracted most attention, schol‐ ars normally have only traces of evidence for wider diffusion – liturgical calendars, relic lists, and church dedications being the main data points in an attempt to map the spread. Of these three sources, calendars are the best preserved, although it is not always easy to be confident of their places of origin or use; relic lists are relatively rare (and often late) survivals, and church dedications could change over time. Combined these sources tend to give us, then, at best an impression of the wider importance and spread of a cult. The problem with this kind of disparity between well-documented locations and impressionistic traces is that it entrenches an artificial division. Although there is no denying that individual saints were more or less important to particular monasteries or cathedrals, with patronal saints and prominent relics garnering most attention, the liturgical life of a community was shaped by a cycle of annual observance and the presence of multiple altars and chapels with various dedications. Alan Thacker has demon‐ strated this for Old Saint Paul’s.35 As we shall see, Oswald’s feast is found in Saint Paul’s calendars; a relic of the Northumbrian king is found in the earliest relic list surviving from the cathedral and an altar in the crypt was dedicated to the saint. Building on the work of Thacker, further evidence for the cult of Oswald at Old Saint Paul’s will be discussed below, where it will be shown that we can draw together scraps of evidence to build up a fuller picture than is apparent at first glance. Before turning to the evidence from Saint Paul’s, however, it is necessary to return to Peterborough, where the interest of Anglo-Norman kings in the cult of St Oswald is readily attested and points to the political potential of liturgical commemoration of the Northumbrian king. Given Henry I’s interest in St Oswald, it is of no surprise to find that his successor Stephen, ever keen to follow the example of his uncle in a bid to stress the legitimacy of his kingship, was devoted to the saint. In 1143, having fortified his castle at Caistor, he visited Peterborough to venerate the incorrupt right arm of St Oswald, the most famous relic of the Northumbrian king, whose origin is described by Bede in his Historia Ecclesiastica. Bede recounts that Bishop Aiden was so moved by Oswald’s generosity at an Easter feast that he blessed the king’s right hand, exclaiming that it should not wither with age. According to Bede, ‘later events proved that his prayer was heard; for when Oswald was killed in battle, his hand and arm were severed from his body, and they remain incorrupted to this day’.36 Hugh Candidus, a monk and chronicler of Peterborough, recounts that the arm was shown to Stephen, by which we should understand that the arm was removed from its reliquary so that the King could admire its incorrupt state, and
modern edition: Henry of Avranches, ‘Life of Oswald’ in Saints’ Lives ed. and trans. by David Townsend (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), pp. 204–57. 35 Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints and the Liturgy’, pp. 113–24. 36 Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. by Betram Colgrave and Roger A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), III, 6.
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that the King gave it a ring.37 In the charter that Stephen issued at Peterborough on 7 June 1143 he makes clear the importance of Oswald to the legitimization of his kingship. He records the grant of all assarts made by the Abbey up until the day he came to Peterborough ‘in perpetual alms to God and St Oswald and the church of St Peter of Burgh and the monks there serving God, for the soul of King Henry my uncle and all my other kingly ancestors and for the health of my soul and that of my queen Matilda and my son Eustace and my other sons’.38 The charter concludes with a most unusual dating clause: ‘In the 1143rd year since the incarnation of the Lord, the 501st from the true passion of Oswald king and martyr, in the eighth year of my reign’.39 Stephen’s reign is thereby associated with that of Oswald while the reference to the incarnation of the Lord places both kings within the history of salvation.40 Whether this can be taken as a straightforward expression of Stephen’s self-image is not clear. The charter survives only in two Peterborough cartularies, which is not in itself problematic, but regnal years, while fairly common through to the 1140s then become rarer in English royal charters before the reign of Richard I. However, even if what we have here is a later monastic copyist embellishing a royal charter, the link made between Christ, Oswald, and the King nevertheless points to the political potential of Oswald’s cult. Soon after ascending the throne King John issued a confirmatory charter to Peterborough, claiming to act out of love for God, St Peter and in reverence of St Oswald king and martyr.41 In doing so he followed the example of his brother Richard, who made similar references to Oswald in a handful of charters for Peterborough.42 In 1207 John is recorded as having visited Peterborough, where
37 The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus: A monk of Peterborough, ed. by William T. Mellows (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 106. 38 Regesta regum anglo-normannorum, 1066–1154, vol. 3, ed. by Henry A. Cronne and Ralph H. C. Davis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 243: ‘in perpetuam elemosinam Deo et Sancto Oswaldo et ecclesie Sancti Petri de Burgo et monachis in ea Deo servientibus pro anima regis Henrici avunculi mei et aliorum regum antecessorum meorum et pro salute anime mee et Matildis regine mee et Eustacii filii mei et aliorum puerorum meorum’. On the significance of such clauses in charters see Stephen Marritt, ‘Prayers for the King and Royal Titles in Anglo-Norman Charters’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 32 (2010), 184–202. 39 Regesta regum anglo-normannorum, p. 243: ‘Anno ab incarnatione domini MoCoXLIII; a passione vero Oswaldi regis et martyris quingentesimo primo; anno regni mei octavo’. 40 On dating clauses see Johanna Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century: Male and Female Accession Rituals in England, France and the Empire (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2019), pp. 180-82. 41 Paul Webster, King John and Religion (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015), p. 58. 42 Four charters of Richard for Peterborough include references to Oswald. Nicholas Vincent is currently preparing Richard’s charters for publication as part of the Angevin Acta project and I thank him for sharing this work with me. Provisionally the charters are numbered 516R (PRO C52/28, Carte antique roll DD, m. 3, no. 17), 2768R (PRO C52/28, carte antique roll DD, m. 3, no. 19), 2769R (PRO C52/29, carte antique roll EE, m. 1d, no. 23) and 2706R (PRO C52/29, Carte antique roll EE, m. 1, no. 4).
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he too was shown the arm of St Oswald.43 While neither Henry II nor Richard are known to have seen this relic, the veneration of the saint’s arm by both Stephen and John points to his importance as a royal exemplar, particularly attractive, it seems, to kings who found themselves in difficult times politically. Furthermore, we know that at least one further member of the Plantagenet family was devoted to Oswald, since Henry I’s daughter Matilda is credited with revitalizing the cult of Oswald of Northumbria in German-speaking lands following her marriage to the Welf prince Henry the Lion.44 Having recounted Stephen’s encounter with Oswald’s arm, Hugh Candidus, who claims to have kissed and washed the arm when it had previously been shown to Bishop Alexander of Lincoln in 1129, sets out some of the many miracles associated with the relic and the water with which it had been washed.45 Amongst other miracles, Hugh writes of a woman released from the torments of a demon and a man cured from palsy.46 According to Hugh, the efficaciousness of the water was such that it was carried ‘through many counties’ and restored many to health.47 It was, he writes: ‘carried to London, whence also to his altar in the crypt of Saint Paul the Apostle, which is held in great reverence, where we know of a great number who were healed’.48 It was only natural that a foundation with an altar dedicated to Oswald would be keen to acquire secondary relics of the saint, especially as they were being so widely distributed. The story points to Peterborough’s importance as a source of secondary relics for Oswald in the post-Conquest period, an importance still evident centuries later when, in 1481, John Eberhard sent to Peterborough for relics for the newly built church dedicated to the saint in Zug, Switzerland. In return for his offering of ten pennies Eberhard received from the abbot a piece of cloth stained with Oswald’s blood.49 Neither of Saint Paul’s great antiquarian scholars William Dugdale or Henry Ellis, knew of an altar dedicated to Oswald, as William Sparrow Simpson, Sub-Dean of Saint Paul’s and Keeper of the Records in the late nineteenth century makes clear in his useful list of altars in Old Saint Paul’s.50 In his careful study of the cult of saints and liturgy at Old Saint Paul’s, Alan Thacker uncovered hitherto overlooked evidence for the presence of an altar dedicated to Oswald, pointing to the record of a payment of 2s to be made annually on the saint’s feast day for the upkeep of his altar in the crypt.51 Thacker associates the introduction of Oswald’s cult with the deanship of
43 Chronicon Angliae Petriburgense, ed. by John A. Giles (London: Nutt, 1845), p. 115: ‘Brachium sancti Oswaldi regis et martyris ostensum est regi Johanni apud Burgum’. 44 Ó Riain-Raedel, ‘Edith, Judith, Matilda’, pp. 223–25. 45 The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, pp. 105–06. 46 The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, pp. 107–08. 47 The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, p. 108. 48 The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, p. 108: ‘ad Lundoniam quoque portata, innumeros ibi sanatos scimus, unde et in magne ueneracione habetur altare eius in cripta sancti Pauli apostolici’. 49 Eric P. Baker, ‘St Oswald and his Church at Zug’, Archaeologia, 93 (1949), 103–23 (pp. 110–11). 50 Sparrow Simpson, Documents, pp. 178–80. 51 Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 118.
SAINT OSWALD ON BISHOP RICHARD’S VESTMENTS
Ralph de Diceto and suggested that Oswald’s altar at Saint Paul’s was established c. 1200. However, the testimony of Hugh Candidus, whose chronicle comes to an abrupt end in 1155 and who probably died c. 1160, makes apparent that Oswald’s altar was established, and its existence known in the fens, by the middle of the twelfth century. This is important because it means that by the time Richard fitz Nigel became bishop in 1189, Oswald’s cult was built into the very fabric of his episcopal church. The presence of the altar meant that veneration of Oswald was not confined merely to the celebration of his feast day, but that he was a feature of the liturgical life of the cathedral throughout the year. One of the reasons Thacker associated the introduction of Oswald’s cult with Ralph de Diceto, who clearly took a keen interest in the reordering of the cathe‐ dral’s liturgical life, was because the earliest relic list from Saint Paul’s includes a relic of Oswald king and martyr, bequeathed to the cathedral by the dean.52 However, rather than seeing the acquisition of this relic by Ralph as anticipating the later dedication of an altar to Oswald, it perhaps makes better sense, given Hugh Candidus’s testimony, to see it as Ralph’s response to the existence of the altar to Oswald in the crypt. As Thacker comments, Ralph’s collection of relics was ‘an eclectic assemblage’, including relics of a handful of saints with altars in the cathedral in later centuries, such as Mary Magdalene and the Roman martyrs Lawrence and Hippolytus.53 In the list of relics given to Saint Paul’s by Ralph de Diceto, printed in 1818 from the now lost Liber B, it is explicit that the relics ‘of Saint Oswald’ are those of the Northumbrian King: ‘de S. Oswaldo rege et martyre’.54 The inventory of 1245 mentions two other relics of Oswald: an arm of St Oswald covered with silver plates and an ivory pix containing a finger-bone of St Oswald.55 Here we meet a perennial problem: are these the relics of Oswald the Northumbrian king, or those of Oswald the bishop of Worcester, whose relics had been dispersed when he was translated in 1218?56 This is a question to which the answer will never be known. We do know, however, that by 1414 Oswald of Worcester was established as a prominent saint at Saint Paul’s for, when Bishop Richard Clifford finally imposed the use of Sarum on the cathedral, St Oswald of Worcester’s feast was exempted.57 No such exception needed to be made for the feast of the Northumbrian king because the celebration of his feast was firmly cemented into the Sarum calendar.58
52 Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 118; Saint Paul’s relic collection is discussed in Islwyn G. Thomas, ‘The Cult of Saints’ Relics in Medieval England’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of London, 1974), pp. 115–20; The list is printed in Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s, p. 337. 53 Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 118. 54 Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s, p. 337. 55 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, pp. 32–33. 56 Thomas, The Cult of Saints’ Relics, p. 117. 57 Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 119. 58 On the Sarum calendar see Nigel Morgan, ‘The Sarum Calendar in England in the Fourteenth Century’, Saints and Cults in Medieval England, ed. by Susan Powell, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 27
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It has already been demonstrated that, several decades before Richard fitz Nigel became bishop of London, an altar to Oswald of Northumbria had been established in the crypt of Saint Paul’s. We have also seen that relics of Oswald, king and martyr, featured in the collection bequeathed to the cathedral by Ralph de Diceto, who played a pivotal role in the ordering of the liturgy at Saint Paul’s both before and during Richard’s episcopate. The evidence provided by early calendars from the cathedral is not entirely clear-cut, but it is worth noting that the fourteenth century calendar contained within the Statuta Majora has a rubricated entry for the feast of Oswald king and martyr and no entry on 28 February for the feast of Bishop Oswald of Worcester.59 Surviving statutes, albeit dating from after Richard’s episcopate, make quite clear that the feast of Oswald king and martyr was much more important to the cathedral and to London than that of Oswald of Worcester. Ralph Niger’s statutes for the archdeaconry of London (revised 1241 × c. 1270) required the celebration of Oswald of Northumbria’s feast throughout London.60 Likewise Roger Niger’s successor, Fulk Basset (r. 1241–1259), decreed that Oswald king and martyr’s feast should be celebrated throughout the city.61 Thacker suggests that Basset’s regulations, a response to what the bishop considered to be ‘a scandalous diversity in the solemnity with which certain feasts were treated in the diocese’, perhaps reflects the fact that Saint Paul’s cults were not particularly influential outside of the precincts of the cathedral itself.62 Be that as it may, the Northumbrian Oswald was evidently a cult that Saint Paul’s sought to propagate within the city, whereas that of Oswald of Worcester was not. Further evidence of the prominence of the Northumbrian Oswald is provided by the statutes and customs arranged and collected by Ralph of Baldock, who was dean of Saint Paul’s from 1294 until his elevation as bishop of London in 1304. Part three of this collection deals with the issue of residency and the role of resident canons in the maintenance of services.63 This includes instructions on the mode of celebration of feasts, and several chapters (46–50) outlining the different grades of feasts. As is to be expected first grade feasts included the Marian celebrations and feasts relating to Christ’s life, alongside patronal feasts, and those relating to Erkenwald and Thomas Becket. In the second grade we find apostolic feasts (Philip and James,
59 60 61 62 63
(Donnington: Watkins, 2017), pp. 5–23, which includes a useful appendix of feast days found in the Sarum calendar at pp. 20–23. London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/313/B/021/MS25509, fol. 9v and fol. 12v. Councils and Synods, with other documents relating to the English Church, ed. by Frederick M. Powicke and Christopher R. Cheney, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), I, p. 329. Councils and Synods, I, pp. 653–56. Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 118. ‘Statutes (Baldock and Lisieux): Pars tercia’, in Registrum Statutorum et Consuetudinum Ecclesiae Cathedralis Sancti Pauli Londiniensis, ed. by William Sparrow Simpson (London: Nichols and Sons, 1873), pp. 33–58. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/st-paulsregister/pp33-58 [accessed 27 March 2019].
SAINT OSWALD ON BISHOP RICHARD’S VESTMENTS
and Peter in Chains) alongside those of church fathers (Augustine and Jerome) and those of local importance (Osyth and Mellitus). In Chapter 48 the statutes inform us how feasts of the third grade are to be celebrated and which feasts fall into this category. They are listed as the feast of St James, the feast of St Oswald, the octave of St Erkenwald, the octave of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the octave of St Lawrence, the octave of the Assumption of the Virgin, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and the octave of the Nativity of the Virgin.64 At first sight we have our familiar Oswald identification problem and, indeed, in his edition of these statutes William Sparrow Simpson suggested that either bishop or king Oswald could be referred to here.65 If we read the statutes with greater care, however, it becomes clear that it is the feast of Oswald king and martyr that should be celebrated according to the third grade. In both chapters 46 and 47 (listing feasts of the first and second grade respectively), the feasts are presented in the order in which they are celebrated across the year. There are twenty-six feasts of the first dignity and, beginning with the Nativity of the Lord, they are listed in the order in which they occur during the year. Likewise, the eighteen feasts of the second grade are presented in similar order, with the starting point being provided by Michaelmas (29 September). One exception is the final feast of this grade listed, which is the translation of Thomas Becket (7 July), which comes after the feasts of St Peter in Chains (1 August) and Augustine of Hippo (28 August). This can be explained by the fact that the list is ordered in a particular way, with the primary feasts of saints being listed before subsidiary feasts – Thomas Becket’s martyrdom being celebrated as a feast of the first grade – an important distinction when we attempt to decipher the list of third-grade feasts. When we return to the list of third-grade feasts, we can see that the same logic of primary feasts being listed before subsidiary feasts is followed. Listed first are the feasts of St James and Saint Oswald, before five octaves and the feast of the Exultation of the Cross, which here must be understood as subsidiary to a separate feast of the Cross, the Invention of the Cross (3 May), which is listed as a feast of the second grade in chapter 47. Thus we find again a list of feasts in the order in which they occur during the year, with primary feasts listed before subsidiary feasts so that it becomes clear that the feast of Oswald is that of the king and martyr, because it comes after the feast of St James and thus cannot be Bishop Oswald’s feast day of 28 February: St James (25 July), St Oswald (5 August), octave of St Erkenwald (7 March), octave of the Apostles Peter and
64 ‘Statutes (Baldock and Lisieux)’: ‘Hec autem sunt festivitates in quibus agitur modo prescripto, scilicet, festum Sancti Jacobi, festum Sancti Oswaldi, festum Octave Sancti Erkenwaldi, Octave Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, Octava Sancti Laurencii, Octava Assumpcionis beate Virginis, Exaltacio Sancte Crucis, Octava Nativitatis beate Marie Virginis’ – British History Online, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/no-series/st-pauls-register/pp33-58 [accessed 27 March 2019]. 65 ‘Statutes (Baldock and Lisieux)’ – British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/ st-pauls-register/pp33-58 [accessed 27 March 2019].
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Paul (6 July), octave of St Lawrence (17 August), octave of the Assumption of the Virgin (22 August), Exaltation of the Holy Cross (14 September), octave of the Nativity of the Virgin (15 September).66 The statutes also include instructions for feasts of the fourth and fifth grades, with the fourth grade being assigned to any other saints’ feasts found in ‘our calendars’, which probably included Oswald of Worcester, though his feast is not in all early Saint Paul’s calendars, and the fifth to all remaining days of the year.67 The evidence from the statues confirms that Oswald of Northumbria was a saint whose feast was special to the cathedral community. He did not rank as high as local saints such as Erkenwald, Osyth or Mellitus, but was nonetheless of importance. While in 1414 Oswald of Worcester’s feast was accorded special significance at Saint Paul’s, no evidence from the episcopate of Ralph of Baldock (r. 1304–1313) or earlier suggests that it was anything like as important as the feast of Oswald king and martyr, whose cult, after all, was integral to the cathedral given the presence of the altar dedicated to him.68 Not only does the bulk of liturgical evidence from high-medieval Saint Paul’s suggest that it was far more likely that Oswald of Northumbria would appear on the vestments of Richard fitz Nigel, but so too, it will be argued, do both the liturgical and also the political activities of the Bishop himself. It is possible to glean further information about Richard fitz Nigel from the 1245 inventory. Sometimes it is not possible to identify the ‘Bishop Richard’ in question, so that a vessel for blessing water, a passionary and a homilary cannot be conclusively associated with fitz Nigel.69 A chasuble of indigo samite can be assigned to him as it appears in a group with chasubles belonging to his acolytes and contemporaries Roger the Chaplain, Ralph de Diceto, and Alard the Deacon.70 A cope said to belong to a Bishop Richard seems likely to have been his given its iconographic similarity to his other vestments: it was of purple samite and embroidered with leopards and flowers and had a silver morse decorated with images of Peter and Paul and four angels.71 Another cope is explicitly stated to have belonged to Richard of Ely: it was of red samite and had a silver morse decorated with the image of Christ in Majesty, Peter and Paul and two crowned angels.72 Richard of Ely is also said to have been the donor of a book, called
66 ‘Statutes (Baldock and Lisieux)’. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/ st-pauls-register/pp33-58 [accessed 27 March 2019]. 67 ‘Statutes (Baldock and Lisieux)’. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/ st-pauls-register/pp33-58 [accessed 27 March 2019]. 68 A collect for Oswald of Worcester survives from Old Saint Paul’s but its date is uncertain – it was transcribed, along with a handful of other collects, by Thomas Batmanson in a hand of ‘queen Mary’s time’ – Sparrow Simpson, Documents, p. 35–40. 69 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, pp. 469 and 497. 70 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 483. 71 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 475. 72 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 477.
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a ‘novum sanctorum’, beginning with the translation of Thomas Becket.73 The final item in the inventory with which Richard is associated was a feretory of the Blessed Virgin. This was wooden, covered in gilded silver plate, and decorated with precious stones. It contained some of the Virgin’s hair and a tooth of St Vincent.74 In his foundation of altars Bishop Richard showed a particular affinity to royal saints and to bishops associated with royalty. He set up an altar to St Radegund, the sixth-century Merovingian queen and founder of the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers.75 The exact location of this altar is unknown, but it was most likely in the crypt and therefore in close proximity to the altar of Oswald of Northum‐ bria.76 The bishop established a perpetual chaplain at the altar and also provided the chaplain with a composite liturgical book to enable him to carry out his duties: an inventory of 1295 records a book belonging to Bishop Richard kept on the altar of St Radegund containing parts of a calendar, psalter, and antiphonary.77 Richard founded two further altars, which soon became important locations for chantries: one dedicated to Thomas Becket, and the second to St Denis, the third-century Bishop of Paris.78 Thacker suggests that Ralph de Diceto probably first introduced the cult of the recently murdered Archbishop to the cathedral where Becket had once been a canon, as Ralph’s deanery chapel, established 1182–1183, is later recorded as dedicated to Becket. However, it can hardly be surprising that so loyal a royal servant as Richard fitz Nigel also sought to promote Becket’s cult, which was quickly seized on by the Plantagenet dynasty, so as to prevent it from growing into an anti-monarchical cult.79 Ever the master of liturgical-political theatre, through his 1174 pilgrimage to Canterbury the King had made Becket appear not as ‘a focal point for anti-royal discontent, but as a guardian of Henry II and the legitimacy of Plantagenet rule’.80 St Denis’ close association with the French royal family is well known, with the abbey built on the site of Denis’ burial acting as a mausoleum for the Merovingian and early
73 74 75 76 77
Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 498. Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 470. Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 118. Dugdale places Radegund’s altar in the crypt: Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s, p. 75. Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s, p. 325: ‘Item Liber ejusdem [Ricardi Episcopi], in quo praemittitur Kalendarium continens ubi Sancta ijdem inscripta requiescunt. Sequitur Psalterium, et postmodo Corporale, et Sanctorum annum, et Antiphonarium sine reg. notatur, et finit in exequiis mortuorum, et deponitur ad Altare S. Radegundis’. 78 Thacker, ‘The Cult of Saints’, p. 118. 79 On Plantagenet attempts to appropriate Becket’s cult see: Colette Bowie, ‘Matilda, Duchess of Saxony (1168–89) and the Cult of Thomas Becket: A Legacy of Appropriation’, in The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220, ed. by Paul Webster and Marie-Pierre Gelin (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2016), pp. 113–32; Richard Eales, ‘The Political Setting of the Becket Translation of 1220’, Studies in Church History, 30 (1993), 127–39; Thomas K. Keefe, ‘Shrine Time: King Henry II’s visits to Thomas Becket’s Tomb’, Haskins Society Journal, 11 (1998), 115–22. 80 Gesine Oppitz-Trotman, ‘The Emperor’s Robe: Thomas Becket and Angevin Political Culture’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 37 (2015), 205–20 (p. 212).
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Capetian male lines, although the relationship between the abbey and the royal family became increasingly strained during the reigns of Philip Augustus and Louis IX. The patrons of Richard’s three liturgical foundations within Old Saint Paul’s were, therefore, a queen and two churchmen closely associated with royal power. Even more interesting, with regards to understanding the decoration of Richard’s vestments, are the liturgical arrangements the bishop put in place for his chapels to Becket and Denis. Bishop Richard assigned eight marks yearly rent, to be received from the church of Cheshunt for the maintenance of two priests to celebrate the liturgy daily.81 At one altar prayers were to be said for the current king of England and bishop of London, as well as the congregation of Saint Paul’s and all parishioners belonging to it. At the other altar prayers were to be said for the souls of the kings of England and bishops of London and all the faithful departed.82 It is this pairing of bishops and kings at both altars that enables us finally to understand the pairings of saints on the stoles and maniples of Richard and his chaplain Roger. On Richard’s stole we found saints Nicholas and Oswald, on his maniple saints Erkenwald and Edmund. Roger’s maniple likewise featured Erkenwald and Edmund and on the chaplain’s stole we found saints Thomas and Oswald. In each case we can see that a bishop has been paired with a king. On the maniples Erkenwald, a bishop of London, has been paired with the Anglo-Saxon martyr-king Edmund. On Richard’s stole we find Nicholas, probably Bishop of Myra, paired with the martyr-king Oswald and on his chaplain’s stole, Archbishop Thomas Becket paired with the Northumbrian Oswald. That the figure of Erken‐ wald on Richard’s vestments was replaced with that of Thomas Becket on those of his chaplain can be explained by the fact that the bishop was associated with a saintly former bishop of his see and a canon of the cathedral with a saintly former canon of the cathedral. The political resonances of Oswald’s cult have been discussed earlier in this essay. The cult of Edmund, another Pre-Conquest king and martyr had similar political potential and it is more than just coincidence that in the sole text of the laudes surviving from the twelfth century, embedded in an inauguration ordo, Oswald and Edmund are both invoked for the king (along with the slightly more obscure St Ermengild).83 By choosing to have Oswald and Edmund embroidered on his vestments, Richard fitz Nigel declared his proximity to royal power. The vestments of the bishop and his chaplain, as well as his foundation of altars and his ordering of liturgical commemorations, demonstrates his dual identity as bishop and royal servant. This duality is evident not only in the choice of saints on the stole and maniple, but in the entire design of the vestments, which were surely a wonder of
81 Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s, p. 18. 82 Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s, p. 18. 83 Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B. 11. 10, fol. 108r. Discussed in Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship, pp. 63–66. See also Paul Webster, ‘The Cult of St Edmund, King and Martyr, and the Medieval Kings of England’, History, 105 (2020), 636–51.
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the opus anglicanum.84 The vestments were a shade of purple (indico), with its clear and long-standing associations with royalty, both sacred and secular. Liturgical colours were not yet fixed in the late twelfth century so it is unfortunately not possible to draw more than general conclusions about the use of these vestments during liturgical ceremonial.85 In the 1245 inventory the most common colour for vestments was red (and indeed fitz Nigel’s other set of vestments were this colour). A handful of vestments were shades of purple (purpura or indico), including those belonging to bishops Richard fitz Nigel and Gilbert Foliot as well as those of Master Henry of Northampton, an associate of Richard fitz Nigel whose vestments appear iconographically linked to his as we have seen, and those of Geoffrey de Lucy, dean from 1231–1241.86 Black, white, yellow, and green vestments are also found in the inventory and the colour distribution of the vestments mirrors that of the copes and chasubles, as calculated by Sparrow Simpson in his analysis of the inventory.87 In addition to the saints on the ends of the stole and maniple, the inventory records that the apparels of Richard’s vestments were embroidered with images of the apostles, with the names of each apostle embroidered above the figure. Unfortunately, the inventory does not record how many apostles were present nor which ones, though it seems safe to assume Paul would have been represented. Between Nicholas and Oswald and on the stole and Erkenwald and Edmund on the maniple, apostles with white faces were to be found. The apostles likewise featured on the apparels of Roger the Chaplain, where they were found in con‐ junction with the regal image of Christ in Majesty, and on his stole and maniple, where they kept company with the prophets and Thomas, Oswald, Nicholas, and Edmund. The description of the vestments in the inventory is reminiscent of the surviving apparel, stole and maniple known as the Hólar Vestments, embroidered in England in the thirteenth century for Hólar Cathedral in Iceland.88 Here Christ in Majesty is depicted in the centre of the apparel, on which he is flanked by apostles with white faces (three of whom can be identified as Peter, Andrew and Paul thanks to the attributes they carry). Rather than being adorned with more apostles, as were the stoles and maniples of Richard and Roger, these items from the Hólar Vestments are patterned. However, they too have depictions of saints at the extremities: St Peter and St Paul on the stole, and the Icelandic saint-bishops
84 On the making of opus anglicanum textiles see Susan Liebacher Ward, ‘Saints in Split Stitch: Representations of Saints in Opus Anglicanum Vestments’, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 3 (2007), 41–55 (pp. 42–44). 85 On the variability of liturgical colours see Roger E. Reynolds, ‘Clerical Liturgical Vestments and Liturgical Colors in the Middle Ages’, in Roger E. Reynolds, Clerics in the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot: Routledge, 1999), pp. 1–15. 86 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 490. 87 Sparrow Simpson, ‘Two Inventories’, p. 449. 88 The Hólar vestments were part of the Opus Anglicanum exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, October 2016 – February 2017. Cf. Clare Brown, Glyn Davies and Michael A. Michael, English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), pp. 133–36.
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Thorlak Thorhallsson and Jón Ögmundsson on the maniple. Comparison with the Hólar Vestments demonstrates that fitz Nigel’s iconographic programme made fairly conventional claims about episcopal power. However, the differences in the choice of saints depicted indicates the way conventional claims could be finessed and adapted to local and individual circumstances. While the figures of the apostles on vestments from both Saint Paul’s and Hólar made manifest episcopal claims to leadership of the church and the spreading of the Gospels, the figures of the saints spoke to local and even individual concerns. To understand these local concerns, we need to consider more closely the way these vestments were made, used and viewed. To my mind, the iconography of these vestments fits so well with what we know of Richard’s liturgical patronage, that it is most likely that the bishop commissioned them himself. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that they were a gift from pious donors.89 Whoever footed the bill, they were a significant investment both in terms of time and money, and the figures of the apostles and saints would have been embroidered using an extremely fine split stitch, allowing delicate and expressive depictions more commonly associated with other visual arts such as painting, sculpture and manuscript illumination.90 They were not simply works of art, however, but litur‐ gical items intended to be worn and it is in this context of use within the cathedral church (and processions surrounding it) that they must be understood. As the idea that vestments represented clerical virtues took hold in the Early Middle Ages a series of rituals for vesting and prayers to be recited as a cleric dressed developed.91 As Miller has argued, vesting prayers have a purifying element but also construct an image of the celebrant as himself robed in virtue.92 As the wearer had a ‘unique opportunity to perceive the specifics of […] [a] garment while vesting, because here the garment was manipulated and was seen from a variety of positions’ we can posit that the wearer had a particularly sophisticated under‐ standing of the iconography of his vestments informed by the vesting prayers.93 For example, on Richard’s stole we found Nicholas and Oswald flanking figures of the apostles. The stole was a length of material about eight feet long, worn under the chasuble, so that only the two saints on the extremities would have been visible once the bishop was fully vested. Some of the iconographical complexity seems, therefore, to have been intended only for the bishop’s eyes, and those of his close entourage. Although by the time the contents of the Sarum Missal came to be stabilized in print, vesting prayers were not included, prayers for each 89 On male-female collaboration in the making of ecclesiastical vestments see Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 141–76 and Fiona J. Griffiths, ‘“Like the Sister of Aaron” Medieval Religious Women as Makers and Donors of Liturgical Textiles’ in Female vita religiosa between Late Antiquity and High Middle Ages: Structures, Norms and Developments, ed. by Gert Melville and Anne Müller (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), pp. 343–74. 90 Liebacher Ward, ‘Saints in Split Stitch’, pp. 41–42. 91 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, p. 53. 92 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, p. 80. 93 Liebacher Ward, ‘Saints in Split Stitch’, p. 52.
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item are found in at least some Sarum manuscripts, as Wickham Legg’s edition of three early manuscripts demonstrates.94 As on the continent, the chief virtue invoked in the donning of the stole in vesting prayers was justice.95 Two of the three manuscripts consulted by John Wickham Legg in his edition of the Sarum Missal include a prayer for the stole: ‘Surround my neck with the stole of justice O Lord and purify my mind from all corruption of sin’.96 Dispensing justice was a responsibility of both bishops and kings, as Richard fitz Nigel, who had acted as an itinerant justice and royal justice, must have been well aware. The iconography of these vestments was intended for wider audiences too: both the clergy who stood in close proximity to the prelate during Mass, and would thus be reminded of the bishop’s special status, and also congregational viewers.97 Liebacher Ward argues that although congregational viewers might only have had partial or distorted views of vestments as a prelate walked in pro‐ cession or celebrated the Eucharist, isolated images of saints could have become recognizable in the context of the other visual works in the church, both portable and stationary.98 The pairings of bishops and kings on the stoles and maniples of Richard and his chaplain Roger must have resonated with the visual context of Old Saint Paul’s in ways impossible to reconstruct.99 As the comparison with the Hólar vestments demonstrated, Richard’s vestments made some conventional references, which we can posit were widely understood as general statements of episcopal power, in the same way that the lions and leopards of Richard’s other vestments were surely widely understood as self-evidently royal and specifically Plantagenet beasts.100 Perhaps the more specific references to individual saints such as Oswald and Edmund would not have resonated as widely, but the more complex levels of iconography were probably aimed at a narrower audience, they might even have served as puzzles to be deciphered as food for contemplation for the clerics surrounding the bishop during liturgies. As Maureen Miller has argued in a recent article, Pope Boniface VIII used clothing to communicate his status and authority to a relatively limited audience of those who aspired to influence the
94 I am not aware of any work on vesting prayers in an English context, presumably the lack of work is due to the fact that vesting prayers are not found in the printed Sarum Missal. 95 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, pp. 77–87; Joanne M. Pierce, ‘Early Medieval Vesting Prayers in the “ordo missae” of Sigebert of Minden (1022–1036)’, in Rule of Prayer, Rule of Faith: Essays in Honor of Aidan Kavanagh, O.S.B., ed. by Nathan Mitchell and John Baldovin (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 80–105. 96 John Wickham Legg, The Sarum Missal: edited from three early manuscripts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916), p. 216: ‘Stola iusticie circumda domine ceruicem meam ad omni corruptione peccati purifica mentem meam’. 97 Miller, Clothing the Clergy, p. 74. 98 Liebacher Ward, ‘Saints in Split Stitch’, p. 53. 99 On the interaction between embroidered liturgical textiles and interior church iconography in the Byzantine world see Woodfin, The Embodied Icon, pp. 47–102. 100 On lion symbols at Henry II’s court see Nicholas Vincent, ‘The Seals of King Henry II and his Court’, in Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, ed. by Phillipp R. Schofield (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015), pp. 7–33.
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power of the Holy See and who had the cultural and political capital to interpret messages conveyed through clothing.101 Scholarly interest in Richard fitz Nigel has most often focused on his role as royal treasurer and his composition of the Dialogus de Scaccario, that manual of administrative kingship par excellence. The most recent editor of Richard’s famous administrative tract considers his ecclesiastical career solely as a means to an end: it was a ‘necessary entrée to, means of support during, and channel through which he was eventually rewarded for his royal service’.102 Such a utilitarian view of his church career, relying as it does on an implied dichotomy between the sacred and the secular, does not stand up to scrutiny. Sophie Ambler has recently shown the extent to which thirteenth-century bishops were part of the political community of the realm, regulating politics through ecclesiastical sanctions, such as excommunication, and this was true in the twelfth century too.103 Richard fitz Nigel was not merely a clerical cog in the machinery of Angevin administrative government, but, as can most clearly be seen once he had attained his bishopric, an active political player. Sketching fitz Nigel’s political career is beyond the scope of this essay, but two events that took place at Saint Paul’s during his episcopate exemplify his role, and that of his cathedral church, and can, for the purposes of my argument, be taken as indicative. During Richard I’s absence on the Third Crusade, fitz Nigel played a pivotal role in the struggle between John of Mortain and the Chancellor, William de Longchamp. At a particularly charged moment in October 1191, a meeting was held in the chapter house at Saint Paul’s. Ralph de Diceto reports that the meeting was attended by John, the archbishops of York and Canterbury, and a number of bishops, earls, and barons. After a long, and presumably heated, discussion, John consented to swear an oath of loyalty to his brother Richard. So too did the archbishops, bishops, earls, and barons who were present, with fitz Nigel apparently adding to his oath of loyalty the words ‘saving his order and ecclesiastical justice’.104 This reference to justice echoes the vesting prayer for the stole mentioned above. Although we have no evidence for the attire Bishop Richard wore on this occasion, it is worth emphasizing that the stole could be worn without the chasuble in several priestly contexts outside of the mass. Might Richard have worn his stole at the chapter house meeting and what message might the pairings of royal and episcopal saints have intended to convey? In 1194 Saint Paul’s was again the stage for the coming together of sacred and secular 101 Maureen C. Miller, ‘Clothing as Communication? Vestments and views of the papacy c. 1300’, Journal of Medieval History, 44 (2018), 280–93 (pp. 288–92). 102 Dialogus de Scaccario: The Dialogue of the Exchequer; Constitutio Domus Regis: Disposition of the King’s Household, ed. by Emilie Amt and Stephen D. Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. xvi. 103 Sophie T. Ambler, Bishops in the Political Community of England, 1213–1272 (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2017). 104 Ralph de Diceto, The Historical Works, ed. by William Stubbs, 2 vols (London: Rolls Series, 1876), II, p. 99.
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hierarchies. Fitz Nigel had been one of the bishops involved in excommunicating John and his supporters in February, and his cathedral church was the site of the initial celebration of Richard’s triumphant return to English shores. Having landed at Sandwich on Laetare Sunday, Richard reached London three days later. With great exaltation from clergy and people, the King processed solemnly through the streets wearing his crown, before being received in Saint Paul’s, in a liturgicopolitical performance in which the bishop of London surely played a leading role, given his well-documented concern for privileges and traditions of his see.105 Again, one can only speculate as to the vestments Richard wore on this occasion, but an event like this would certainly have given added resonance to those discussed in this essay. Oswald and Edmund were both royal saints martyred at the hands of heathens and thus particularly appropriate for the reception of a king returning from fighting non-believers. These two events both illustrate the audience for Richard’s vestments: the sacred and secular elite of the kingdom. The Dialogus de Scaccario has attained totemic status in modern Anglophone scholarship as the manual of Angevin administrative kingship, exemplifying the desacralization of royal power as the magic of liturgy waned in the face of bureau‐ cratic efficiency.106 In the King’s Two Bodies Kantorowicz, who builds a grand narrative extending well beyond the shores of England and including realms lack‐ ing similar bureaucratic sophistication, quotes the Dialogus solely in the context of his discussion of the crown as a legal fiction.107 He goes on to quote Glanvill and Bracton, those emblematic texts in the development English Common Law.108 An examination of the liturgical activities of Richard fitz Nigel points to the brittle nature of Kantorowicz’s narrative of transition from liturgical to law-centred kingship. Fitz Nigel frequently acted as a royal justice, and he was integral to royal administration, but his liturgical activities demonstrate that the development of law and administration was not at the expense of liturgy. In fact, as John Hudson has pointed out, Richard elevates the traditions of the Exchequer in the Dialogus to give them a quasi-liturgical status. He describes them not in merely practical terms, but instead adopts liturgical language: they are sacramenta and he will reveal their mysteries.109 The cult of saints at Old Saint Paul’s was a constellation of many stars, large and small, which, like those in the heavens, shone with differing intensities throughout the year and, since stars within a constellation
105 Ralph de Diceto, The Historical Works, II, p. 114. 106 On the desacralization paradigm see Dale, Inauguration and Liturgical Kingship, pp. 11–20. 107 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology with A New Preface by William Chester Jordan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 343. 108 Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 344. On changing perceptions of Bracton’s importance to understanding the development of English common law see Nicholas Vincent, ‘Henry of Bratton (alias Bracton), in Great Christian Jurists in English History, ed. by Mark Hill and Richard H. Helmholz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 19–44. 109 John Hudson, ‘Administration Family and Perceptions of the Past Late Twelfth-Century England: Richard Fitz Nigel and the Dialogue of the Exchequer’, in The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. by Paul Magdalino (London: The Hambledon Press, 1992), pp. 75–98 (p. 82).
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have their own independent motions, the constellations themselves change over time. This was the case in the episcopate of Richard fitz Nigel, who founded new altars and increased the prominence of existing saintly cults. In his amplification of the cult of Oswald in his cathedral church, exemplified by the figure of the Northumbrian king embroidered on his stole, we can see that Richard was as adept at manipulating the language of ‘political theology’, to use Kantorowicz’s famous term, as he was at teaching his acolytes the equally mysterious language of the Exchequer. It is for his work as the king’s treasurer and for his composition of the Dialogus de Scaccario that Richard is most often remembered. Certainly, he was embroiled in administration and politics. But we should not ignore his liturgical activities, nor see them as standing in isolation. The design of his vestments makes apparent that in the life and career of Richard fitz Nigel, the threads of liturgy and politics were interwoven.
M. CECILIA GA POSCHkIN
Liturgy and Kingship at the Sainte Chapelle
In The King’s Two Bodies, Ernst Kantorowicz brilliantly demonstrated that the idea of the king as the head of the body politic emerged from a deep theology of Christ as the head of the community of Christians and, from there, the pope as the head of the church.1 The heart of Kantorowicz’s sublime exposition of medieval political theology was his Chapter 5 – ‘Polity-centered kingship: corpus mysticum’ – where he argued that, in the middle of the thirteenth century, the claims of secular rulership took over the images and ideas developed first theologically and then ecclesiologically. The corporate body was ruled by the head, making the head central to the idea of rulership, and thus kingship. This ultimately derived from the spiritualized model of Christ as the head of the body ecclesia, constituting together the mystical body of Christ, but the concept was adapted to the institutionalization of the church wherein the pope, as vicar of Christ, was head of the earthly church. In turn, the ruler as the head of the corporate body was adopted by kings, as heads of the rei publicae. It was an image that took root in the twelfth century and grew into the thirteenth and beyond.2 The ‘head’ thus emerged as the central image of a spiritualized political ideology. The image culminated in the well-known frontispiece with the king at the head of the body politic that, in 1651, prefaced Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan.3 This was a long history, mediated in the twelfth century by John of Salisbury,4 but for the precise moment when the secular realm took over the language and framework of the church’s corpus mysticum to define the royal polity under the leadership of the king, Kantorowicz pointed to mid thirteenth-century Paris, and in particular two authors – Vincent of Beauvais and Guibert of Tournai – who 1 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 193–232. 2 For a useful introduction to the king’s body, see the essays collected in Le Corps du Prince ed. by Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Micrologus, 22 (Florence: SISMEL, 2014) and particularly the following essays: Frédérique Lachaud, ‘Corps du prince, corps de la res publica. Écriture métaphorique et construction politique dans le Policraticus de Jean de Salisbury’, pp. 171–99; Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘The French Royal Funeral Ceremony and the King’s Two Bodies. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Ralph E. Giesey and the Construction of a Paradigm’, pp. 105–38. 3 The frontispiece is from an engraving by Abraham Bosse. 4 Lachaud, ‘Corps du prince’, pp. 177–99. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin • Dartmouth College
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were intimates of Louis IX, king of France from 1226 to 1270.5 Although St Louis appears only once in the entire volume, and in an entirely different context, Kantorowicz identified Vincent and Guibert, a Dominican and a Franciscan respectively, both active in Paris and working in Louis’s orbit in the 1240s and 50s and writing for the king, as the authors who first developed the idea of the corpus reipublicae mysticum. That is, he identified these two authors as the first ones to articulate the kingdom as a body, headed by a king, which drew on the sacramental and liturgical framework of the church.6 It was in these very same years that Louis IX acquired the Crown of Thorns and a series of other Christic relics, which he brought to Paris and installed in the royal palace. The Sainte Chapelle , the magnificent monumental reliquary which stood at the heart of the palace, and which housed the royal relic collection, was built to honour kingship: both Christ’s kingship, and the kingship of Louis IX. The building, its imagery, and its liturgy all lauded kingship. In this, the chapel itself was a material representation of the state’s ideological ‘borrowing’ of eccle‐ siastical symbols and ideas that Kantorowicz outlined in The King’s Two Bodies. ‘Kingship’, in both its terrestrial and celestial forms, was the pivot upon which that borrowing could occur. In turn the crown, in both its material and ideological forms, became the principal symbol of the legitimacy and idealization that this borrowing sought to achieve. This essay examines the ways in which the liturgy of the Sainte Chapelle, within this broader context, specially evoked kingship,7 and how, in the half century between the acquisition of the Crown of Thorns and the acquisition, after Louis’s own canonization in 1297, of the relics of St Louis, the sacral celebration of kingship was increasingly focused on the Capetian kings and the kingdom they reigned over. Situated just a stone’s throw from Notre Dame of Paris, the Cathedral of the diocese of Paris, the Sainte Chapelle fell within its parish, and for the most part adopted Notre Dame’s cursus, which was a secular, largely Gregorian liturgy with inherited local and Gallican elements.8 Bringing a magnificent (if small) gothic-style church into the heart of the royal palace, so close to the cathedral, was itself one way in which ‘the state’ (to use Kantorowicz’s language) borrowed the ‘insignia, political symbols, prerogatives, and rights of honor’ of the church.9 But like most institutions, the Sainte Chapelle had a few
5 Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, pp. 207–08. 6 Guibert of Tournai OFM finished the Eruditio regum et principum, dedicated to Louis IX, in 1259. Vincent of Beauvais, OP, completed his Speculum doctrinale, part of his Speculum Maius, before 1253. For a summary of the complicated history of its composition, see http:// www.vincentiusbelvacensis.eu/works/worksSM.html [accessed 12 March 2021]. 7 A useful complement to this essay is Alyce Jordan, ‘Stained Glass and the Liturgy: Performing Sacral Kingship in Capetian France’, in Objects, Images, and the Word: Art in the Service of the Liturgy, ed. by Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, 2003) pp. 274–97. 8 Craig M. Wright, Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris, 500–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 41–97. 9 Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, p. 193.
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particular practices, and in this case, several liturgies that were written specifically to honor the relics housed in the royal chapel. Because the chapel’s central image was the Crown (Crown of Thorns, Crown of Heaven, Crown of France), and because crowns sit on heads, crown and head were central to these celebrations of kingship – kingship both Christic and Capetian. ⁂ The Sainte Chapelle was built between 1238 and 1248, within the royal palace, which itself stood on the Île-de-la-Cité, encircled by the Seine, in the heart of Paris. Louis IX, king between 1226 and 1270 and future saint, had the chapel constructed after acquiring the prestige imperial relic collection in stages from the Latin Empire of Constantinople between 1239 and 1242. The relic collection was inaugurated on 11 August 1239 when Louis took possession of the relic of the Crown of Thorns and brought it in an elaborate procession to Paris a week later.10 On 14 September 1241, Louis received a second series of Passion relics from Byzantium, and the following year, on 30 September 1242, a third stash.11 Between 1239 and 1242, Louis had acquired twenty-three of the most prestigious relics of Christendom. The second transfer included, in addition to Christic and Marian relics, the head relics of Saints Clement, Blaise, Simeon, and John the Baptist. Scholars disagree on the whether the Sainte Chapelle was planned and begun for the Crown of Thorns only, or if the king decided to build the monumental reliquary only once he had received the further relics, and they have proposed dates ranging from as early as 1237, when he began negotiations for the Crown relic, to 1244, well after his acquisition of all twenty-three relics, when the chapel is first mentioned in the documents.12 Certainly, this major relic collection required a major shrine, and its position at the heart of the royal palace underscored its central role in the symbolics of Capetian power. Inside the chapel,
10 Emily Guerry, Crowning Paris: King Louis IX, Archbishop Cornut, and the translation of the Crown of Thorns, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, forthcoming. 11 The fullest account we have of the second and third relic transfers was written by Gerard of Saint-Quentin: see Edouard Miller, ‘Review of “Exuviae Sacrae Constantinopolitanae”’, Journal of Savants (1878), 292–309 and 389–403. It was republished by Natalis de Wailly, ‘Récit du treizième siècle sur les translations faites en 1239 et en 1241 des saintes reliques de la passion’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 39 (1878), 401–15. I cite the Miller edition. On dating, M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Vexilla Regis Glorie: Liturgy and Relics at the Sainte Chapelle in the Thirteenth Century, Sources d’histoire médiévale (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2021), pp. 29–36. 12 This has been an ongoing debate. For 1237, see Meredith Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy: Royal Architecture in Thirteenth-Century Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 205. For 1244, and the state of the question more generally, see Stephen Gasser, ‘L’architecture de la Sainte-Chapelle. État de la question concernant sa datation, son maître d’oeuvre et sa place dans l’histoire de l’architecture’, in La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris: Royaume de France ou Jérusalem céleste, ed. by Christine Hediger (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 157–80; Ralf Lützelschwab, ‘Ludwig der Heilige und der Erwerb der Dornenkrone. Zum Verhältnis von Frömmigkeit und Politik’, Das Mittelalter, 9 (2004), 12–23.
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the relics were stored in the elaborate ‘Grande Chasse’, and the Crown relic set in an elaborate bejeweled reliquary in the shape not of the Crown of Thorns, but a golden bejeweled crown topped by fleur-de-lis.13 The framing iconography of the reliquary in this way fostered the slippage between the earthly and heavenly crown. By the time that Eudes of Chateâuroux, papal legate and friend of the king, consecrated the chapel on 26 April 1248, two new liturgical feasts had been estab‐ lished to honor the new relics. The king had moved rapidly to set up liturgical celebration of the Crown of Thorns, and its feast was probably established even before ground was broken for the Sainte Chapelle. (The Cistercians were deliber‐ ating on a request from Louis that they oversee the confection and organization of their own liturgy for the August feast of the Crown of Thorns as early as 14 September 1240.14) The feast for the Crown of Thorns was established on 11 August, the anniversary of the day on which Louis first received the Crown (at a small town near Sens, the archdiocese, called Villeneuve l’Archeveque). At the Sainte Chapelle it was celebrated as an annuale, the highest rank accorded to a feast.15 The feast was also promulgated in Paris and ultimately throughout the diocese of Sens. The liturgy for the Crown of Thorns that was adopted at the Sainte Chapelle was initially written for general celebration in the diocese of Paris, but a number of changes were made for use at the royal chapel and a long set of lections were appended to the office.16 About the same time, someone at the Sainte Chapelle composed an extraordinary set of proper sequences for the Crown of Thorns, most of which are preserved in a single manuscript and were only ever celebrated at the royal chapel.17 We do not have any definitive evidence for the commissioning of these rites, but given a number of analogues, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they were a royal initiative. Later, Louis asked the Dominicans of the local Dominican Convent to come in specially to celebrate the Crown feast at the Sainte Chapelle on 11 August. In turn, the Feast of the Reception of the Relics was established for 30 September, the anniversary of the date on which were received the third installment of Passion relics in 1242,
13 Paris, Archives Nationales, MS LL 633, fols 11r, 14r. See also Robert Branner, ‘The Grande Châsse of the Sainte Chapelle’, Gazette des Beaux Arts, ser. 6, 77 (1971), 5–18. Cynthia Hahn, ‘The Sting of Death is the Thorn, but the Circle of the Crown is Victory over Death’, in Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. by Cynthia Hahn and Holger Klein (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2015), pp. 193–214. 14 Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786. Bibliothéque de la revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, ed. by Joseph Canivez, 8 vols (Louvain: Bureaux de la revue, 1933– 1941), II, p. 216, no. 3. 15 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 114, fol. 157v. 16 Gaposchkin, Vexilla Regis Glorie, pp. 57–79. 17 Le Prosaire de la Sainte-Chapelle: Manuscrits du chapitre de Saint-Nicolas de Bari (vers 1250), Monumenta musicae sacrae, ed. by René Hesbert (Macon: Protat frères, 1952). These have now been studied in Yossi Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle: Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).
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and was also accorded the rank of an annuale.18 A series of proper sequences for this feast were likewise composed and copied into the chapel’s Proser for celebration only at the Sainte Chapelle.19 Louis entrusted this feast’s celebration to the Franciscans. The Relics feast was a private, local rite, celebrated as far as we can tell only at the Sainte Chapelle, or by individuals with ties to the court, and was thus much more limited. The commission of its liturgy was also certainly royal. Both feast days were occasions to celebrate in different ways kingship. A ceremonial was established in which devotion to the relics and participation in the liturgical rites was one way to demonstrate royal devotion. Louis himself may have established the practice of displaying the cross relic to the populace while wearing full regalia on Good Friday. Certainly the ritual as practiced by his successors was attributed to him.20 But the Sainte Chapelle was the ceremonial
18 Arsenal, MS 114, fol. 178v. The rationale for this dating is worked out in the first chapter of Gaposchkin, Vexilla Regis Glorie, pp. 29–36. 19 For a fuller treatment of the use and appropriation of these sequences, see now Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle. He notes to me that the sequence Nos ad laudes was also used outside the chapel. 20 It is generally assumed that Louis established the practice, but I have not found definitive evidence of this; only that later kings assumed he did. William of Saint-Pathus discusses Louis’s ritual devotion to the cross on Good Friday but does not make reference to any public display of the relic. See Guillaume of Saint-Pathus, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. by Henri-François Delaborde, Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, 27 (Paris: Picard, 1899), pp. 39–41. Félibien claimed Louis established the practice of displaying the relic in full regalia on Good Friday – Michel Félibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, 5 vols (Paris: Chez Charles-Jean-Bapt. Delespine, 1725), I, p. 296. He states there: ‘le reste de sa vie, que tous les ans il ne manquoit pas de se render le Vendredy saint à la chapelle du palais, où revestu de ses ornemens royaux, il exposoit luimesme la vraie croix à la venerations du peuple; ce que pratiquérent aussi plusieurs de ses successeurs, à son exemple’. Félibien here cites: ‘Hist. de S. Louis, to. I. p. 310’. Félibien appears to be citing Jean Filleau de La Chaise, Histoire de S. Louis, 2 vols (Paris: Chez Jean Baptiste Coignard, 1688), I, pp. 310–11, where it is written: ‘tous les ans il ne manquoit point de se render le Vendredy saint à la sainte chapelle, où revetu des ornemens royaux, il exposoit ce morceau de la vraye croix à la veneration du peuple, ce que beaucoup de ses successeurs ont pratiqué à son exemple’. De la Chaise, in turn, cites: ‘Du Ch 400, 333, 456. MS. F. 19. D. 600’. The first three citations are: The anonymous of Saint-Denis, Guillaume of Nangis, and Geoffrey of Beaulieu, speaking generally about the relic acquisition and Louis’s devotion to the cross, but nowhere specifically about a public display in regalia on Good Friday. The final two citations are to Tillemont’s unpublished notebooks, which de la Chaise used extensively. Frustratingly, Tillemont’s notebooks ‘D’ and ‘F’ are now both lost; thus if this has a medieval source, it is now lost to us. The best introduction to Tillemont’s manuscripts is now Sean L. Field, ‘The Missing Sister: Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont’s Life of Isabelle of France’, Revue Mabillon, n.s. 18 (2007), 243–70 (pp. 267–70). Tillemont himself, writing in the seventeenth century, says only that Louis’s successors did so: Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, Vie de Saint Louis, Roi de France, ed. by Julien Ph. de Gaulle, 6 vols (Paris: Renouard et cie, 1847–1851), II, p. 417. Tillemont cites his friend Vyon d’Hérouval, but without further indications. In a later chapter (DLIII: ‘Comment saint Louis passoit le vendredi saint’ in Tillemont, Vie, V, pp. 361–63), Tillemont does not mention public display. For ritual context, see Edina Bozóky, ‘Saint Louis, ordonnateur et acteur des rituels autour des reliques de la passion’, in La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris: Royaume de France, ed. by Hediger, pp. 19–34; and more broadly Edina Bozóky, La politique des reliques de Constantin à Saint Louis (Paris: Beauchesne, 2006).
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centre of the court, the place of great aesthetic grandeur that made an impression on visitors. Louis and his successors participated in processions that began and ended at the Sainte Chapelle, often carrying relics and proceeding through the royal palace and back to the chapel. William of Saint-Pathus recorded that Louis ‘summoned for these feasts [the feasts of the Crown of Thorns and the Feasts of the Reception of the Relics] whichever bishops were available and organized a procession of these bishops and friars through the royal palace, and at this procession the blessed king carried the holy relics on his own shoulders with the bishops, and the procession brought together the clergy of Paris and the people’.21 In later years, the Sainte Chapelle was a forum for greeting (and impressing) for‐ eign dignitaries.22 And its importance as the sacred symbol of Capetian authority and kingship was only amplified by its association with no less than St Louis himself, its founder who was in turn canonized in 1297. The liturgy for the Crown of Thorns emphasized above all themes of eternal kingship.23 The inherent symbolism of the Crown relic permitted the liturgy’s dual emphasis on Christ the King and Christ as head of the church. Christ is the eternal king;24 He is the King of the heavens;25 the King of glory,26 the King of mercy, and the King of clemency.27 The liturgy further drew on the image of the mystical body. Christ is the head of the church, which is made up of its members: ‘O Christ, the head of the church […] transfers to us today the crown of your head’,28 and ‘the crown of Christ the head today crowns all the members’,29 Although the liturgy gestured at a few points to its political framework – ‘Today, the King of mercy confers this crown upon our Gaul’30 – for the most part, the office imagined the broader community of Christians. The crown sat atop the
21 Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, Vie de Saint Louis, par Guillaume de Saint-Pathus, confesseur de la reine Marguerite (Paris: Picard, 1899), p. 42: ‘Et encore fesoit apeler le benoiez rois as dites festes aucuns evesques que il pooit avoir et festoit fere procession de ces evesques et des freres par le palès roial en revenant a la chapele. Et a cele procession li benoiez rois portoit a ses propes espaules, avec les eveques, les reliques devants dites, et a cele procession a’ssembloit li clergié de Paris et li pueples’. 22 For examples, see Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle, pp. 160–61. 23 For the following discussion and notes, the versions of Adest nova used at the Sainte Chapelle are edited and translated in Gaposchkin, Vexilla Regis Glorie, pp. 133–200, and 201–39 for translations. 24 Adest nova, VA3 (third anthiphon for first vespers) eterni regis; VH1 (first stanza of vespers hymn): Eterne rex. 25 Regis et pontificisˠ, 7a: ‘celorum rex’. Note that several versions of Regis et pontificis were in circulation. Regis et pontificisˠ indicates a version used at the Sainte Chapelle and at Saint Victor. On these distinctions, see Gaposchkin, Vexilla Regis Glorie, 57–80, especially at 71–72. See also Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle. 26 Adest nova, Invititory: ‘regi glorie’; MR2 (second responsory for matins): ‘rex glorie’. 27 Regis et pontificisˠ 5a: ‘rex misericordie’; Adest nova Magnificat antiphon: ‘O rex clementine’. 28 Adest nova VA2 (second antiphon for first vespers): ‘Christe caput ecclesie qui transfers ad nos hodie tui coronam capitis’. 29 Adest nova VH2 (second stanza of first vespers hymn): ‘Corona christi capitis membra corona hodie’. 30 Regis et pontificisˠ, 5a.
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head of Christ as the head of the Augustinian church of all elect, past present and future.31 Crowning ‘us’ here meant simply offering grace to mankind. The office worked within a theological framework in which crowns (and other headgear, particularly in the Old Testament) were typological nodes that linked earthly passion (the Crown of Thorns) to eternal glory (the crown of glory). Repeatedly, the mean and thorny crown is traded in for the crown of salvation. The collect (a core anchor of any proper liturgy, recited in both office and mass) stated simply that ‘we […] who venerate His thorny crown on earth might merit to be crowned in glory and honor [cf. Ps. 8. 6] in the heavens’.32 The ninth lection stated ‘Through the Crown of Thorns, placed on His head, we obtained the diadem of the kingdom; we were saved by his wounds’.33 The movement of Christ’s crown from its Old Testament type (the mitre, or the cidaris), to the new Testament Crown of Thorns, and then to the Crown of Salvation culminated in Christ’s Final Judgment. The readings for the Little Hours were Rev. 6. 2 [‘And I saw, and behold a white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow, and there was a crown given him, and he went forth conquering that he might conquer’]. and Is. 28. 5 [‘In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people’]. A remarkable stanza from the Lauds Hymn stated that ‘Our kingdom retains for you this renowned treasure. As the Day of Judgment approaches, you shall recover this [treasure], left behind here’.34 Christ would need his Crown at Final Judgment, and would return to Paris to retrieve it.35 The liturgy for the 11 August feast day was promulgated in Paris. A number of additions were made to the liturgy when the Sainte Chapelle began services, the most notable of which was an extremely long set of lections that were only ever used at the royal chapel and which are in precise dialogue with the liturgy to which they were paired. These constituted an extended sermon on the multiple meanings of Christ’s crown: ‘Christ has been crowned with four crowns […] the first was the crown of humanity, the second of passion, the third of justice, the fourth of glory’.36 The lections track the move from the earthly, painful crown (of thorns) to the eternal crown of glory articulated in the liturgy’s chant. The text’s 31 Stanislaus J. Grabowski, ‘St Augustine and the Doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ’, Theological studies, 7 (1946), 72–125. 32 Gaudeamus omnes mass, Collect: ‘Presta quesumus omnipotens deus ut qui in memoriam passionis domini nostri ihesu christi coronam eius spineam veneramur in terris, ab ipso “gloria et honore coronari” [cf. Ps. 8. 6] mereamur in celis. Qui tecum vivit et regnat’. 33 Adest novaSC Lection 9: ‘Vincula eius, nos liberos fecerunt. Corona eius spinea capitis eius dyadema regni adepti sumus; vulneribus eius sanati sumus’. The lection is drawing here from Jerome (attributed), Commentary on the Gospel according to Mark, PL, 30 (Paris: Migne, 1865) col. 635D. 34 Adest nova LH4 (fourth stanza of lauds hymn): ‘Nostra conservat regio / tibi thesaurum inclitum / iminente iudicio / resumens hoc depositum’. 35 Emily Guerry has brought attention to this extraordinary stanza and its implications in a number of professional talks. 36 Adest nova Lection 5: ‘Legat et intelligat devotus chorus fidelium regem nostrum coronis quatuor fuisse coronatum […] Prima fuit corona humanitatis, secunda passionis, tercia iusticie, quarta glorie’.
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treatment of the crown of justice permitted a short discussion of the duties of the terrestrial (Capetian) king, which addressed ‘those who are present and others who are not present’,37 and evokes two biblical quotations on good kingship – Wisdom 6. 2–6, and 2 Chron. 19. 6–7 – that were staples of the Mirrors for Princes literature. The latter, for instance, warned: Take heed what you do: for you exercise not the judgment of man, but of the Lord; and whatsoever you will have judged, it shall redound to you. Let the fear of the Lord be with you, and do all things with diligence, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, not desire of gifts. The liturgical sermon evoked the head-and-body framework, explaining why it is appropriate for the head to be crowned. Although the sermon does not state it directly, its object here has moved silently from the Heavenly king to the earthly one, another indication of the slippage between the spheres of spiritual and secular rulership. The head is at the top of the body because it looks towards the heavens and stands over the rest of the members. The head is where the senses of reason, decision making, and memory are located, and so endowed, is worthy of the crown as a sublime sign of royal dignity. ‘Whence the principal of all the senses sits atop, with the rule of the entire body; in this place of and in this power it possesses not unworthily the diadem as a more sublime sign of the great royal dignity […] It is no mystery that the shape of a crown encircles the head of a king circularly [“circulariter”], so that he who, with respect to rule [“regulariter”], wishes to be in charge [“preesse”] and of benefit to [“prodesse”] on behalf of himself and his own, should be careful and prudent in all things’.38 Through prudence, the king seeks to participate in providence, and thus the image of earthly kingship is nestled into the framework of Christ’s kingship.39 The other set of additions made to the Paris liturgy for its celebration at the Sainte Chapelle were the sequences – special hymn-like prayers sung during the mass – composed about the same time as the office Adest nova was adapted for use at the chapel.40 Sequences were traditionally the most localized element of any proper mass. These sequences repeatedly linked Christ’s kingship to that of the earthly, French king. France, and its king, is graced and honored by the Heavenly king’s gift of the Crown of Thorns. ‘How great is the fortune of this kingdom! Thanks to its king, the city of Paris preserves a treasure of such value.’41 And
37 Adest novaSC Lection (D)2: ‘Ad eos autem qui presunt aliis et non prosunt’. 38 Adest novaSC Lection (B)1: ‘Unde cum tocius corporis monarchie presideat princeps omnium sensuum; loco et potestate sublimior dignitatis regie signum non indigne possidet dyadema […] Nec vacat a misterio quod figura corone caput regis circulariter circumcingit. Ut qui regulariter vult preesse et prodesse pro se, et pro suis, cautus sit, et in omnibus circumspectus’. 39 This evocation of prudence has a Thomistic flavour. 40 For a thorough treatment of the themes in the following paragraph, see Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle. 41 From the sequence Letetur felix Gallia. Translation in Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the SainteChapelle.
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elsewhere, the ‘the invincible kingdom of France is exalted’ through the crown, the object of honor and glory.42 Throughout the sequence repertoire the Crown of Thorns is understood as special gift to the French kingdom. Indeed, one stanza claims the France itself was crowned by the translation of the Crown of Thorns.43 The theme of kingship was not as pronounced in the office for the Reception of the Relics, which emphasized passion and suffering over Christ’s majestic sovereignty, but the thematics drew on the idea that the relics were the ‘vexilla regis’ (‘the battle standards of the king’) and the ‘arma christi’ (‘the weapons of Christ’), that both helped Christ overcome death and Christians battle both visible and invisible enemies.44 The liturgy drew on two grounding ideas. The first was the idea of the relics as the King’s battle standards, itself derived from the famous sixth-century hymn of Venantius Fortunatus, who had coined the idea of the Cross as the Vexilla regis.45 The second was the idea of the relics as the armour of God, rooted in Eph. 6. 10–11, which served as the chapter reading: ‘Be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of his power; put on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil’. The relics were thus the battle standards of the King of glory and the weapons of the glorious King.46 The relic of the reed, which Christ had been handed to mock his claim to kingship, is called the ‘scepter of the King of all kings’.47 Jesus is ‘rex omnium’ (‘King of all’).48 In both the Crown and the Relics office, the kingdom is the Kingdom of heaven. Through the Crown of Thorns we can obtain the diadem of the Kingdom of heaven.49 The crown should encircle the head of the (earthly) king lest he be made foolish in the kingdom of God.50 The relics liturgy speaks of ‘the glory of the future kingdom to be given to the faithful’,51 ‘the kingdom of the church’ and ‘the kingdom of Christ and the church’,52 and it is Christ who both opens and closes the doorway to the kingdom.53 This is not the political community;
42 From the sequence Gaude Sion. Translation in Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle. 43 From the sequence Si vis vere 6b. Translation in Maurey, Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle. 44 For the following discussion and notes, the versions of Vexilla regis glorie, which was used at the Sainte Chapelle, are edited and translated in Gaposchkin, Vexilla Regis Glorie, pp. 241–312. 45 Analecta hymnica medii aevi, ed. by Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume, 55 vols (Leipzig: Fue’s Verlag, Reisland, 1886–1922), L, pp. 74–75. On Venantius’ hymn, see Louis van Tongeren, Exaltation of the Cross: Toward the Origins of the feast of the Cross and the Meaning of the Cross in Early Medieval Liturgy, Liturgia Condenda, 11 (Leuven: Peeters, 2000), pp. 243–45. 46 Vexilla regis glorie is the opening words of the entire liturgy. Vexilla regis glorie VA1. For weapons of the glorious king, see the Antiphon for the Magnificat. 47 Vexilla regis glorie: ‘Hec arundo comitatur / dextre gestatorium / que et sceptrum appelatur / regis regum omnium’. 48 Vexilla regis glorie, Alternate antiphon for the Magnificat. 49 Adest novaSC Lection 9. 50 Adest novaSC Lection B2. 51 Vexilla regis glorie Lection 1: ‘et in corona futuri regni gloria’. 52 Vexilla regis glorie Lection 2: ‘“regnum ecclesie”’, and ‘regnum Christi et ecclesie’. 53 Vexilla regis glorie Lection E4.
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it is the spiritual and eschatological one, what Kantorowicz called ‘the Kingdom of heaven, the celestial city of Jerusalem’.54 That is, the liturgy’s kingdom is the kingdom of God, of Salvation, and of the community of the church, made up of all saved throughout time. It is the corpus mysticum of the church. In Kantorowicz’s language, ‘Christian society as composed of all the faithful, past, future, and present, actual, and potential’.55 The language of kingship thus permeates the offices, although with a focus not on Capetian kingship but on Christ’s eternal sovereignty and dignity. This was true both of the liturgy, and the extraordinary glass cycle which, although famously, crucially, and boldly incorporating Louis’s reception of the relics into the cycle of Christian salvation, was principally ordered on Christ’s kingship, both earthly and heavenly. Images of a crowned Christ defined the central axis of the chapel’s iconography. In the East end, in line with the altar where the Eucharist enacted His sacrifice at every mass, He was shown wearing the Crown of Thorns; on the West end, in the (lost) Apocalypse Rose, he surely had worn a Crown of Glory. Likewise, the recently recovered wall painting of the Crucifixion at the eastern end of the axis, right behind the altar, shows Christ wearing the Crown of Thorns.56 Just as in the liturgy, which evoked and mused upon various types of crowns, crowns of all sort dominated the glazing cycle and of the dado sculpture, all taking their meaning from Christ’s crown, signifying Christ’s divine sovereignty. For the most part then, the first stage of the Sainte Chapelle project emphasized above all the kingship of Christ. The links to the earthly kingship and terrestrial power of the Capetians in both the liturgy (as just discussed), and more boldly in the glazing cycle which placed Louis himself into biblical history, were merely its consequence.57 But the focus was on Christ’s kingship, the immediate emblems of which were housed at the shrine at the heart of Paris. ⁂ Louis’s own canonization, and the integration of his commemoration into the liturgy of the Sainte Chapelle, provided the opportunity for the liturgy to cel‐ ebrate more explicitly French kingship and the Capetian lineage. Louis died
54 Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, p. 234. 55 Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, p. 195. 56 Emily Davenport Guerry, ‘The Wall Paintings of the Sainte-Chapelle’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2013). 57 Louis Grodecki, Sainte-Chapelle, 2nd edn (Paris: Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des sites, 1975), pp. 89–96; Beat Brenk, ‘The Ste.-Chapelle as a Capetian Political Program’, in Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, ed. by Virginia Raguin, Kathryn Brush, and Peter Draper (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 195–213; Alyce Jordan, Visualizing Kingship in the Windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, International Center of Medieval Art Monograph Series, 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002); M. Christian de Merindol, ‘Le programme de la Sainte-Chapelle (1241–1248)’, Comptes Rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 157 (2013), 1025–1100.
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in 1270 while on crusade in Tunis.58 His was an appropriate death worthy of the holy king, and moves were immediately made to have him canonized.59 In 1272 the Pope wrote to his confessor to commission a life (vita) in anticipation of an inquiry into the king’s sanctity, the production of which was followed by a companion account written by another clerical intimate of the king.60 Formal canonization proceedings were inaugurated in 1278, a public inquest was held at Saint-Denis (the ‘royal abbey’ north of Paris) in 1282–1283, and Louis was formally canonized in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII.61 Although the earlier Sainte Chapelle feasts had been sanctioned by the Pope (in this case, Innocent IV), particularly in granting indulgences for pilgrims who visited the chapel during the feasts or their octaves,62 the feast was not promulgated through Rome and thus, among secular churches, was primarily adopted within the archdiocese of Sens, to which Paris, and the Sainte Chapelle itself, belonged.63 In contrast, promulgation of the feast day of St Louis was mandated throughout Christendom. In the Canonization bull, which was issued on 11 August 1297, the Pope ‘advised and strictly urged every one of you, directed by apostolic letter, to celebrate the feast day of this saint devoutly and solemnly on the day following the Feast of the Apostle Saint Bartholomew [i.e., on August 25 and 24 respectively] […] and arrange for the feast to be celebrated through your cities and diocese by faithful Christians with appropriate veneration’.64 Cistercians, Franciscan, and Dominicans adopted the feast and confected liturgical materials. The ultimate scope of celebration of Louis’s feast was thus more widespread than the Crown feast, although certainly it was concentrated in France and particularly in the Paris basin. At Paris, the reigning king, Louis’s grandson Philip IV ‘the Fair’ (1285–1314), commissioned a well-respected Amienois composer named Pierre de la Croix to produce an elegant liturgical office, Ludovicus Decus Regnantium, which was
58 Michael Lower, The Tunis Crusade of 1270 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). Xavier Hélary, La dernière croisade: Saint Louis à Tunis (1270) (Paris: Perrin, 2016). 59 M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), pp. 25–33. 60 The Pope was Gregory IX. The Confessor was Geoffrey of Beaulieu, who wrote The Life and Saintly Comportment of Louis, Former King of the Franks, of Pious Memory. The second cleric was William of Chartres, who wrote On the Life and Deeds of Louis, King of the Franks of Famous memory, and on the Miracles that Declare his Sanctity. Translations of both Vitae can be found in The sanctity of Louis IX: early lives of Saint Louis by Geoffrey of Beaulieu and William of Chartres, ed. by Larry F. Field and others (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014). 61 A translation of the Canonization bull can be found in The sanctity of Louis IX, pp. 160–72. 62 On which see Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle, pp. 151–55. 63 The diocese of Paris was within the archdiocese of Sens. This is not true for the Cistercians and the Dominicans, who adopted different liturgical formularies for the Crown of Thorns, the geographical reach for which is wider. It is worth noting that the same is true for the celebration of Louis’ feast day. 64 The sanctity of Louis IX, pp. 170–71.
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replete with images of kingship.65 Pierre worked with a provisional office that had been composed for the Dominicans (probably of the Rue Saint Jacques in Paris), rewriting it in ways that emphasized themes of kingship and royalty. This liturgy was adopted at the Sainte Chapelle, as well as more broadly in Paris and throughout France. At the Sainte Chapelle, because Louis’s feast was celebrated as an annuale, which was the highest possible rank, the liturgy was further em‐ bellished with a series of Octave antiphons and readings which praised Louis as a miracle worker, drawing on the testimony collected about his miracles at Saint-Denis. In 1309, Philip entrusted the celebration of this special feast to the Franciscans and Dominicans, balancing the division of labor established by Louis for the Crown and the Relics. As with the liturgy for the feast day of the Crown of Thorns, the liturgy for the feast of St Louis emanated from the palace but was intended for, and adopted by, secular churches in Paris and beyond. Given the focus on Louis’s royal sanctity, and the liturgy’s celebration of sanctity as a function of Louis’s kingship, the origination and dissemination of the liturgical office for Louis reveals how liturgy could be a technology of royal ideology and propaganda.66 Where the liturgy for the Crown of Thorns focused on Christ’s kingship, Ludovicus Decus Regnantium (‘Louis, the glory of all who rule’) celebrated the saint king for his saintly rulership.67 That is, using the same language and a number of the same basic tropes, the liturgy actualized ideals of Christian rulership, rooted in the model of Christ’s sovereignty, in the figure of St Louis as a terrestrial king. The office throughout claims that Louis exchanged the lesser, earthly kingdom for the Kingdom of Heaven, and that Louis is rewarded in heaven because of his just rule on earth.68 The collect (again, that core prayer of both the mass and office) stated that Louis has transitioned from the earthly and temporal kingdom to the glory of the celestial and eternal Kingdom.69 Drawing on the framework of the different crowns outlined in the Crown of Thorns liturgy, it is stated that Louis exchanged the crown of justice for the crown of glory.70 And also that God crowned Louis’s own head in heaven.71 But here, the framework is 65 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 100–25, and revisited below. The office texts are reproduced on pp. 253–83. 66 The idea of liturgy as a technology of cultural and ideological transmission is developed in Sean Griffin, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and early Rus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 67 The following discussion draws from Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 100–24, a chapter entitled ‘Royal Sanctity and Sacral Kingship’. For the following discussion and notes, the version of Ludovicus Decus Regnantium (the office) and Gaudemus omnes (the mass) are edited and translated in M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Blessed Louis, the most glorious of kings, Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), pp. 153–221. 68 A theme discussed in Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, p. 110. 69 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, p. 257. The theme is also repeated in the Vespers hymn (second stanza) and elsewhere. 70 Ludovicus Decus Regnanium VH5 (vespers hymn stanza 5). 71 Ludovicus Decus Regnanium MA3 (third antiphon for matins).
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explicitly political. Louis is praised throughout the office according to traditional attributes of good kingship: he ruled with mercy and justice; he is compared to the classic Old Testament antetypes of the good kingship literature, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah. More directly, the constituency for the saint king’s intercession are the French people. Just as Louis looked after them in life through his earthly rule, so now he intercedes for them with the Heavenly ruler. The French kingdom (‘regnum Francie’) should rejoice, since their own king is now their patron in heaven.72 The French people (‘plebs francigena’) is ‘under the protection of your former king’ who now resides in Christ’s palace.73 France herself (‘devota Francia’) praises her king.74 To the extent that the liturgy was commissioned by the crown but dissemi‐ nated beyond the court, the office thus served explicitly as a mechanism of royal propaganda. This was less the case for the other liturgical feast in honor of Louis adopted at the Sainte Chapelle, the feast for the translation of Louis’s head that was established after 1306 in honor of the relic of the Head of St Louis (without the jaw). Louis had been buried at Saint-Denis, the abbey north of Paris which served as the royal necropolis, in 1271.75 His body had been divided outside Tunis in the crusade camp, packed up, and sent back to be properly buried at the royal necropolis. It is for this reason that the formal canonization inquest was held at Saint-Denis in 1282–1283, because it was the place where most miracles had oc‐ curred. When Louis was canonized in 1297, the abbey-church found themselves in possession of a set of extremely prestigious relics in the form of Louis’s body. These relics were all the more valuable in that they fed Saint-Denis’ own identity as a pilgrimage site, as a royal foundation devoted to the French crown, and as the holder of the regalia and the Oriflamme.76 The inaugural celebration of Louis’s feast, 25 August 1298, was, on the order of the king, also the occasion for his solemn translation from his grave to a shrine.77 Philip IV issued formal summons
Ludovicus Decus Regnantium VA2 (second antiphon for first vespers). Ludovicus Decus Regnanium VA4 (fourth antiphon for first vespers). Ludovicus Decus Regnantium MH1 (first stanza of hymn for matins). Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, p. 28. Guillaume de Nangis, ‘Vie de Philippe III’, in Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France 20, ed. by Joseph Naudet and Pierre C. F. Daunou (Paris: Palmé, 1840), pp. 468–69. 76 Elizabeth A. R. Brown. ‘The Chapel of St Louis at Sainte-Denis’ in Brown and others, ‘New research on abbeys of the Parisian region in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, Gesta, 17 (1978), 71–76 (p. 76); Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘The Chapels and Cult of Saint Louis at Saint-Denis’, Mediaevalia, 10 (1984), 279–331. 77 Joinville wrote: ‘After this good news arrived from Rome the king appointed the day following the feast of Saint Bartholomew for the translation of the saintly body. When the saintly remains had been exhumed, they were carried out to the platform that had been prepared for them. The then archbishop of Rheims – may God absolve him – and my nephew my lord Henry of Villars, who was archbishop of Lyons at that time, were at the head of the party that bore them, with several other archbishops and bishops whose names I do not know behind them’. – Jean of Joinville and Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades, p. 334. On the cult of St Louis at Saint-Denis, see Brown, ‘Chapels’, pp. 279–331; Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 139–51.
72 73 74 75
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to the great men of the realm to attend the ceremony at the Abbey.78 But Philip wanted Louis’s relics at the Sainte Chapelle, the royal chapel in the heart of the royal palace. As Elizabeth A. R. Brown stated, he ‘took a proprietary interest’.79 His efforts to attain them only partially failed. After a series of negotiations, and his inability to exert control over the entire corpus, a compromise was reached, wherein just the head of the royal saint was, on 17 May 1306, transferred to the palace’s royal chapel, the Sainte Chapelle.80 But this was still a coup. Even if Philip was disappointed, the head relic was an extremely appropriate addition to the chapel’s broader relic collection, which already included the heads of saints: John the Baptist, St Simeon, St Clement, and St Blaise. Next to the Crown of Thorns and the relics of the True Cross, Louis’s head became the most important of the relics in the collection. Part of this was, obviously, because it was the (head) relic of the saint, the founder of the chapel, a king himself, a confirmation of the importance of all the principal symbolic elements of the chapel and the crown to start with: kingship, sanctity, Capetian, Paris. Philip had sought to acquire the entire body, but in fact the head alone afforded a series of opportunities that the entirety would not have, because it was his head, the center of rationality, the bearer of a [the] crown, and the preeminent part of the body. The idea that God was the One responsible for the transfer of the relics to their natural home – the palace and centre of the realm – echoed an idea articulated in the Parisian liturgy for the Crown Thorns, which stated that God decided the relics of the passion should be venerated in Paris just as he had decided that the place of his sacrifice should be the Holy Land.81 The sumptuous golden and bejeweled reliquary that Philip commissioned for the cranium naturally depicted Louis wearing a crown with a fleur-de-lis motif that echoed visually and thematically both the relic, and reliquary, of the Crown of Thorns itself, and all the crown iconography scattered throughout the chapel.82 And indeed, it appears that other head relics at the Sainte Chapelle wore crowns. The reliquary of John the Baptist, never a king, wore the fleur-de-lis crown.83 And
78 Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Philippe le Bel et les restes de Louis IX: Nouvel examen des sources’, Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes, 175 (2020), forthcoming. 79 This quote was taken from an English version of paper later translated and due to be published as: Brown, ‘Philippe le Bel et les restes de Louis IX’. 80 Elizabeth A. R. Brown, ‘Philippe le Bel and the Remains of St Louis’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 97 (1980), 175–82; Brown, ‘Philippe le Bel et les restes de Louis IX’. 81 M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, ‘Between historical narrative and liturgical celebrations: Gautier Cornut and the reception of the Crown of Thorns in France’, Revue Mabillon, n.s. 30 (2019), 91–145 (pp. 125– 26), §§ 9–10. Note that this text, famously and often quoted, was not in fact ever used liturgically at the Sainte Chapelle. 82 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, ‘Chef-reliquaire de saint Louis’, in Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle, ed. by Jannic Durand and Marie-Pierre Laffitte (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001), pp. 186–87 (catalogue entry no. 43). 83 Jannic Durand, ‘Occuput de Saint Jean Baptiste’, in Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle, pp. 79–80.
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Mary was displayed repeatedly wearing a golden, jeweled crown.84 The reliquary of St Blaise, an early Christian bishop, wore, not a crown, but a mitre.85 The material imagery, as the liturgical imagery, slid easily from the crown of royalty to the crown of glory; from signifying sovereignty to signifying salvation. A new feast day, ‘the translation of the head of blessed Louis’, was thus estab‐ lished at the Sainte Chapelle to be celebrated on the Tuesday after Ascension, a moveable feast which always fell on a Thursday (although some manuscripts list it for 17 May, the anniversary of the actual translation).86 It is not clear how widely it was celebrated, given the murkiness of attributing specifically any liturgical volume that follows ‘the use of Paris’. Office and mass material for the feast can be found in a number of manuscripts that don’t appear to be directly related to the Sainte Chapelle or the royal court, but in an idiosyncratic fashion. The feast does not appear to have been promulgated in any formal way, and in any event was the province of the royal chapel. It may have been celebrated beyond the Sainte Chapelle, in a way that the Feast of the Reception of the Relics never was. But it was above all a Sainte Chapelle rite, where the feast of the Translation of Louis’s head was celebrated as an annuale, the highest rank accorded to a feast, and its celebration was entrusted to Augustinian canons.87 Unlike Ludovicus Decus Regnantium, which was written for broad adoption in secular churches and envisioned the French people as a whole as its audience and constituency, the Translation feast, Exultemus omnes was aimed at a royal audience, and addressed Louis’s successors and ‘the kings of France’ (‘reges francie’) directly.88 Its themes were consequently focused on kingship, but unlike Ludovicus Decus, it was exhortatory, echoing themes from the Mirrors of Princes in underscoring the duties and obligations of kingship, rather than extolling its glory. The office praised Louis for his execution of justice, his aid to the poor,
84 Alexandre Vidier, Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle: Inventaires et Documents, Extrait des Mémoires de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France, t. XXXIV–XXXVII (1907–1910) (Paris: Société de l’histoire de Paris, 1911), pp. 44 (242), 45 (243), (155) 217, 156 (218); initially published (and hence the dual pagination) in Mémoires et documents de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France, 34–37 (1907–1910). The pagination marked in the initial parentheses indicates the original publication. 85 Alexandre Vidier, ‘Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle’, Mémoires de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France, 45 (1908), 189–339 (p. 216). 86 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 198–206. 87 Arsenal, MS 114, fol. 142r. 88 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, p. 199. For the discussion that follows: the chant texts of the Translation office used at the Sainte Chapelle (Exultemus omnes) can be found at The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 253–83. The most complete version of the lections used in the Translation office, Exultemus omnes, are found in Paris, BnF, MS latin 14511, fols 179r–182r. These were included in the later compilation, Gloriosissimi regis, and can be found edited and translated in Gaposchkin, Blessed Louis, the most glorious of kings, pp. 94–101.
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and his protection of the church.89 The framework for good kingship was the dele‐ gation of the precepts of Christ’s kingship on earth, the very definition of sacral kingship: ‘The king, carefully following the Lord’s precepts, sitting in the judge’s seat, destroyed wickedness’.90 But here, kingdom (regnum) signified more often than not the secular kingdom than the Kingdom of heaven. ‘He was gloriously in charge (‘prefuit’) of the secular kingdom (‘regno seculari’)’,91 ‘he ruled the kingdom with the rod of truth’,92 ‘The kingdom is happy whose king is provident, pacific, pious and virtuous’,93 and his translation renders the entire kingdom from the enemy and evil.94 Although the office used the occasion of the translation of the head relic primarily as a vehicle to praise Louis as king, it did exploit the political potential of the symbolism of ‘the head’ in associating Louis’s head with the head of the kingdom. The liturgy naturally referred to Louis’s head with some frequency. One antiphon makes reference to the move of the head relic from Saint-Denis to Paris: ‘By whose body Denis was enriched, his head is now happily endowed in Paris’.95 More pointedly, the third lection for the office explicitly links Louis’s founding the chapel with Philip the Fair installing his head there: However, when he was leading his mortal life, this saint always held particular and zealous devotion for the sacrosanct symbols of the Lord’s Passion and other relics, which he collected together in the palace chapel in Paris with great reverence. On account of this and so that the devotion of the faithful should be increased toward Him, the Lord sent into the heart of the king [Philip IV] that the venerable head of the saint should be transferred to the same chapel with all due solemnity by an assembly of prelates and princes brought together for this purpose. Upon consideration, he further deemed it fitting that, where the head of the entire kingdom of France is, there the head of the one who was gloriously in charge of (‘prefuit’) and of great benefit to (‘profuit’) the French should forever be worshipped with great reverence and continual veneration.96 It was a clever formulation. It combined two ideas relating to kingship that had earlier roots: the idea that the ruler ought to be in charge of, and of benefit to, his
89 Exultemus omnes MV2 (second versicle for matins), VA1 (first antiphon for first vespers), MR2 (second responsory for matins, VA2 (second antiphon for first vespers, MV3 (third versicle for matins, VCapRV (response and versicle for the chapter reading at first vespers). 90 Exultemus Omnes LH2 (second stanza of the lauds hymn): ‘In preceptis dominicis/ apponens diligentiam/ sedesque sede iducis/ dissipabat maliciam’. 91 Exultemus omnes VA2 (second antiphon for first vespers). 92 Exultemus omnes VA3 (third antiphon for first vespers). 93 Exultemus omnes MR1 (first responsory for matins). 94 Exultemus omnes Benedictus antiphon. 95 Exultemus Omnes MA1 (first antiphon for matins): ‘Cuius corpore dyonisius/ habunde ditatur/ huius capite nunc parisius/ iocunde dotatur’. 96 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, p. 206. Paris, BnF, MS latin 14511, fols 180r–v.
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subjects; and the idea that the king, and his capital, is the head of the kingdom. In the first instance – that Louis ‘prefuit et profuit francis’ – the language echoed the formulation from the liturgy of the Crown of Thorns that the king is one who is both in charge (‘preesse’) and of benefit to (‘prodesse’) the kingdom. This was actually a long-standing formula. Originally, it had been associated with the rulership of churchmen with oversight of religious houses.97 But this formula too was taken up, and sometimes tweaked, in discussing secular rule. In his Eruditio regum et principum, written for Louis IX, Guibert of Tournai wrote that: ‘The Lord has given principal command to kings in the militant church for the care and rule of the people. Therefore, concern of royal care ought not so much to be in charge of than to be of service to his subjects, so that through the insignia of power taken up he might compel the beauty and rigour of ecclesiastical discipline to be strong’.98 Guibert was endowing the king’s royal authority, as part of the militant church, with the ensuring of ecclesiastical standards. Both Guibert, and the liturgy exemplify the slow absorption of ecclesiastical symbols into the person of the king. The second idea – the idea that the king, and his capital, is the head of the kingdom – was ultimately owed to Christ as the head of the mystical body of the church. This was the very idea articulated by Guibert of Tournai and Vincent of Beauvais, evoked at this start of this essay, that Kantorowicz pointed to as marking the point at which the secular symbol absorbed the ideal of the mystical body of Christ. In the liturgy, the image of the head and the body had shifted between the Capetian acquisition of the Crown of Thorns in 1239 and of the relic of Louis’s head in 1306. In 1239, Christ was head of the mystical body of the church, explicitly unbounded by place or time. In 1306, Louis’s royal cranium was associated with the royal palace as the head of his subject Frenchmen, the body politic. The lection stated that the head of the king who had ruled over the French should be continually venerated at the palace, which was the head of the entire kingdom. Equivalency was maintained in that the king (a person) is the head of the French (a group of people), as the palace (a place) is the head of a kingdom (a larger place). It was not entirely new. Rigord, writing a century earlier about
97 This is hardly a scientific claim, but one steadily borne out in searches in various databases of texts. See versions of the phrase, for instance, associated with Benedict of Nursia, see Analecta hymnica medii aevi, LII, p. 120, and with St Fulcranne at XIX, p. 138. Ivo of Chartres, see the Chronicle of Robert of Toringi in Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. by Richard Howlett, 4 vols (London: Longman & Co., 1884–1889), IV, p. 101. For St Godricus see John Richard Walbran, James T. Fowler, and James Raine, Memorials of the abbey of St Mary of Fountains I, ed. by John R. Walbran, Surtees Society, 42 (Durham: Andrews & Co., 1863), p. 60. Ebbo of Reims, Narratio clericorum Rhemensium, PL, 116 (Paris: Migne, 1852), col. 116. 98 Guibert de Tournai, Eruditio regum et principum de Guibert de Tournai, O. F. M. (étude et texte inédit), ed. by Alphonse de Poorter (Louvain: Institut supérieur de philosophie de l’Université, 1914), p. 44: ‘Dedit igitur Dominus in ecclesia militanti regibus principatum pro cura et regimine populorum. Unde non tam praeesse quam prodesse subjectis debet diligentiae sollicitudo regalis, ut per insignia potestatis acceptae vigere conpellat pulcritudinem et rigorem ecclesiasticae disciplinae’.
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the death of Louis VII (d. 1180), had already called the royal palace in the city of Paris the ‘head of the kingdom of the Franks’ and had written that God arranged it so that the ‘person who was king and head of the whole kingdom of the Franks happily passed to the Lord in his palace in the city which is the head of the kingdom of the Franks’.99 What was new was that Louis, as a saint, represented not merely the royal head, but the royal head sublime, in heaven, with Christ. Louis’s crown was not just the sign of temporal kingship, but the typological link that allowed the corporate metaphor to absorb eschatological heft. And this was not mere wordplay by some court liturgist fulfilling a royal command for a new office. As Brown noted, Philip the Fair used the exact same language in a letter he wrote to Pope Clement V after the translation had occurred.100 The liturgical lection may have been taken from the letter. It was certainly an orchestrated and meaningful formulation, articulating a new version of kingship. By 1306, in the liturgy, the king as head of the body politic was associated both with Christ’s kingship, and with the capital, and the palace, as the head of the kingdom. For Joseph Strayer, in his classic article ‘France, the holy land, the chosen people, and the most Christian king’, a key element in the development of the ‘modern’ state which could attract loyalty was a ‘permanence in geography’: ‘A state must have authority not only over such people as choose to give loyalty to its head but over all people who live within certain boundaries’.101 The head of the mystical body politic, the most Christian king, had become associated with a territory, just as, in Joseph Strayer’s memorable formulation, France had become associated with the new Jerusalem, a new Holy Land.102 And it was crucial that the head be sacral in order for the kingdom to become the focus of individual devotion. Indeed, as Kantorowicz himself outlined in a section of The King’s Two Bodies entitled ‘Pro patria mori’, and as the liturgy at the Sainte Chapelle demonstrated, the kingdom had replaced the church as the focus of individual loyalty and conscience.103 Kantorowicz argued that the patria was ethicized by theology and jurisprudence, ‘especially in France, where leading politicians began to deploy the forces of religious sentiment systematically and make them subservient to the undisguised
99 Rigord, Œuvres de Rigord et de Guillaume le Breton, historiens de Philippe-Auguste, publiées pour la Société de l’histoire de France par H. François Delaborde, 2 vols (Paris: Librairie Renouard, Loones, 1882–1885), I, pp. 22–23. Rigord, Histoire de Philippe Auguste, ed. by Élisabeth Carpentier, Georges Pon and Yves Chauvin, Sources d’histoire médiévale, 33 (Paris: CNRS, 2006), pp. 142–43. 100 Brown, ‘Philippe le Bel and the remains of Saint Louis’, p. 176; Vitae paparum avenionensium; hoc est Historia pontificum romanorum qui in Gallia sederunt ab anno Christi MCCCV usque ad annum MCCCXCIV, ed. by Etienne Baluze and Guillaume Mollat, 4 vols (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1914– 1927) III, p. 63. 101 Joseph R. Strayer, ‘France: the Holy Land, the Chosen People, and the Most Christian King’, in Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of E. H. Harbison, ed. by Theodore K. Rabb and Jerrold E. Seigel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 3–16. 102 Strayer, ‘France: the Holy Land, the Chosen People’, p. 3. 103 Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, pp. 232–72, esp. 247–49.
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political goals of the new corpus mysticum, the national territorial monarchy’.104 Likewise, then, did the liturgy celebrated at the heart of that territorial monarchy also use the symbols at its disposal – the head, the crown, the king, and the kingdom – to articulate the transfer of the church’s transcendental sacrality to the monarch and his kingdom.
104 Kantorowicz, King’s Two Bodies, p. 249.
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Aachen, 22, 23, 211–38 Absalon, bishop of Roskilde and archbishop of Lund, 239–54 Acclamation, 13, 29, 48, 66–67, 69, 71– 72, 74, 85 Adémar of Chabannes, 51 Admonitio ad omnes regni ordines, 33 Adomnán, 41 Advent (liturgical time), 96, 180–81 Adventus (ritual entry of an official), 76, 169, 181–90, 199, 202–03 Aiōn, 80 Albert of Aachen, 193–210 Alcuin, 12, 221–23 Alexander of Telese, 168, 183–85 Alpert of Metz, 157–62 Altar, 83, 89, 93, 101, 109, 149–50, 152– 53, 157, 160, 162, 171, 176, 222–24, 231, 258–59, 262, 264–66, 268–69, 270, 276, 286 Althoff, Gerd, 12, 96–97, 102, 114, 142, 144–45, 165–66 Amatus of Montecassino, 167, 178–85, 189 Amice, 255 Anapempō (submission), 80 Angenendt, Arnold, 14, 42–43, 101, 110, 241 Anglo-Saxon, see England, Anglo-Saxon Annals Frankish Royal, 40 Polish, 51 Anointing, 23, 40–50, 57, 73–74, 185, 193, 199, 208 Ansfrid of Utrecht, 142, 146, 157–62, 163
Antiphon, 101, 104, 111, 161, 194, 200, 202, 204, 282, 285, 288–89, 291–92 Antiphonary, 261, 269 Arbusow, Leonid, 166–69 Arcana (ecclesiae & imperii), 18 Archbishop, 95, 111, 187, 243–46, 259, 289 Arkhē (rule, principality), 63, 80 Arquillière, Henri-Xavier, 32 Asad, Talal, 32 Ascension, 155, 225, 291 Augustine of Hippo, 19–20, 36–40, 46, 60, 88–89, 267, 283 De civitate Dei, 38–40 Autonomous humanism, 17 Bachanalia, 11 Baldwin I, king of Jerusalem, 193–210 Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, 193–210 Baldwin of Bourcq, 193–210 Baptism, 42–43, 46, 71, 83, 87, 107, 154 Barbarossaleuchter, 22, 211–38 Basil I, emperor, 75 Basileia (kingdom), 69, 70, 81, 88 Basileus (king), 81 Basilica, 147, 177, 179, 229 Battle, 35, 111, 158–59, 199, 206, 239, 262, 285 Beatitude, 224–25, 228, 232 Beatrix, empress, 217–20, 223, 232 Bēma (tribunal), 70, 82 Benedictional of Freising, 47 of Kraków, 58
298
INDEX
Benevento, 23, 165–90 168–69, 172, 180, 185–86 Benson, Robert L., 16, 140, 143 Berger, Peter, 13, 18, 32 Bernard of Clairvaux, 219, 249 Bernard of San Giovanni in Laterano, 104 Blessing, 28, 44–46, 48, 54–55, 58, 146, 161, 215 Bobbio, 42, 46, 95, 102 Bolesław the Brave, 51–52, 57 the Generous, 52 the Wrymouth, 52, 124 Boynton, Susan, 14, 122–23, 145, 166, 249 Brightman, Frank E., 78–92 Bruno of Querfurt, 51 Bruno of Toul, 150–56, 178 Byttebier, Pieter, 11, 21–23, 146, 148 Byzantium, 14, 17, 21, 23, 31, 34, 61–92, 100, 112, 120, 125, 129, 130, 132, 137, 141, 212, 256, 273, 279, 280, 288 Calendar, 22, 104, 119–38, 149, 155–56, 181, 209, 265–66, 269 Cambrai, 142–43, 146–50, 152, 156, 161–62 Canonization, 62, 211, 213–14, 217–18, 227, 229–30, 259, 282, 287 Cantor, Norman, 16 Carolingian, 11, 14, 17, 21, 23, 25–60, 94, 98, 104–05, 107, 112, 140, 144, 202, 206, 213–14, 221–22, 224, 229, 231– 32, 242, 245, 250 Casel, Odo, 62 Cassius Dio, 88 Cathedral, 95, 99, 141, 146–50, 151–53, 156, 159, 187, 200, 216, 239–40, 244, 248, 250, 255–76, 278 Celebration, 21, 22, 58, 62, 67, 69, 75–77, 86–87, 96, 99, 101, 107, 112, 115, 131, 133, 153, 156, 193–95, 197, 199,
200–01, 205–06, 210, 265–66, 275, 278–80, 287–91 Cento, kentrōn, 65 Ceremony, ceremonial, 68, 77, 271, 281 Chant, 49, 58, 171, 173, 176, 195, 208, 232, 240, 261, 283, 291 Charlemagne, 43, 51, 211–38 Charles the Bald, 31, 49, 50, 55 Charter, 35, 43, 102, 110, 218, 220, 222, 228, 258, 263 Chartres, 200 Chelles, 46 Choy, Rennie S., 34, 58 Christological, 78, 152, 224, 228 Chronica monasterii casinensis, 167, 169– 78 Chronica Regum Visigothorum, 41 Cistercian, 239, 249–50, 280, 287 Cividale, 22, 119, 125 Clausula de unctione Pippini, 44, 46–47 Clement of Alexandria, 83 Codex Carolinus, 42–43 Codex Gertrudianus, 119 Codex Mathildis, 53–54 Collectio Hibernensis, 41 Collects, 232, 268 Communion, 84, 171 Congregation, 80, 84, 111, 270 Consecration, 151, 242 by the bishops, 44 of a bishop, 155–56, 161 of the holy oil, 46 Constantine, 73, 97, 131–33, 137–38, 203 Constantinism, 32 Constantinople, 64–65, 78, 112, 132, 179, 193, 279 Corona, 211, 219–21, 223–24, 282–83, 285 Coronation, 31, 49, 53, 55, 57, 161, 165, 170–71, 185, 196, 205, 207–09, 212, 215, 218–19, 229–30, 233, 260, see also Ordo, coronationis
INDEX
Court, 43, 51, 56, 64, 67, 69, 71, 74, 76, 82, 84, 86, 91, 97, 121, 193, 205, 220, 223, 232, 261, 273, 281–82, 289, 291, 294 Crescenzi, 96, 99, 102, 111–14 Crown of Thorns, 277–95 Crucifixion, 204, 206, 223 Crusader Kingdom, see Jerusalem, Latin Kingdom Crypt, 244, 262, 264–66, 269 Dale, Johanna, 22–23, 30, 156, 194, 205, 209, 229, 255, 260, 263, 270, 275 David, biblical king, 45–47, 58, 74, 200, 202, 230, 289 de Jong, Mayke, 33–34 Dedication (church), 54, 136, 146, 148– 50, 152–53, 155, 175, 177, 179, 221– 22, 225, 231, 262, 265 Deissmann, Adolf, 78–92 Denmark, 22–23, 239–54 Desacralization, 26, 275 Desecularization, 26, 32 Despotēs (master), 65, 82 Diakonia (service), 71, 82 Dominican, 278, 280, 287–88 Dondi, Cristina, 195, 200, 205 Doryphoroumenos (bodyguard), 83, 91 Doulos, douleia (bondservant), 70, 73– 74, 83 Dynamis (might), 69, 72, 74, 84, 88 Dynasteia (domination), 84 Dźwigała, Bartłomiej, 21–23, 193, 203 Earthly/terrestrial, 33, 39, 48, 52–54, 59– 60, 67, 70, 72, 76–77, 82, 85, 157, 201, 260, 277–78, 280, 283–86, 288– 89 Easter, 21, 49, 58, 104, 155, 171, 181–82, 193–210, 218, 220, 224–25, 232, 252, 262, see also Triduum Easter Tuesday, 173–78 Vigil, 49, 58, 104, 208
Egbert of Trier, 119 Einhard, 221 Ekklesia/ecclesia, 34, 50, 84, 227, 254 Eleeō (mercy), 71, 85 Eirēnē (peace), 48, 61, 70–71, 82, 84, 90, 114, 158–59, 170–71, 216, 221–22, 249 England, 14, 23, 194, 199, 230, 250, 255– 76 Anglo-Saxon, 260 Plantagenet, 256, 260, 264, 269, 273 Entolē (decree), 85 Erik Ejegod, king of Denmark, 242 Eschatology, 19, 26, 35–37, 39, 60, 64, 216, 286, 294 Eucharist, 22, 35–36, 49, 108, 112–13, 115, 170, 273, 286 Euergetēs (benefactor), 70, 85, 91 Eusebius of Caesarea, 73, 87 Eustace of Boulogne, 196–97, 199, 209 Evangelistarium, 58 Excommunication, 100, 146, 242, 274 Exousia (power), 69, 74, 81, 83–85 Exultet, 49, 58, 208 Ezzonids, 129, 135–36 Falco Beneventanus, 168, 185–90 Farfa, 97, 249, 259 Fassler, Margot, 14, 166–67, 200 Figurski, Paweł, 11, 19, 21–23, 25, 35, 49–50, 54–58, 208 Flavius Josephus, 71, 75, 82–83 France, 12, 13, 100, 122, 150, 167, 194, 205, 245, 259, 260, 277–95 Capetian, 14, 95, 197, 270, 278–79, 282, 284, 286, 290, 293 Franciscan, 278, 281, 287–88 Frazer, James, 28, 32, 60 Fredegar Continuation of, 44, 45 Pseudo, 30 Frederick I Barbarossa, emperor, 211–38 Frederick II, emperor, 16, 230
299
300
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Fulcher of Chartres, 197, 200–01, 204, 208–09 Fulda, 107, 114 Gallican rite/liturgy, 42, 46, 102–03, 278 Gallus Anonymous, 50–53 Gaposchkin, Cecilia M., 14, 21–23, 34– 35, 145, 160–61, 195, 277, 279, 280– 82, 285, 287–92 Gaudemus omnes, liturgical antiphon (introit), 288 George, Stefan, 16 Gerard, bishop of Cambrai, 146–50, 151–52 Gerardus, bishop of Toul, 150–56 Geréby, György, 19, 21–23, 61, 66, 81– 82, 88 Germany, 15–16, 96–97, 108, 114, 124, 134, 157, 211–12, 241, 245–46, 253– 54 Gertruda of Piast, duchess of Kyiv, 119– 38 Gesta, 40, 52–53, 56, 95, 141, 146–50, 153, 197, 205, 218, 221, 239–40, 243–44, 261, 289 Gittos, Helen, 14, 18, 48, 108, 145, 177, 196, 241 Glory, 61, 67, 72, 74, 76–77, 80–81, 84, 90, 92, 94, 193, 201, 260, 282–83, 285–86, 288, 291 Gniezno, 51, 56–57, 131, 246 Gradual, 58 Gregorian Liturgy, 278 Reform, 140 Sacramentary, 107, 161 Gregory Nazianzus, 83, 90–91 Griffin, Sean, 14, 17, 31, 34, 133, 288 Guibert of Tournai, 277–78, 293 Habermas, Jürgen, 18, 32 Hamburg-Bremen, 242–44 Hamilton, Sarah, 14, 18, 107–08, 122–23, 145, 177, 196, 241, 248
Hanssens, Jean M., 86, 90, 105 Heaven, heavenly (kingdom), 26, 33, 35– 37, 48, 50, 52–55, 59–60, 62, 64, 66– 67, 69–72, 76–78, 81–82, 84–85, 87– 91, 182, 199, 211, 280, 285–86, 288, 292, 294 Helena (mother of Constantine), 58, 131–34, 137–38, 203 Hen, Yitzhak, 14, 18, 30–31, 42, 45, 102, 107, 145, 242, 251 Henry I, king of England, 260, 262, 264 Henry I, king of France, 155 Henry II, emperor, 108, 148 Henry II, king of England, 230, 264, 269, 273 Henry of Avranches, 261 Henry V, emperor, 170 Herrero, Montserrat, 19 Hildesheim, 35, 114, 175, 211, 214, 216, 226, 235 Hildulf of Moyenmoutier, 151, 154–55 Hincmar of Reims, 55 Hobbes, Thomas, 277 Hobsbawm, Eric, 31 Hohenstaufen, 14, 221–22, 224 Holy Cross, 201, 206, 223, 267–69 Holy oil, 45–47 Homōnia (unanimity), 84, 86 Honorius Augustodunensis, 226–27, 230 Hugh Candidus, 262–65 Hugh of Saint-Victor, 37, 39 Hymn, 66, 69–70, 83, 85–86, 91, 170, 183–84, 202, 232, 247, 249, 260, 282–83, 285, 288–89, 292 Cherubicon, 67, 70, 72 Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, 50 Imitation, 152, 154 Imperial ideology, 17, 29, 31, 211 Inauguration rituals, 31, 41–43, 45, 47– 48, 54, 156, 194, 203, 205, 209, 229, 260, 263, 270, 275 Insignia, 215, 230, 278, 293
INDEX
Irving, Andrew J. M., 21–23, 116, 169 Ischys (strength), 84, 86 Isidore of Seville, 38, 45, 60, 226 Ivrea, 57 Iziaslav of Kyiv, 119, 121, 124–27, 129, 131, 135–37 Jerusalem, 11, 21, 23, 34, 82, 96, 122, 155, 182–83, 193–210, 211–38, 286, 294 Latin Kingdom, 21, 193–210 John of Mortain, see John, king of England John of Salisbury, 277 John, king of England, 263 as count of Mortain, 274 John, Simon, 194, 203, 209 Judge, 61, 85, 87, 95, 112, 233, 245, 292 Julian of Toledo, 41 Kantorowicz, Ernst H., 7, 12–13, 15–18, 24, 25–32, 35, 52, 58, 117, 121, 134– 38, 142–46, 185, 193–94, 208, 212– 13, 241–42, 254, 275–76, 293 Laudes Regiae, 12, 17, 27, 29, 30, 45, 48, 116, 121, 135, 142–43, 155, 168, 181, 185, 194, 201, 208, 229 The King’s Advent, 194, 199, 202 The King’s Two Bodies, 15, 19, 32, 143, 242, 275, 277–78, 286, 294–95 Kathēmenos (seated on throne), 86, 91 Kingdom of God, 66, 81, 285 Kingship, 277–95 Sacral, see Sacral Kingship Klēronomia (inheritance), 70, 87–88 Klinō (to bow—the head), 65, 70, 87 Kołobrzeg, 51 Koziol, Geoffrey, 12, 142, 144–46 Kraków, 50–53, 125, 128, 133 Kratos (force), 69, 74, 84, 87 Krueger, Derek, 64, 68, 76, 77 Kyrios (lord), 69, 71–72, 81–82, 88–89 Kyriotēs (dominion), 63
Laos (people), 87–88 Latreia (worship), 70, 88–90 Laudes Regiae, 17, 56, 181–90 Legitimacy, 66, 72–73, 95, 226, 262, 269, 278 Legitimization, 14, 16, 31, 84, 135, 263 Leitourgia, 62, 88–89 Lent, 96 Leo Marsicanus, 169–78 Lerner, Robert E., 15–17, 19, 25, 241 Leviathan, see Hobbes, Thomas Libelli precum, 122–23 Liber Pontificalis, 43–44, 93, 100 Liturgical Movement, 12 Liturgico-political, 275 London Old Saint Paul’s, 255–76 Lotharingia, 22–23, 49, 55, 124, 139–40, 142, 146, 150, 152, 158, 161 Louis IX, king of France, saint, 270, 277– 95 Lubac, Henri de, 19, 20, 35, 37 Ludovicus Decus Regnantium (office), 287–89, 291 Lund, 22–23, 239–54 Magnificat, 282, 285 Mainz, 48, 57, 105, 108 Maniple, 255–72 Markus, Robert A., 13, 19–20, 32, 37 Martyr, 72–73, 90, 103, 227–30, 256, 259–60, 263, 265–68, 270 Martyrology, 122, 152 Marxism, 31 Mary Magdalene, 133, 135, 265 Mass, 13, 21–22, 65, 93–117, 123, 260, 273 Canon of the, 49, 56 Votive, see Votive Masses Maximus Confessor, 72 McCormick, Michael, 14, 17, 31, 48, 86, 112
301
302
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McKitterick, Rosamond, 11, 14, 33, 40, 43, 93, 106, 242, 250–51 Mieszko II, king of Poland, 53, 57, 119, 124 Minea, 72, 73 Miner, Horace, 26–27 Ministerium, 33–34, 100 Miracle, 152, 207, 258, 288 Missal, 12–13, 27, 181–82, 251, 260 Bobbio, 42, 46 Francorum, 46–47 Plenarium, 56 Sarum, see Sarum (Use, Missal) Misthos (wage), 89 Mitre, 283 Montecassino, 165–90 Mouzon (synod), 111 Moyenmoutier, 151, 154–56 Munuscula, 95, 102, 109, 111 Murray, Alan V., 196–98, 201–02, 208– 09 Mysterion, 38 Nacirema, 26–27, 60 Nazism, 15–16, 25, 30 Necropolis, 147, 289 Nelson, Janet L., 14, 17, 30, 40, 42–43, 45, 48, 59, 241–42 Niblaeus, Erik, 22–23, 239, 242–43 Norman Anonymous, 142 Normans, 167, 169, 171, 178–85, 256, 260 Octave, 128, 267 Oecumene, 67, 73 Offertory, 93–117 Offices, 31, 34, 52, 77, 155, 261, 286 Lauds, 283, 292 Matins, 153, 206, 231, 282, 288–89, 291–92 Vespers, 232, 282, 289, 291–92 Oiktirmos (compassion), 70, 80, 89 Ordinal, 194–95, 202, 239–54
Barletta, 194 Jerusalem, 194, 199, 202, 207 Ordination, 46–47, 52, 54, 146, 149, 156, 161 Ordo, 105–07, 160, 171, 174–176, 184, 229, 240, 248, 270, 273 Coronationis, 45, 47–48, 54–55, 57 Early German, 57 of the Eleven (or Seven) Forms, 47 Ratold, 57 First Roman, 101–09 Oriflamme, 289 Orte, 21–22, 93–94, 98–99, 102, 104, 108–09, 111–12, 114–15 Otto I, emperor, 162 Otto II, emperor, 102, 124 Otto III, emperor, 51–52, 96–97, 100, 102–03, 109, 112–14, 122–23, 157, 220, 224 Otto of Freising, 40, 166 Ottonian, 14, 28–29, 35, 48, 50–51, 57, 95, 97, 106–13, 119, 123–24, 129, 136, 145, 147, 224, 246 Pac, Grzegorz, 22–23, 54, 119–21, 123– 25, 127–31, 133, 134, 137, 255 Palace, 210 Palazzo, Éric, 14, 107, 142, 145 Palermo, 178–83 Palm Sunday, 21, 155, 181–82, 193–210 Pantokratōr (all-powerful), 69, 89 Para-liturgical, 13 Paris Notre Dame, 278 Saint-Denis, 281, 287–89, 292 Sainte Chapelle, 21, 23, 277–95 Parkes, Henry, 14, 48, 57, 94, 108, 142, 145, 251 Parrhēsia, Parousia (second coming of Christ), 71, 89 Patzold, Steffen, 12, 34, 144, 166, 245 Pentecost, 99, 155, 225 Performance, 115, 122, 139, 196
INDEX
Performative turn, 12 Peter Damian, 40 Peter Lombard, 38 Peter of Blois, 40 Peterborough, 260–64 Peterson, Erik, 19, 62–63, 67–68, 76–92 Philanthrōpia, 61, 67, 74, 76 Philip IV, king of France, 287, 292 Piast, the Polish ruling dynasty, 50–53, 119, 129, 135–36 Pippin, king of the Franks, 40 Plantagenet, see England, Plantagenet Płock, 58 Pohl, Walter, 175 Poirel, Dominique, 38–39 Poland, 15, 50–53, 124–25, 128, 131, 133–35, 255 Politeia (polity), 31, 34, 71, 75, 84, 90– 91, 277 Political Augustinianism, 32, 37 Political liturgy, 18–20, 40, 50, 55–56, 59, 168, 241–42, 254 Political Theology, 15, 17–19, 32, 34, 61, 143, 275, 277 Politurgy, 139, 163 Pontifical, 169 of Kraków, 54, 57 of Wrocław, 55–56 Romano-Germanic, 47, 57, 107–09, 115, 142, 160–61, 251 Pope, 21–23, 93–117, 155, 170, 185, 229, 242, 245–46, 280 Alexander II, 176, 179 Boniface VIII, 273, 287 Clement V, 294 Gregory V, 96 Gregory VII, 243, 253 Innocent II, 168, 186 Innocent IV, 287 John XV, 96, 111 Leo III, 100, 219 Leo IX, see Bruno of Toul Martin I, 100
Paschal II, 170 Paschal III, 214 Paul I, 42 Stephen II, 44 Stephen III, 42 Sylvester II/Gerbert of Aurillac, 21, 93–117 Zacharias, 40, 43 Poznań, 7, 15, 21, 127, 131 Prague, 125 Presbeia (embassy), 70, 90 Procession, 23, 74, 83, 100–01, 104, 108, 112–13, 170, 181–82, 193, 199, 200– 04, 206, 210, 230, 272–73, 279, 282 Propaganda, 31, 35, 52, 224, 233, 288–89 Proskynēsis (bowing down), 70, 83, 90 PSALM-Network, 7–8 Psalter, 22, 119, 120, 122–23, 205, 269 Pseudo-Alcuin, 53, 106 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, 62 Pseudo-Isidore, 226, 245 Pseudo-Methodius, 75 Quasi-liturgical, 275 Ralph de Diceto, 264–66, 268–69, 274– 75 Reform, 13, 22–23, 94, 97, 239–41, 248– 50, 253–54 Regalia, 281, 289 Regnum, 22, 225, 240, 244–45, 285, 289, 292 Reims (Council of 1049), 152 Relics List, 211, 262, 265 Translation, 152–53, 227, 279 Reliquary, 155, 213, 215, 220, 230–31, 233, 262, 278–79, 290 Responsory, 171–73, 282, 291–92 Revelation, Apocalypse, 37, 64, 67, 69, 76–77, 81, 86, 216, 225, 231, 286 Richard fitz Nigel, bishop of London, 22, 255–76
303
304
INDEX
Rigord, 294 Ritual failure, 115 Riurik, House of, 123, 125, 127, 134, 136 Robert Guiscard, 178–83 Roger II, king of Sicily, 178–85, 186–88 Roma aeterna, 64, 80 Romano, John, 12, 21–22, 23, 93, 104, 107, 112–13 Rome, 23, 43, 80, 86, 93–117, 152, 177, 215, 219, 230, 242, 249, 287 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 96 Rus’, 15, 119–38 Sabaōth, 69, 89–90 Sabina, region in Italy, 95, 97–99, 112, 114, 168, 185, 194 Sacral kingship, 16, 26, 28–32, 34, 195, 292 Sacralization, 26, 207–08, 232 Sacramentary, 107, 145, 195, 208 Fulda, 107, 114 Gelasian, 46, 104–05, 107 Gregorian, see Gregorian Sacramentary Jerusalem, 195, 206, 208 of Gellone, 48 of Tyniec, 56, 124–25 of Warmund of Ivrea, 57 Sacramentum, 37–40 Sacred, 26, 30, 36, 39, 60, 94, 101, 113, 204, 247–48, 271, 274, 282 Sacrum imperium, 212, 233 Saeculum, 19, 20, 37, 72 Saint Antimo in Tuscany, 35 Salerno, 167–68, 178–81, 184, 186 Salvation, 22, 33, 35, 49, 58, 76–77, 82, 88, 113–14, 135–36, 138, 157, 187, 211, 216, 225, 228, 248, 263, 283, 286, 291 Sarum (Use, Missal), 58, 208, 251, 260, 265–66, 272–73 Saul, biblical king, 41 Saxony, 28, 52, 103, 269
Scandinavia, 23, 126–27, 129, 242–46, 251 Schmitt, Carl, 15, 18, 19, 66, 124-125, 173 Schramm, Percy Ernst, 14, 27–29, 48, 97, 114, 212–13, 237, 241, 254 Secularization, secularity, 13, 17–18, 20, 26, 31–32, 34, 37, 59, 60 Semmler, Joseph, 44 Septuagint, 64–65, 68 Shagrir, Iris, 145, 195, 199, 201 Shrine, 186, 213–14, 230–31, 233, 255, 258, 279, 286, 289 Sicard of Cremona, 226–27, 230 Silnicki, Tadeusz, 56 Slavs, 50–51, 130 Soissons, 31, 41–43 Solomon, biblical king, 210, 289 Sōtēr (saviour), 91 Spicq, Ceslas, 78–92 St Autbertus, 147–48 St Basil, 69–70, 78–80 St Benedict, 169–78 St Blaise, 152–53, 279, 290–91 St Chrysostom, 63, 66, 69, 70, 72, 78–92 St Clement, 103, 224, 279, 290 St Demetrius, 130–38 St Edmund, 255, 257, 257, 259–60, 270– 71, 273, 275 St Erkenwald, 255, 258, 266–68, 270–71 St Gaugericus/Géry, 147–49 St John the Baptist, 70, 154, 228, 279, 290 St John the Evangelist, 217, 222–23 St Lawrence, 147, 244, 265, 267–68 St Michael, 176, 215, 225, 227–28 St Nicholas of Myra, 128–29, 134–36, 138, 255, 257, 259, 270–72 St Oswald of Northumbria, king and martyr, 255–76 St Oswald, bishop of Worcester, 256, 260, 265–66, 268
INDEX
St Thomas Becket, 230, 259, 266–67, 269–70 St Victor, 224 Sts Boris and Gleb, 130, 137 Sts Simon and Jude, 222–23 Staging (of liturgy, rituals), 148–50, 152, 155, 233 Stola, 255, 257–58, 273 Strabo, Wahlafrid, 11, 20, 105, 106, 109 Stratia (army), 70 Sulovsky, Vedran, 22–23, 93, 211, 233 Supplication, 67, 71, 73, 82, 85, 87, 90, 208 Symbolism, 105, 113, 115, 210, 224, 282, 292 Symes, Carol, 196 Synod, 111
Venantius Fortunatus, 285 Verdun, 150 Vestments, 161, 256–57, 260 Vexilla (battle flag), 41, 158, 159, 279, 285 Viaticum, 199 Vincent of Beauvais, 277–78, 293 Virgin Mary, 49, 133, 138, 157, 161, 200, 216–18, 223–25, 231, 291 Visigoth, 41 Vôsges, 151, 154–56 Votive masses, 13, 31, 42
Taft, Robert F., 62, 76, 78, 85, 108 Tagma (command), 90–91 Tapeinōsis (humility), 70, 91 Theocracy, 17, 19, 23, 71–72, 75–77 Theophanu, 124, 129 Theophanus Continuatus, 75 Thomas Aquinas, 36–37 Throne, 43–44, 52, 149, 155, 171, 193, 199, 203, 205–06, 223, 231, 258, 263 Timē (honour), 69, 83, 92 Toul, 141–42, 146, 150–56, 162 Trent (Council of), 39 Tribunicia potestas, 63, 85 Triduum, 205 Trier, 119
Wahlafrid, see Strabo, Wahlafrid Wamba, king of the Visigoths, 41 War liturgy, 13 Weapon, 146, 158, 160 Weber, Max, 31 Weinfurter, Stefan, 29, 32, 248 William de Longchamp, 274 William Durandus, 116 William of Malmesbury, 95, 261 William of Saint-Pathus, 281–82 William of Tyre, 198–210 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 68 World War I, 16, 212 World War II, 16 Worship, 11, 12, 15, 17, 27, 29, 30–31, 34, 48, 51, 53, 62, 66, 70, 87–88, 90, 94, 98, 101, 121, 123, 136, 229 Wrocław, 51, 55–56
Utrecht, 142, 146, 157–62, 163
Yodder, Howard, 32
305