Читать книгу Coronation: From the 8th to the 21st Century - Roy Strong - Страница 14

The chronicler Roger of Wendover provides us with what is the fullest description yet of a Coronation, so much so that I quote it in full:

Then the Duke came to London, where had assembled the Archbishops, Bishops, earls and barons, and a large number of knights to meet him; and by whose advice and consent the Duke was consecrated and crowned king of England, at Westminster, on the third of September, being Sunday, the feast of the ordination of Pope St Gregory …

First came the bishops and abbots and many clerks vested in silken copes, with the cross, torch bearers, censers, and holy water going before them, up to the door of the king’s inner chamber; and there they received the said Duke Richard, who was to be crowned, and led him to the high altar of the church of Westminster with an ordered procession and triumphal chanting: and the whole way by which they went, from the door of the king’s chamber to the altar, was covered with woollen cloths.

Now the order of the procession was as follows: at the head came the clerks in vestments carrying holy water, crosses, torches and censers. Then came the priors, then the abbots; next came the bishops and in the midst of them went four barons carrying four golden candlesticks. Then came Godfrey de Lucy carrying the king’s coif, and John Marshal by him carrying two great and weighty golden spurs. Next came William Marshal, Earl of Strigul, carrying the royal sceptre, on the top of which was a golden cross, and William de Patyrick, Earl of Salisbury, by his side, bearing a golden rod with a golden dove on the top. Then came David, brother to the king of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon, and John, Earl of Moreton, brother of the Duke, and Robert, Earl of Leicester, carrying three royal swords taken from the king’s treasury, and their scabbards were wholly covered with gold: and the Earl of Moreton went in the midst. Then came six earls and barons carrying on their shoulders a very large board on which were placed the royal ensigns and vestments. Then came William de Mandeville, Earl of Albemarle, carrying a golden crown great and heavy, and adorned on all sides with precious stones. Then came Richard, Duke of Normandy, and Hugh, Bishop of Durham, went on his right hand, and Reginald, Bishop of Bath, on his left: and four barons carried over them a silken canopy on four tall lances: and the whole crowd of earls, barons, knights and others, clerk and lay, followed up to the door of the church, and they came and were brought with the Duke into the choir.

Now when the Duke came to the altar he swore in the presence of the Archbishops, Bishops, clergy and people, on his knees before the altar, and the most holy gospels laid thereon, and the relics of any saints, that he would keep peace, honour and duty towards God and holy church and her customs all the days of his life. Secondly, he swore that he would exercise right justice and equity among the people committed to his charge. Thirdly, he swore that he would annul any evil laws and customs that might have been introduced into the realm and make good laws and keep them without fraud or evil intent. Then they stripped him altogether, except his shirt and breeches, and his shirt was torn apart at the shoulders. Then they shod him with buskins worked with gold. Then Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, poured the holy oil on his head and, with prayers appointed for this purpose, anointed him king in three places, to wit, his head, his breast, and his arms, which signifies glory, courage and knowledge.

Next the Archbishops placed on his consecrated head a linen cloth, and above it the coif which Godfrey de Lucy had carried. Then they clothed him with the royal vestments: first, that is, with the tunic, then with the dalmatic; then the Archbishop gave him the sword of the realm wherewith he was to repress the evildoers against the church. Then two earls put upon him the spurs which John Marshal had carried. Then he was vested with the mantle. After that he was led to the altar, and there the said Archbishop forbad him by Almighty God to take this great office upon him, unless he intended to keep inviolate the oaths above mentioned and the vows he had made. And he replied that by the help of God he would keep all the above without deceit.

Then he himself took the crown from the altar, and gave it to the Archbishop, and the Archbishop set it on his head, and two earls held it up on account of its weight.

Then the Archbishop put the royal sceptre into his right hand and the royal rod into his left, and thus crowned the king was led to his seat, by the aforesaid Bishops of Durham and Bath, preceded by torch bearers and the said three swords.

Then was the Mass of Sunday begun; and when they came to the offertory the aforesaid Bishops led him to the altar, and he offered a mark of the purest gold (for this is the offering which a king must make at every one of his Coronations) and the same Bishops led him back again to his seat.

Now when the Mass had been celebrated and everything duly finished the same two Bishops, one on the right and the other on the left, led him back crowned and carrying the sceptre in his right hand and the rod in his left, from the church to his chamber, with the ordered procession going before them as above.

Then the procession returned to the choir, and the lord king laid aside his royal crown and royal vestments, and put on lighter crowns and vestments, and so crowned he came to breakfast. And the Archbishops and Bishops sat with him at table each according to his degree and rank; and the earls and barons served in the king’s house as their ranks demanded. And the citizens of London served in the butlery, and the citizens of Winchester in the kitchen … Now the second day after his Coronation, Richard, King of England, received the homage and fealty of the Bishops, earls and barons of England …²⁴

What can be added? Other sources tell us that the Coronation was followed by three days of festival and that the king bestowed lavish gifts on the magnates. It was also the occasion when there were Jews in the crowd, some of whom tried to enter the Abbey, triggering a riot during which houses were set on fire. When the king was told about this at the feast he sent Ranulf de Glanville to quell it. But so far out of hand had it got that he was driven back into the feast by threats.²⁵ This is also the first feast about which we know any details. It called for at least 5, 050 dishes, 1, 770 pitchers and 900 cups on and in which to serve the food and drink. To this can be added the first piece of music likely to have been composed for the occasion in honour of a monarch. The words are in Latin but in translation they read:

The age of gold returns The world’s reform draws nigh The rich man new cast down The pauper raised on high. ²⁶

The chronicle account catches to the full the magnificence of a Coronation by that date, its sense of unfolding spectacle, its choreography, its richness in terms of robes and artefacts, its use of contrasting passages of speech with chant. Much is already familiar but there is also so much that is new. The ecclesiastical procession now fetches the king-elect, or duke as he is resolutely referred to, from his royal chamber. In the procession various dignitaries are assigned roles bearing everything from items of regalia to candlesticks (these never reappear). The royal robes are carried on the board used in the exchequer and the king now proceeds beneath a canopy. Later, after his crowning, he doffs his regalian robes and ornaments, putting on lighter ones along with a lighter crown. As another chronicler so rightly put it, all was done ‘cum pompa magnifica’. Everything was firmly in place for the major transformation which was to occur under the aegis of Henry III.

But there is a wider context to which this Coronation belongs, for it was the prelude to the king’s departure on the Third Crusade. It was staged in the midst of all the fervour leading up to such an event, when the chivalry of Christendom rallied to rescue and preserve the Holy Land and the Holy Places from the Infidel. When Richard at last set sail a few months later in December he took with him King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, which he was later to present to Tancred, King of Sicily.²⁷ But the fact that he took it at all indicates some notion of self-identification with the king of legend whose court was the pattern of chivalry. Can it at least be suggested that the Coronation of Richard was in a sense that of Arthur revived? The suggestion, although unprovable, is at least worth the making and a number of factors suggest that this could well have been in the mind of whoever put together the secular ceremonial in 1189.

I have already referred earlier to the account of the Coronation of King Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s seminal Historia Regum Britanniae, compiled during the first half of the twelfth century. The two chapters on Arthur’s Coronation festivities would have been incentive enough to escalate regal spectacle.²⁸ Arthur is conducted to the church by two archbishops with four knights bearing golden swords before him. We are told that there was wonderful music during the procession and at the actual church service, which is not recounted. As they leave for the banquet both Arthur and his queen take off their heavy crowns and put on ‘lighter ornaments’, just as Richard did before the feast. There were, in fact, two banquets, one for the men and the other for the ladies. The English Coronation banquet was also a male preserve like the Arthurian. ‘For the Britons,’ writes Geoffrey, ‘still observed the ancient custom of Troy by which men and women used to celebrate their festivals apart.’ There followed three days of festival with tournaments, archery and other competitive sports and, after this, on the fourth day, ‘all who, upon account of their titles, bore any kind of office at this solemnity, were called upon to receive honours and preferments …’ The scenario for 1189 was exactly the same. Was this an attempt to emulate King Arthur? This was a Coronation staged at precisely the period when the Arthurian romances of chivalry under the aegis of that great innovator of the genre, Chrétien de Troyes, took off as a new ideal of courtly life. Indeed Chrétien’s greatest patron was Richard I’s brother-in-law, Henry of Champagne.²⁹ Was the Coronation of 1189 an attempt to revive the world of Arthur, ‘For at that time Britain had arrived at such a pitch of grandeur, luxury of ornaments, and politeness of inhabitants, it far surpassed all other kingdoms’? It is an hypothesis that is worth the making. What is clear is that we have travelled already a vast distance from the feudal testimony of 1066 and entered the new world of Camelot.