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There is significant evidence that coronations of kings, queens, emperors and empresses were considered ordinations. These would not be ordinations to the priesthood, but to the ordo to whichever of these posts one was appointed. I can offer the following sources for a start.
1) Yves Congar, “Note sur une valeur des termes «ordinare, ordinatio»,” Revue des sciences religieuses 58 (1984): 7–14 noted the many instances in which contemporaries referred to secular rulers as ordained. Charlemagne, Otto II and Otto III were all so designated and, according to Chenu “ ’To be ordained’ was the official formula of the Capetians for their coronations.”
2) Urban II in a letter of 1089 to Rainold, archbishop of Rheims, affirmed the archbishop's power to ordain the kings and queens of France. (Epistola 27, PL 151:310B).
3) The Western rite for the coronation of the emperor is called in the tenth century Romano-Germanic Pontifical, “The blessing for the ordaining of the Emperor according to the West.” (Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, rev. and trans. William Storey and Neils Rasmussen [Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1986], 182).
4) The Annales Altahenses maiores for the year 1043 described how King Henry led his bride to Mainz and here arranged for her to be consecrated queen, and then "having completed the days of ordination (diebus ordinationis) in Ingelheim, the region made preparations for the marriage.” (W. de Giesebrecht and E. von Oefele, eds., Annales Altahenses maiores, MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum 1 [Hannover: Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1891], 33–3).
5) The coronation rite contained in a Florentine sacramentary from the second half of the tenth century introduces the blessing of the empress with the words “the ordination of the Empress at the entrance to the church.”( Reinhard Elze, ed., Die Ordines für die Weihe und Krönung des Kaisers und der Kaiserin, MGH, Fontes juris Germanici antiqui 9 (1960; repr., Hannover: Hansche Buchhandlung, 1995), no. 4b, p.12)
Gary Macy
John Nobili, S.J. Professor of Theology
Religious Studies Department
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053-0335
408-554-2357
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>>> Jon Cannon <[log in to unmask]> 11/02/07 6:43 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Discussion of today's Coronation ceremony is very much relevant to our
period. I have read that the current ceremony is ultimately derived from
that prepared by Ethelwold, reforming monk-bishop of Winchester, for King
Edgar of England in the late c10. The text and (I seem to recall, was it in
David Knowles history of English monasticism?) earlier drafts of it survive,
and go out of their way to link the anointment of the monarch with the
anointment of priesthood; Edgar was even crowned at the canonical age for
entering the priesthood. So in England at least the sacred nature of
kingship and the necessity for it to be conferred by someone of episcopal
status go back a very long way indeed.
Jon Cannon
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