Читать книгу Coronation: From the 8th to the 21st Century - Roy Strong - Страница 18

So much connected with a Coronation depended on moveables. The Abbey with its soaring architecture, its army of statuary, its wall-paintings, stained glass and bejewelled shrine was, when it came to staging a late medieval Coronation, like a theatre awaiting the arrival of the scenery, props and costumes, not to mention the actors and musicians. Only at the beginning of the fourteenth century do we begin to learn something about items like the great stage which was erected at the crossing and just how extraordinary it was. An entry in the accounts of the royal Office of Works for 1307–11 reads as follows: ‘Concerning the royal seat ordained and made in the monks’ church in the midst of the choir in which the king and queen were crowned: note these seats were wainscoted all round and so high that men at arms, namely earls, barons, knights and other nobles could ride beneath them.’²⁷

This matter-of-fact entry conjures up an astonishing picture, that the stage occupying the crossing must have been at least thirteen feet high and probably more to enable those on horseback to ride beneath it as though it were some kind of bridge. The arrangement was the reverse of that of a modern Coronation where tiered seats are erected in the transepts to look down on the action at the crossing.

The medieval Coronation stage was one both looked up to and down upon. Those at floor level gazed up, glimpsing the king as he was presented to each side at the opening of the ceremony. Later in the proceedings they could surely see the king enthroned above them as the throne, at least later, was approached by a flight of steps and therefore must have been very high. But onlookers could also look down on the action. In the corners of each terminal wall of the transepts there are newel staircases leading to the galleries in the triforium. The Liber Regalis constantly refers to the great concourse of people who could hinder the action and, indeed, these events could be densely crowded, so much so that in 1308 the king was forced to enter the Abbey another way and a wall was pushed over, killing a knight.²⁸ These must have been occasions when the whole medieval establishment came together, producing a crush, which made it essential for the regalia to be already on the high altar at the opening or otherwise there was no way of getting it there.

Once the stage was established as a feature the Royal Works would have stuck more or less to a formula. We have, in fact, to wait until the Household Ordinances of Henry VII (1494) to get a far fuller description of one of these Coronation stages, a structure which had to support one if not two thrones, plus a throng of officiating clergy and nobility. Then it is described as being railed and covered in red cloth with, at ground level, part if not all of it walled in, creating a room beneath which housed drink for the king and to which access could only be had by doors guarded by the royal ushers. This would suggest that by the late fifteenth century it had ceased to be a bridge-like construction. We learn far more, too, about the staircase approaches, both of which seem to have been as wide as the stage itself, approaching from the west and descending towards the high altar from the east.²⁹ Considerable improvisation as to the decoration of these stages must have occurred for on to them could be bestowed the riches of the Royal Wardrobe. Even though barely a week elapsed between Edward II’s deposition and his son’s Coronation, the stage was not only erected but hung around with 21 tapestries, 6 pieces of cloth of gold having diaper work of silk and 22 pieces of cloth of gold on linen, and the whole floor covered with lawn cloth on to which was laid the same ray cloth as lined the path from the palace. The throne on this occasion was covered in cloth of gold, with five cushions acting as a footrest, and above it there was a canopy.³⁰

Much of the drama of the ritual must have lain in the choreographed descent and ascent of the king with attendants both down and up the great staircase leading to the sanctuary and the high altar. There, too, in 1327 both the king’s chair and that for the archbishop were covered with cloth of gold. These stood on the celebrated Cosmati pavement which was probably the gift of the pope and for which Abbot Richard de Ware had brought from Rome both the craftsmen and some of the materials. It is an abstract spelt out in Purbeck marble, porphry, onyx, various limestones, alabaster and opaque glasses in a kaleidoscope of sophisticated colours: purple, green, golden yellow, blue, turquoise, white and red. What is depicted is an image of the cosmos in terms of the Greek Platonic tradition in which geometry and pure number linked the tangible world of the senses and the divine world approached through the intellect.³¹

The inscription on it ends with these words: ‘Here is the perfectly rounded sphere which reveals the eternal pattern of the universe.’ In it are mapped out the three levels of existence ascending up and through the sensible and intelligible worlds to the spiritual sphere symbolised in the single round stone at the centre as the eternal archetype. It is difficult not to believe that this sacred space with its complex cosmic imagery on which the kings of England were henceforth to be anointed was laid out with the Coronation in mind. For that of Edward I it was covered with a rich cloth, and yet the pavement’s schema in one sense is only completed when the king has been anointed and crowned as an image of the ninth sphere, the boundary between the created universe and the divine reality beyond. Indeed, every argument for kingship through into the seventeenth century works from this premise, that a king rules over the hierarchy of his subjects as God rules over the hierarchy of the universe. The one is a mirror-image of the other.

Such an image would conjure up, too, the music of the spheres, for in that scheme of things the cosmos was constructed according to the proportions of the musical scale. Terrestrial music was but an earthly counterpart of the celestial music of the spheres. Music played a major part in the Coronation rite which moved from speech to chant, not forgetting the important part which silence could play in such great rituals. For the first time, in 1308, we are able to shed some light on the role played by music in Coronations. On that occasion there were significant changes to what was used. The antiphon Confortare, for instance, was deliberately moved in order to highlight the act of crowning, but even more significant was the alteration of the antiphon Unxerunt Salomonem which traditionally accompanied the anointing. For that there was composed a totally new tune which borrowed part of the melody of the Magnificat antiphon for the feast of St Edmund, king and martyr. In doing this those present would have been reminded of Edward II’s descent from a second Anglo-Saxon royal saint. The new composition drew on pre-Advent antiphons in which Christ is described as ascending his throne and which also celebrated his baptism. The parallel offered is between Christ’s baptism and the king’s reception of unction. To further elevate the monarchy the Coronation Mass borrowed music from that used for the Coronation of a pope.³²

If the Abbey’s interior was transformed for the occasion so, too, was the palace. The Coronation of Edward II had a six-month lead time and the palace, which was in a run-down state, was completely cleaned and put in order. As winter drew on and the evenings darkened candles were supplied so that the work would not be impeded. There is mention also of the construction of a temporary second great hall, the duplicate of the one in stone. This was over five hundred feet long and in it was staged the prefatory secular enthronement of the king. Above the throne, in an arch, stood a gilded copper statue of a king. The first occasion on which such a temporary hall went up that we know about was in 1274 for Edward I. In addition, in 1308, there was a fountain in the lesser domestic hall which spouted red and white wine and a spiced drink called pimento.³³

There was a similar rush to spruce up things in 1327. This time the great chamber was hung with tapestries adorned with shields with the royal arms, the bench coverings were patterned with coats of arms and the royal seat was covered with cloth of gold and provided with cushions. Westminster Hall itself was adorned with hangings and its floor covered with linen cloth. The king’s seat glittered with the usual cloth of gold and Turkey silk.³⁴

What all of this tells us is that the guest list must have run into thousands, and inevitably not all of the guests had London residences. In 1308 there were fourteen lesser halls built parallel to the temporary great hall. The Coronation now consisted not only of the rite itself and the feast which followed, but went on to include several days of tilts, tourneys and further feasting. Edward I’s festivities lasted for fourteen days in emulation of Solomon. In the case of Edward II we know that 40 ovens had to be built, calling for a small army of cooks, not to mention vast quantities of fuel.³⁵ In the case of Edward I we get a glimpse of the huge quantities of provisions sent for from all over the kingdom. In February 1274 orders went out to the county of Gloucestershire alone to provide 60 oxen and cows, 60 swine, 2 fat boars, 40 pigs and 3,000 capons and hens. Bishops, abbots and priors were asked to procure as many swans, peacocks, cranes, rabbits and kids as they could.³⁶

In these fragmentary pieces of information we witness the Coronation expanding as an event far beyond what happened in the Abbey. In fact, a Coronation had become the greatest festivity of any reign. While in the Abbey the Church might reign triumphant as lay deferred to clerical power, outside a deliberate riposte was staged in which the whole pyramid of medieval feudal society was displayed in witness to a revival of royal power. By the middle of the fourteenth century the secular aspect had developed into a massive display of rank and power, one which inevitably, as happened in 1308 over Piers Gaveston, led to clashes of interest and conflicting claims among the king and his assembled magnates.