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National synods, kingship as office, and royal anointing: an early medieval syndrome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Janet L. Nelson
Janet L. Nelson*
Affiliation:
Newnham College, Cambridge
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Extract

Professor Gabriel Le Bras, a great pioneer in the field of historical sociology, has spoken of the early medieval Church in a bizarre but effective metaphor as ‘a dismembered body striving to reunite itself’. The essential task of the hierarchy within each national Church was one of coordination—by means of law, doctrine, and the standardization of worship. In the fragmented world of the barbarian kingdoms, the distinctive feature of each episcopate was its ideology of cohesion, the more ardently propounded when social crisis was particularly acute, as in the seventh-century Visigothic kingdom, or the war-torn West Francia of the 830s and 840s. This ideology was, moreover, often intimately associated with movements of monastic reform. Its influence penetrated down into the rural base of society through episcopal visitations, preaching, and provincial councils. To trace all the elements in these complex processes of interaction and change would encompass that much-needed sociology of the early medieval Church which Max Weber did not live to write and no scholar has yet produced. In this paper, as its title implies, my very limited objective is to isolate and examine certain recurrent phenomena and to point to some hitherto unnoticed connections.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 7: Councils and Assemblies , 1971 , pp. 41 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1971

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References

Page No 41 Note 1 ‘Sociologie de l’Église dans le Haut Moyen Âge’, in Settimana Spoleto, 7, 11 (1960), 598 Google Scholar.

Page No 41 Note 2 On the early medieval Landeskirchen, see von Schubert, H., Grundzüge der Kirchengeschichte, 10th edn. rev. Dinkler, E., Tübingen 1937, 130 ff.Google Scholar; Feine, H.F., Kirchliche Rechtsgeschichte, 4th edn., Weimar 1964, 147 ff.Google Scholar; and W. Schlesinger, Beitrage zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Göttingen 1963, 259, pointing out their character as Gentilkirchen. For the term ‘national church’, see the sensible remarks of Schieffer, T. and Ganshof, F. L. in Settimana Spoleto, 7, 1 (1960), 312 fGoogle Scholar.

Page No 41 Note 3 Cf. the Introduction by Parsons, T. to Weber’s The Sociology of Religion, London 1965, xiv Google Scholar; and suggestions scattered throughout Weber’s work: e.g. Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society, ed. and trans. Shils, E. and Rheinstein, M., Cambridge, Mass., 1954, 250 ff.Google Scholar, and From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W., London 1947, 245 ff, 295 ffGoogle Scholar. See now also the masterly survey of Le Bras, ‘Sociologie de l’Église’; Troeltsch, E., The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, trans. Wyon, O., London 1931, 1, 214 ff.Google Scholar, and Stark, W., The Sociology of Religion: A Study of Christendom, London 1966 Google Scholar, are stimulating, but deal only sketchily with the early medieval period.

Page No 42 Note 1 This approach, first developed by A. Schulte, Der Adel und die deutsche Kirche, Stuttgart 1910 (mainly with reference to the later Middle Ages), has, however, corrected a tendency to divorce ecclesiastical history from its social environment. See also Mitteis, H., ‘Formen der Adelsherrschaft im Mittelalter’, in Festschrift F. Schulz, Weimar 1951, 226 Google Scholar ff. esp. 237; Bosl, K., Frühformen der Gesellschaß, Munich 1964, 93, 459 Google Scholar; Werner, K. F., ‘Bedeutende Adelsfamilien...’, in Karl der Grosse, ed. Beumann, H., Düsseldorf 1965,1, 91 fGoogle Scholar.

Page No 42 Note 2 Or among the clergy of the royal chapel: see Wieruzowski, H., ‘Die Zusam mensetzung des gallischen und fränkischen Episkopats bis zum Vertrag von Verdun (843)’, in Bonner Jahrbücher, 127 (1922), 1–83 Google Scholar. Werner, ‘Bedeutende Adelsfamilien’, 94, notes the break between Merovingian and Carolingian practice. For further evidence from Spain, Germany, and England, see the works of Thompson, Johnson, and Darlington cited below.

Page No 42 Note 3 Copious evidence is adduced by Thompson, E. A., The Goths in Spain.Oxford 1969, 308 ff.Google Scholar; Cabaniss, J. A., Agobard of Lyons, Syracuse 1953, 20 ff.Google Scholar; Hauck, K., ‘Geblütsheiligkeit’, in Liber Floridus. Festschrift P.Lehmann, St Ottilien 1950, 187 ff.Google Scholar; with special reference to kingship, Heiler, F., ‘Fortleben und Wandlungen des antiken Gottkönigtums im Christentum’, in The Sacral Kingship, Leiden 1959, 543 ff.Google Scholar; and Chaney, W. A., ‘Paganism to Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Early Medieval Society, ed. Thrupp, S., New York 1967, 67 ffGoogle Scholar. See now also Le Goff, J., ‘ Culture cléricale et traditions folkloriques dans la civilisation mérovingienne’, in Annales ESC, 22 (1967), 780 ffGoogle Scholar. On integration and pattern-maintenance in social systems, see Parsons, T., Societies, Englewood Cliffs 1966, 11 and 24 ffGoogle Scholar. It seems to me that the early medieval Church performed both these functions, and that the Parsonian paradigm involves a certain over-schematization which actually diminishes its analytic usefulness for the historian.

Page No 43 Note 1 Conc. Tol. xi (a provincial synod), prologue, in PL 84, 451: ‘annosa series temporum subtracta luce conciliorum non tam vitia auxerat quam mattem omnium errorum ignorantiam otiosis mentibus ingerebat’. Cf. Tol. iv, ibid. 366: ‘de qualitate conciliorum’. See also the Anglo-Saxon Polity of c. 1000, ed. and trans. Thorpe, B., Ancient Laws, 1,428, c. x Google Scholar. ‘ Incipit de synodo: It is incumbent on bishops in the synod first of all to consider about unanimity and true concord among themselves, and how they may before all things exalt Christianity and most effectually suppress heathenism.’ For synods as ‘charismatic assemblies’, see Baynes, N., Byzantine Studies and Other Essays, London 1955, 111 Google Scholar; cf. Barion, H., Das fränkisch-deutsche Synodalrecht des Frühmittelalters, Bonn 1931, 110 ff.Google Scholar: ‘ nur Organe der Kirchenleitung... nicht Versammlungen der Christen, ... sie (i.e. Synods) hierarchischen Charakter trugen und keine Zugeständnisse an demokratische Wünsche ihrer Untergebenen gemacht hätten ‘. On synods in general, see Hinschius, P., Das Kirchenrecht der Katholiken und Protestanten in Deutschland, Berlin 1869 etc., 111, 539 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 43 Note 2 On the distinction between an élite and a wider (unorganized) ruling class, see Sereno, R., The Rulers, Leiden 1962, 99 ff.Google Scholar, and the penetrating study of Bottomore, T. B., Elites and Society, London 1966, esp. 41 fGoogle Scholar. The fluidity of the ruling stratum and the various possibilities for achieving social status in early medieval kingdoms have been discussed by Boutruche, R., Seigneurie et Féodalité, Paris 1959 147 ffGoogle Scholar; Bosl, Frühformen der Gesellschaft, 156 ff.; Graus, F., Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger, Prague 1965, 200 ffGoogle Scholar. A clearly defined aristocracy with its own characteristic ethos and system of status-stratification came into existence only with the decline of the Carolingian Empire, and matured in the eleventh and twelfth centuries: see Tellenbach, G., ‘Zur Erforschung des mittelalterlichen Adels (9-12 Jhdt.)’, in XII Congrès International des Sciences Historiques, 1965, Rapports 1,318 ff.Google Scholar, and Duby, G., ‘The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society’, in Past and Present, 39 (1968), 3 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. The distinction between ranking and stratification is stressed by Fried, M., The Evolution of Political Society, New York 1967 Google Scholar, and by Wenskus, R., Stammesbildung und Verfassung, Köln-Graz 1961, 314 and n. 273 Google Scholar: the social anthropologist and the historian, from quite different starting-points, reach similar conclusions. The methodological problem of dealing with periods for which no statistics are available has been ably discussed by Hopkins, M. K., ‘Elite Mobility in the Roman Empire’, in Past and Present, 32 (1965), 12 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. His structural approach seems very useful also for medieval material.

Page No 44 Note 1 See esp. his The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn., London 1962, 125 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 44 Note 2 Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Barbarian West, 400-1000, London 1964, 144 Google Scholar. Cf. Schlesinger, Beitrage zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte, 242, and idem, ‘Die Auflösung des Karlsreiches’, in Karl der Grosse, 1, 833 ff.

Page No 44 Note 3 So Johnson, E. N., The Secular Activities of the Gertnan Episcopate,Chicago 1932,23 Google Scholar.

Page No 44 Note 4 See Barion, Das fränkisch-deutsche Synodalrecht, 332.1 would rate very highly the importance of the episcopal ordination rite in aggregating individual to role. The idea of personal regeneration is central to this as to other status-changing rituals: hence the ease of liturgical transpositions from one initiation rite to another. See Oppenheim, P., ‘Mönchsweihe und Taufritus’, in Miscellanea Liturgica in honorem MoMberg, L. C., Rome 1948, 1, esp. 265 ff.Google Scholar, and the suggestive remarks of Williams, G. H., The Norman Anonymous, Harvard 1951, 77 ff. and 158 fGoogle Scholar. Relevant and valuable in this context are Fortes, M., ‘Ritual and Office’, in Essays in the Ritual of Social Relations, ed. Gluckman, M., Manchester 1962, 53 ff.Google Scholar, and the fundamental work of van Gennep, A., The Rites of Passage, ed. and trans. Vizedom, M. and Caffee, G. L., Chicago 1960, esp. 93 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 45 Note 1 See Barion, , Das fränkisch-deutsche Synodalrecht, 163 f. and 267 ff.Google Scholar; Hinschius, , Das Kirchenrecht, 111, 554 Google Scholar.

Page No 45 Note 2 Cf. the ninth-century forger, Benedictus Levita, iii, 444: ‘Ne laici intersint quando canonica iura ventilantur. ’ See on the Spanish councils, Thompson, The Goths in Spain, 278 ff., and on Anglo-Saxon clerical legislation, Darlington, R., ‘Ecclesiastical Reform in the Late Old English Period’, in EHR, 51 (1936), 385 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Page No 45 Note 3 Thompson, The Goths in Spain, 275; Lesne, E., La Hiérarchie Âpiscopale, Paris 1905. 95 ffGoogle Scholar. Metropolitan rivalries could later come to centre on the right to perform royal consecrations: cf. Schramm, P. E., Der König von Frankreich, 2nd edn., Weimar 1960, 113 ff.Google Scholar, and U. Stutz, ‘Die rheinischen Erzbischöfe und die deutsche Königswahl’, in Festchrift H. Brunner, Weimar 1910, 57 ff.

Page No 46 Note 1 Darlington, ‘Ecclesiastical Reform’, 414.

Page No 46 Note 2 Hillgarth, J. N., A Critical Edition of the Prognosticum futuri saeculi of St Julian of Toledo, Ph.D. Thesis, Cambridge 1956 (unpublished), xxvii Google Scholar. See also Albornoz, C. Sanchez, ‘El Aula Regia’, in Cuadernos de Historia de España, 5 (1946), esp. 85 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 46 Note 3 See Reydellet, M., ‘La Conception du Souverain chez Isidore de Séville’, in Isidoriana, ed. Diaz y Diaz, M., Leon 1961, 457 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 46 Note 4 See Pujol, E. Perez, Historia de las Instituciones Sociales de la España Goda, Valencia 1896, 106 ff., 143 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 46 Note 5 Conc. Tol. xi, in PL 84, 451: the bishops complain of the ills of society ‘quia ecclesiastici conventus non aderat disciplina... et quia non erat adunandorum pontificum ulla praeceptio’.

Page No 46 Note 6 See Rovira, J. Orlandis, ‘La iglesia Visigoda y los problemas de la sucesion altrono en el siglo VII’, in Settimana Spoleto, 7, 1 (1960), 333-51Google Scholar.

Page No 47 Note 1 PL 84, 465: ‘ecclesiasticae disciplinae his nostris saeculis novus reparator occurrens’. It was thanks to Wamba that ‘lux conciliorum renovata resplenduit’, ibid. 451.

Page No 47 Note 2 Cf. Thompson, The Goths in Spain, 308: ‘On no single subject did the bishops spend more time than on the safeguarding of their churches’ property. ’

Page No 47 Note 3 De Divortio, Quaest. 6, in PL 125, 757, apropos the reinstatement by the bishops of Louis the Pious in 834.

Page No 47 Note 4 MGH, Conc., 11, 605 ff. See also Reviron, J., Les idées politico-religieuses d’un evêque du IXe siècle: Jonas d’Orléans et son ‘De institutione regia’, Paris 1930, esp. 94 ff. and 113 ffGoogle Scholar. (Jonas’ treatise was a restatement of the Paris decrees), and Delaraelle, E., ‘En relisant le De Institutione regia...’, in Mélanges Halphen, Paris 1951 185 ff, esp. 187 Google Scholar: ‘C’est l’entrée en scène de ľépiseopat... organisé en corps constitué.. .se prononçant sur les grands intérêts de l’État et de la chrétienté.’ The conciliar activities of this period are discussed by Ullmann, Growth, 125 ff.

Page No 47 Note 5 See H. Fichtenau, Dos karolingische Imperium, Zurich 1949, 209 ff.; and the perceptive remarks of J. Winandy, ‘L’Oeuvre de S. Benoît d’Aniane’, in Mélanges Bénédictins, St Wandrille 1947, 235 ff. Semmler, J., ‘Die monastische Gesetzgebung Ludwigs des Frommen’, in Deutsches Archiv, 16 (1960), esp. 384 ff.Google Scholar, links the unitas of monastic observance with the whole idea of a ‘renovatio regni Francorum’.

Page No 47 Note 6 Cf. Isidore, De Offic. ii, xvii, 6, in PL 83, 803: ‘Lacrymae enim poenitentium apud deum pro baptismate reputantur. ’

Page No 48 Note 1 See Lot, F. and Halphen, L., Le Règne de Charles le Chauve, Paris 1909, 74 ff.Google Scholar; Fournier, P. and Bras, G. Le, Histoire des Collections Canoniques en Occident, Paris 1931, 1, 130 ffGoogle Scholar.; Barion, Dasfränkish-deutsche Synodalrecht, 297 f.; now also Clercq, C. De, ‘ La législation religieuse franque depuis l’avènement de Louis le Pieux jusqu’aux Fausses Décrétales’, in Revue du Droit Canonique, 5 (1955), 280 ffGoogle Scholar. and 390 ff., and continued ibid. 6 (1966), 340 f.

Page No 48 Note 2 Mansi, 18, 61 ff.; cf. MGH Cone, 11, 649 ff.

Page No 48 Note 3 MGH Capit. 11, 213: ‘pius et mitis consolator tamque strenuus adiutor’.

Page No 48 Note 4 Regino, Chron., ed. Kurze, MGH, SS. rer. Germ., 1, 606: ‘contra plerosque seculares qui auctoritatem episcopalem imminuere tentabant’.

Page No 48 Note 5 See Hauck, A., Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, 3rd edn. Leipzig 1904, 111, 7 ff.Google Scholar; Holtzmann, R., Geschichte der sächsischen Kaiserzeit, Munich 1943, 42 ff.Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Beiträge, 137 f. and 139 ff, and idem, ‘Auflösung’, 841 f.

Page No 48 Note 6 The importance of this synod was ably shown by Hellmann, M., ‘Die Synode von Hohenaltheim (916)‘, in Die Entstehung des deutschen Reiches, ed. Kampf, H., Darmstadt 1956, 289 ffGoogle Scholar. Significantly, the synodists of 916 drew heavily on Visigothic conciliar legislation transmitted by Pseudo-Isidore: see Ullmann, , The Carolingian Renaissance and the Idea of Kingship, London 1969, 130 Google Scholar.

Page No 49 Note 1 See Darlington, Ecclesiastical Reform, 414 ff., and Whitelock, D., English Historical Documents, vol. 1, London 1955, 68 f.Google Scholar, as against Godfrey, C. J., The Church in Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge 1962, 390 Google Scholar.

Page No 49 Note 2 Synod of Gratley, 928, Mansi, 18, 351. Cf. the evidence of conciliar activity (canons and charters) printed in Wilkins, D., Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, London 1737, 212 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 49 Note 3 Surviving monastic charters are especially revealing: see e.g. those printed in W. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 111, nos. 1047, 1067, 1073, 1283. See also the legislation of Edgar in Robertson, A. J., The Laws of the Kings of England, Cambridge 1925, 20 ff.Google Scholar, esp. the Code of 962-3 (IV Edgar), probably written by Dunstan: cf. Whitelock, Documents, 41.

Page No 49 Note 4 Reg. Concordia, ed. T. Symons, 7. See now the valuable study of John, E., ‘The king and the monks in the tenth century reformation’, in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 42 (1959), 61–87 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An interesting sidelight on the social issues involved may be found in a Canon of Edgar, ed. Thorpe, Ancient Laws, 1, 396, c. 13: ‘that no high-born priest despise the lower born; because if it be rightly considered, then are all men of one birth’. Stubbs, W., Memorials of Saint Dunstan, RS, London 1874, cvii Google Scholar, saw Dunstan’s influence here. Cf. also the same idea of natural equality enshrined in the conciliar decrees of Paris (829): MCH, Conc, 11, 654.

Page No 50 Note 1 For details, see my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rituals of Royal Inauguration in Early Medieval Europe, Cambridge 1967, esp. 52 ff.Google Scholar, 150 ff., 370 ff, and 393 ff.

Page No 50 Note 2 Conc. Tol. xii, c. 1, in PL 84, 471; Charles’ Libellus.. .contra Wenihnem (probably written at Hincmar’s instigation), in MGH Capit. 11, 451; the early tenth-century Vita Udalrici, in MGH, SS, TV, 389; the ‘Frühdeutsch’ Ordo, ed. Erdmann, C., Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt des Frühmittelalters, Berlin 1951, 83 ff.Google Scholar; Ælfric quoted in Whitelock, Documents, 851.

Page No 50 Note 3 E.g. Kern, F., Gottesgnadentum und Widerstandsrecht im früheren Mittelalter, 2nd edn. rev. Buchner, R., Münster 1954, 66 ff.Google Scholar; Schramm, , Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik, vol. 1, Stuttgart 1954, 127 Google Scholar; L. Rougier, ‘Le Caractère Sacré de la royauté en France’, in The Sacral Kingship, 609 ff; the revealing discussion in Settimana Spoleto, 7, 1 (1960), 385 ff. Henry I, refusing the proffered anointing, and satisfied with a more familiar mundane title, saw the debit side of the bargain; cf. Widukind, Rer. Gest. Saxon., 1, 26, ed. Lohmann-Hirsch, 39: ‘Satis michi est ut...rex ăicar et designer.’

Page No 51 Note 1 See Ellard, G., Ordination Anointings in the Western Church before 1000 A.D., Cambridge, Mass., 1933 Google Scholar; Andrieu, M., ‘Le sacre episcopal d’après Hincmar de Reims’, in Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique, 48 (1953), 22–73 Google Scholar,esp. 40 ff. Liturgical parallels naturally came to exist between royal and episcopal consecration-rites, but influence worked in both directions, and there is evidence that Hincmar manipulated liturgy very subtly in order to maintain and even to underline the fundamental distinction between the two rites. If the later rite of papal coronation represented an imitatio imperii (see Ullmann, Growth, 311 ff.), the anointing of the Frankish bishop might be seen as an analogous imitatio regni.

Page No 51 Note 2 So Augustine in PL. 34, 1355; Isidore in PL 83, 823; Bede in PL 91, 561, 606. See also Dabin, P., Le Sacerdoce royal des fidèles, Brussels 1950 Google Scholar.

Page No 51 Note 3 See Kantorowicz, E. H., Laudes Regiae, Berkeley 1946, esp. 56 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 52 Note 1 See Ewig, E., ‘Zum christlichen Königsgedanken im Frühmittelalter’, in Das Königtum. Vortrage und Forschungen, 111, Konstanz 1956, 36 fGoogle Scholar.

Page No 52 Note 2 Cf. the stimulating, but often unreliable, study of de Pange, J., Le Roi très chrétien, Paris 1949, esp. 79 ff. and 98 ff.Google Scholar, who wrongly postulates a confusion of rites. See also Welte, B., Die Postbaptismale Salbung, Freiburg 1939 Google Scholar, and Fisher, J. D. C., Christian Initiation, London 1965 Google Scholar, for discussion of doctrine and liturgy.

Page No 52 Note 3 See Michels, T., ‘Die Akklamation in der Taufliturgie’, in Jahrbuch für Liturgie-wissenschaft, 8 (1928), 76 ff.Google Scholar, for the early development of this idea, especially in the Eastern liturgies. Cf. the Merovingian Missale Gothicum, ed. Mohlberg, L. C., Rome 1961, 67 Google Scholar, where the newly anointed are referred to as ‘baptizad et in Christo coronati ’; Pope Leo I, PL 54, 149: ‘omnes enim in Christo regeneratos crucis signum efficit reges’.

Page No 52 Note 4 Cf. I Reg. x, 6.

Page No 52 Note 5 Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae Ordinis Anni Circuli. (sacramentarium Gelasianum), ed. Mohlberg, , Rome 1958, 73 Google Scholar; The Gregorian Sacramentary, ed. Wilson, H. A., Henry Bradshaw Society, 49, London 1915, 50 Google Scholar. Cf. already the third-century Apostolic Tradition, ed. B. Botte, Münster 1963, 18 f.

Page No 53 Note 1 PL 84, 431. The significance of this statement is stressed by De Pange, Le roi, 120 ff., and by Beumann, H., ‘Zur Entwicklung transpersonaler Staatsvorstel lungen’, in Das Königtum, ed. Ewig, 215 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 53 Note 2 MCH, Conc, 11, 651-2.

Page No 53 Note 3 Hellmann, ‘Die Synode’, 303.

Page No 53 Note 4 PL 138, 515. Cf. IV Edg. 1, 8, ed. Robertson, Laws, 32 f.: ‘the obedience which we show (the bishops) as representatives of God’.

Page No 53 Note 5 The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation, Oxford 1947, 330. See also Fortes, ‘Ritual and Office’, 57 ff.; and the penetrating analysis of comparative institutions, and of terminology, by Goody, J., Succession to High Office, Cambridge 1966, 1–56 Google Scholar, and 170-2, stressing the special characteristics of royal office as a ‘scarce resource’.

Page No 54 Note 1 The Ordo of 877 in MGH, Capit., n, 461-2; the ‘Seven Forms’, ed. Erdmann, op. cit., 87 ff.; the ‘Mainz’ Pontifical, ed. C. Vogel and R. Elze, Rome 1963, 246 ff.

Episcopal mediation was most heavily stressed in the ‘ Seven Forms’ texts for the delivery of crown and sword, ed. cit., 88: the kingdom is committed to the royal ‘regimen, per officium nostrae benedictionis’, the sword is handed over ‘per manus episcoporum licet indignas vice tamen et auctoritate sanctorum apostolorum consecratas’.

Page No 54 Note 2 Cf. the Libellus of 859, in Capit., 11, 451: ‘a qua consecratione (i.e. Charles’s anointing in 848).. .proici a nullo debueram, saltern sine audientia et iudicio episcoporum, quorum ministerio in regem sum consecratus... quorum paternis correptionibus et castigatoriis iudiciis... sum subditus ’; Hincmar to his nephew, in PL 126, 378: ‘ab his potes iudicari a quibus potuisti ordinari’; idem, PL 125, 1040 f. and Mansi, 16, 601.

Page No 55 Note 1 PL 125, 1071, in the acta of the Synod of St Macre-de-Fismes.

Page No 55 Note 2 See Treitinger, O., Die Oströmische Kaiser- und Rekhsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im höfischen Zeremoniell, Jena 1938, 7 ff., 27 ff.Google Scholar, and F. Dölger’s effective refutation of the contrary opinion of Charanis, P., in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 43 (1950), 146-7Google Scholar.

Page No 56 Note 1 Isidore, Hist. Goth., 48, 51, 52, in MGH, AA, xi, 286 f.; Classen, P., ‘Karl der Grosse, das Papsttum und Byzanz’, in Karl der Grosse, 1, 557 f.Google Scholar; Arm. Bertin., ed. F. Grat, 55 and cf. ibid. 71; the ‘Edgar’ Ordo, ed. Legg, L. G. Wickham, English Coronation Records, Westminster 1901, 15 ffGoogle Scholar.

Page No 56 Note 2 See Bloch, M., Les Rois Thaumaturges, Strasbourg 1924 Google Scholar; Beumann, H., ‘Die sakrale Legitimierung des Herrschers im Denken der ottonischen Zeit’, in Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Germ. Abt., 66 (1948), 1–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; H.Wolfram, Splendor Imperii, Graz-Köln 1963, 126 ff. and 137, calling the replacement of the king’s splendor fortunae by a splendor fidei ‘ein echt mitteralterlich Kompromiss’.

Page No 56 Note 3 See Williams, The Norman Anonymous, esp. 167 ff. The Anonymous regarded the king’s anointing as superior to that of the bishop: MGH, L de L, III, tract, rv, 669: ‘Nam unctio et sanctificatio sacerdotum ad exemplum Aaron instituta est.. .et.. .ad exemplum apostolorum.. .regis vero unctio instituta est ad exemplum illius quem Deus pater unxit ante saecula. ’ On these ideas, which drew heavily on expressions contained in the royal ordines, see the perceptive remarks of Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, Princeton 1957, 42 ff. But both he, and the equally perceptive Southern, R. W., The Making of the Middle Ages, London 1953, 97 ff.Google Scholar, somewhat misleadingly suggest that the Anonymous was really representative of early medieval attitudes. Stark, Sociology of Religion, 58 f., mischievously juxtaposes the Anonymous and the Vicar of Bray, the former’s argument being ‘a near-perfect reflection of the sentiments which, when the time came, produced the Anglican establishment’.

Page No 57 Note 1 Cf. Isidore, Sent, 111, 51, 4, in PL 83, 723: ‘Principes saeculi nonnumquam intra ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent, ut per eandem potestatem disciplinám ecclesiasticam muniant.’

Page No 57 Note 2 On Irish conditions, see Fournier, P., ‘Le Liber ex lege Moysi et les tendances bibliques du droit canonique irlandais’, in Revue Celtique, 30 (1909), esp. 228 Google Scholar: ‘Les conciles n’y tiennent qu’une place secondaire, comme les evêques dont le rôle est singulièrement effacé. ’ Also valuable are Ryan’s, J. observations in Settimana Spoleto, 7, 11 (1960), 554 ffGoogle Scholar. and 584 f., and Hughes, K., The Church in Early Irish Society, London 1966 Google Scholar. On synods in the Eastern Church, see Beck, H. G., Kirche und Theologische Literatur im Byzantinischen Reich, Munich 1959, 38ff., esp. 55 ff.Google Scholar: only ten local synods are recorded for the whole Empire in four centuries (from 600 to 1000), and nearly all were exclusively concerned with the doctrinal problems of monothelitism or iconoclasm, rather than with administrative or legislative matters, which were in any case looked after by the imperial government. On imperial control, see Michel, A., ‘Die Kaisermacht in der Ostkirche’, in Ostkirchliche Studien, 3 (1954), 1 ff.Google Scholar; for monastic criticisms, see the lively essay of Grégoire, H. in Baynes, N. H. and Moss, H. B., eds., Byzantium, Oxford 1948, 86 ffGoogle Scholar. On royal inaugurations in Ireland, which remained entirely secular even in the later Middle Ages, see Dillon, M. and Chadwick, N., The Celtic Realms, London 1967, 93 ffGoogle Scholar. G. Ostrogorsky, ‘Zur Kaisersalbung und Schilderhebung im Spätbyzantinischen Krönungszere-moniell’, in Historia, 4 (1955), 246 ff., resumes the evidence, and shows that an imperial anointing was not practised in Byzantium before the thirteenth century, when the rite was imported from the West.

Page No 58 Note 1 For details, see my unpublished dissertation, ch. 111.

Page No 58 Note 2 Cf. Settimana Spoleto, 7, 1 (1960), 397 f. and 403 f.

Page No 58 Note 3 MGH, Capit., 11, 457: ‘Et qui te voluit’. Cf. Alcuin’sBenedictio in the Gregorian Sacramentary, ed. cit., 351. The same collect was employed quite independently by the East Frankish author of the ‘Early German’ Ordo, ed. Erdmann, op. cit., 86. In this form (which differed slightly from Hincmar’s text) the prayer passed into ‘Mainz’, and thus into the later ordines. Cf. also the echo in Hincmar’s opening benediction, ‘ Deus qui populis ’, of two Alcuinian Mass prayers pro rege in tempore synodi: Gregorian, ed. cit., 188 and 189.

* I should like to take this opportunity of acknowledging the help and encouragement of Professor W. Ullmann and of my husband, H. G. H. Nelson, both of whom have discussed with me some ideas contained in this paper.