NOTE E. p. 43. The Ancient Coronation Office

For the details of the coronation-rite I have gone mainly to Selden’s Titles of Honour (p. 115), to Taylor’s Glory of Regality, a very careful and accurate work devoted wholly to the subject of coronations, and to the third volume of Maskell’s Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ. As we know that Harold was “honorificè consecratus,” the very words in which Florence presently describes the coronation of William, I have held myself fully justified in describing him as crowned according to the office then in use in the English Church, that commonly known as the Coronation Office of Æthelred. This office is printed in full by Mr. Taylor in an Appendix. It is also printed by Mr. Maskell, but piecemeal in the notes to a later office, which makes it exceedingly difficult to follow.

It would seem from the rubric of this office that the coronation of the King was intended to follow immediately upon his election by the Witan. He was to be led by two Bishops from the meeting of the Elders to the church (“consecrandum Regem de conventu Seniorum duo Episcopi per manus producant ad ecclesiam.” Taylor, 395; Maskell, 3). This office, as I have said in the text, has long been a privilege of the Bishops of the two sees of Durham and Bath and Wells. This custom, which has lasted down to our own day (see the Coronation Office of her present Majesty, Maskell, p. 88), dates from the time of Richard the First, who was led (see Roger of Howden, Scriptt. p. Bed. 374 b) by Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and Reginald, Bishop of Bath. But it appears from Guy of Amiens (see pp. 556, 558) that William was led by the two Archbishops. It is therefore probable that this privilege of the sees of Durham and Wells is not older than Richard’s time (Maskell, xxix.; Taylor, 321, 325, et seqq.), and that his choice of Bishops for the purpose was determined by the high descent of the Bishops of those sees at that particular time, and that from them the right passed on to their successors.

The election in the church by the clergy and people (“ab Episcopis et a plebe”) is something distinct from the earlier civil election. In my text I have simply transferred to the coronation of Harold the account which we find given of the coronation of William. The process is much the same in the later offices, down to the form for the coronation of Henry the Eighth, according to a device drawn up by that prince himself (see Maskell, 73). The hereditary doctrine is set forth in the strongest language, but the principle of election is put forth in language equally strong. Prince Henry is spoken of as “rightfull and undoubted enheritour by the lawes of God and man;” but he is also “electe, chosen, and required by all the three estates of this lande to take uppon hym the seid coronne and royall dignitie.” The assent of the people is asked in this form, “Woll ye serve at this tyme, and geve your wills and assents to the same consecration, enunction, and coronacion? Whereunto the people shall say with a grete voyce, Ye, ye, ye; So be it; Kyng Henry, King Henry.” This is perhaps the last very distinct case of election. Since that time the form has gradually shrunk up into the mere recognition which is now all that takes place. Indeed the election itself can never have been much more than a form. Such a form allows no room for the proposing and supporting of opposing candidates, such as we know to have sometimes taken place at royal elections (see vol. i. pp. 291, 534, ii. p. 9). It happens at a stage when the King is already fixed upon, and when all that is needed is his actual admission to the kingly office. The reason for going through such an empty form probably was that, as the coronation was an ecclesiastical rite, it was thought fit that there should be at least the shadow of an ecclesiastical election, an election by the clergy, and by the people in their character, not of English freemen but of baptized men. The King-elect had been already chosen to the civil office; it still needed the voice of the Church, the voice of the clergy and of all Christian people, to declare him worthy of the ecclesiastical sacrament. This ecclesiastical election outlived the civil one, and it is singular to trace the steps by which it dwindled down to the present unmeaning form.

It is a most singular thing that a prayer in the office of Æthelred, or rather in an English office older than that of Æthelred, should have been copied for a King of the French in the fourteenth century, without changing those local expressions which were suited to England only. This curious fact was first mentioned by Selden (Titles of Honour, 177, 189; see also Maskell, 14). The form in Æthelred’s office prays that the King “totius Regni Anglo-Saxonum Ecclesiam deinceps cum plebibus sibi annexis ita enutriat et doceat, muniat et instruat, contraque omnes visibiles et invisibiles hostes idem potenter regaliterque tuæ virtutis regimen administret, ut regale solium videlicet Anglorum vel Saxonum sceptro [sceptrum] non deserat.” In the later English forms the old national names are left out. But in the order for the coronation of Charles the Fifth of France in 1375 (Selden, p. 189) the latter part runs thus, “ut regale solium videlicet Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchimbrorum sceptra non deserat.” Maskell also (14) quotes another French office, which instead of the words “totius Regni Anglo-Saxonum Ecclesiam” reads “totius Albionis Ecclesiam.” On this he quotes Ménard as arguing that the King of the French anciently had royal rights over the Kingdom of England, and that he was crowned King of the English. He suggests that these rights arose in the person of Lewis From-beyond-Sea, who might inherit a claim to the English Crown through his mother Ogiva (Eadgifu. See vol. i. p. 208). Nothing can be plainer than that the French scribes in both cases copied English offices, and seemingly two distinct English offices, of which that used for Charles the Fifth would seem to be older than the office of Æthelred. The formula “Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchimbrorum” must be older than the simple form “Anglorum vel Saxonum.” The passage also suggests another question. What are the “plebes annexæ,” annexed, as it would seem, to the Kingdom of the Angles and Saxons? Surely the reference is to the dependent members of the English Empire, a reference which had much less meaning in later English offices and which had no meaning at all in the French.

With regard to the unction, it strikes me that, according to the ancient English rite, the King was simply anointed on the head. The rubric in Æthelred’s office (Maskell, 19) copied in the French office (Selden, 116) is simply “hic unguatur oleo.” In the later offices the King is anointed on the hands, breast, shoulders, and elbows, and on the head last of all. In the very ancient office printed by Maskell (p. 76) from the Pontifical of Archbishop Ecgberht, the rubric is “hic verget oleum cum cornu super caput ipsius,” but another rubric follows, “unus ex pontificibus dicat orationem et alii unguant.” This may possibly mean such a manifold unction as we find in the later offices, but at any rate the order is different.

With regard to the regalia, the Tapestry represents Harold as holding the orb, which at a modern coronation is the subject of a special ceremony and is directly connected with the investiture with the “Imperial mantle” (Maskell, 114). But I do not find any form for the delivery of the orb in Æthelred’s office. The crown represented in the Tapestry seems to be a crown of fleurs-de-lys, which is the form of the crown worn by Eadward both on his deathbed and in the earlier scenes. It differs from that which has just before been represented as offered to Harold, it differs also from that which Harold bears on his coins, and none of them seems to have the cross on the top to which Godwine alludes in his speech in the great Gemót of 1052 (see vol. ii. p. 334).