CHAPTER XV

THE UNCTION, THE VESTMENTS AND THE REGALIA

(1) THE UNCTION

The date at which an unction was introduced into the Eastern rite is a matter of uncertainty. There is no definite statement to be found that the Eastern Emperors were anointed before the time of the intruding Latin Emperor Baldwin I who was crowned in 1214, and the rite by which Baldwin was crowned was a Western rite. There is no mention of any anointing even in the rubrics of the twelfth century Euchologion. The first definite reference to the anointing of the Eastern Emperor is found in the account of the rite given by Codinus, in which we are told that he was anointed on the head in the form of a cross.

Mr Brightman thinks that there was no anointing in the Greek rite before the twelfth century, but it is difficult to believe that this was the case[157].

In the earliest accounts of the Eastern Coronations there is nothing at all said that can be in any way construed as implying any anointing. In the year 602 Theodosius the son of the Emperor Maurice, fleeing for refuge to the Persian monarch Chosroes, ‘was received with great honour by the king, and he (Chosroes) commanded the Catholicos to bring him to the Church, and that the crown of the Empire should be set upon the altar, and then set upon his head, according to the custom of the Romans[158].’ Since the detail of the crown being deposited on the altar is given in this passage, it is most improbable that all reference to an anointing would have been passed over, had such anointing been at this date ‘the custom of the Romans.’

On the other hand St Gregory the Great, commenting on the anointing of Saul, speaks of the anointing of kings in his own day; ‘“Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head.” This, surely, is signified by this unction, which is even now actually seen (materialiter exhibetur) in holy Church; for he who is set at the head of affairs (qui in culmine ponitur) receives the sacraments of unction.... Let the head of the king, then, be anointed, because the mind is to be filled with spiritual grace. Let him have oil in his anointing, let him have abundant mercy, and let it be preferred by him before other virtues[159].’

Here the expression ‘materialiter exhibetur’ is hardly compatible with figurative language. But if St Gregory is thinking of unction in a coronation rite, what is the rite which he has in his mind? Is he thinking of the rite as used in the Spanish Visigothic kingdom[160], in which in all probability unction already found a place? Or is he thinking of the imperial rite of Constantinople? It seems hardly likely that he should speak in such general terms with only the Spanish practice in his mind; but on the other hand there is not a vestige of any other evidence in favour of any Constantinopolitan use of unction. It is true that the ‘Prayer over the Chlamys’ would quite cover the use of an anointing, including as it does such an expression as χρίσαι καταξίωσον τῷ ἐλαίῳ ἀγαλλιάσεως, but it is equally true that these words might quite naturally bear a merely metaphorical significance.

It is not until the ninth century that we seem to get upon more solid ground, when Photius, in a letter written during his exile to the Emperor Basil the Macedonian (867-886), speaks of the χρίσμα καὶ χειροθεσίαν βασιλείας[161]. These words, taken in connection with a sentence at the end of the same letter in which he speaks of himself as ‘he at whose hands both he (Basil) and the Empress were anointed with the Chrism of the Empire (αὐτός τε καὶ ἡ βασιλὶς τὸ χρίσμα τῆς βασιλείας ἐχρίσθη),’ make it very difficult to believe that Photius is here using simply figurative language[162]. It is much more natural to take his words literally and to conclude from them that in the ninth century unction was already included in the rite of Constantinople.

The references of Eastern writers to the unction of Charlemagne have already been mentioned. But since they all lay stress on the manner of that anointing no conclusion can safely be drawn from their language that unction was unknown at that time in the Eastern rite.

There remains the consideration of the Abyssinian use. Abyssinia was cut off by the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century from all communication with Constantinople, and there is no evidence of the use of unction in coronations at Constantinople at that time. It is on the whole, as has been suggested in a preceding chapter, more probable that the Abyssinian unction was an independent Abyssinian developement, more especially as at one time there were strong Jewish influences at work in that country, the effect of which remains to this day clearly stamped on the face of Abyssinian Christianity.

As regards the West, we know that Unction was used at the sacring of the Visigothic kings in the eighth century and that it was used at the coronation of Pippin by Archbishop Boniface in the middle of the eighth century. In fact from the time of the original introduction of the coronation rite into the West, an unction seems to have been one of its features, and it is quite possible that it may have been an independent developement in the West. But is it so easy to think of the unction in the Eastern coronation rite as a feature borrowed from the West?

So we must leave it at this, that while an unction was used in Spain in the seventh century, and is found in all Western coronation rites, on the other hand with regard to the East we can only say that it appears probably in the ninth century in the case of Basil the Macedonian, whatever may be the probabilities or possibilities of any earlier use of it.

(2) THE VESTMENTS AND REGALIA

All the Western coronation vestments are ultimately derived from the Byzantine use. The imperial Byzantine vestments[163] seem to be elaborations of the older official Roman dress. They appear to have become more or less fixed by the ninth century, and comprised the following:

1. The purple Buskins or Leggings.

2. The scarlet Shoes, originally a senatorial badge.

3. The Tunic or χιτών, probably white.

4. The Dibetesion or Sakkos, a gorgeous tunic very much like a dalmatic.

5. The Loros or Diadema, which was originally a folded _toga picta_, but became a long embroidered scarf folded about the neck and body with one end pendent in front and the other over the left arm.

6. The Chlamys, or imperial purple, by the thirteenth century a great cloak powdered with eagles and fastened on the right shoulder. In the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus the Loros and Chlamys were not worn together, perhaps for the sake of convenience, but they were so worn together in the thirteenth century, though by the fourteenth century the Chlamys was again abandoned and the Sakkos sufficed for the imperial purple.

There can be no doubt that the Western regal and imperial vestments are derived from the Eastern robes, for there is a close similarity between the two, though in process of time some of the least convenient have been gradually abandoned.

The English vestments are as follows[164]:

1. Buskins and Hose, now no longer used.

2. Gloves.

3. The Colobium sindonis, a linen vestment of the shape of an alb, the Eastern χιτών. This vestment, which had sleeves up to the time of James II, is now sleeveless, and is also now divided at the side so that it can be put on the monarch, without being put over his head, and fastened on the shoulder.

4. The Tunicle or Dalmatic, which is the vestment worn by sub-deacon, deacon and bishop at mass. This again has in modern times been divided down the middle for convenience in putting on. This vestment is the Eastern Sakkos.

5. The Armill, or Armills. This is very like a stole, and is put round the neck and fastened at the elbows. It is the Eastern Loros[165]. There is however some confusion in the name of this ornament, for it is sometimes used in the plural, and perhaps in that case of the royal Bracelets, which have been long discarded.

6. The imperial Mantle or Pall is more like a cope than anything else. It is the Eastern Chlamys.

The German imperial vesture was much the same. The Emperor Charles V was arrayed at his coronation as follows[166]:

1. The Tunica talaris, a close undergarment of red.

2. The Alba camisia, a rochet or alb-like vestment with sleeves.

3. The Dalmatic.

4. The Armill, like but broader than a stole.

5. The purple Pallium.

6. Red Gloves.

7. Scarlet Buskins.

It may be mentioned that the Greek word _Chlamys_ is actually used for the imperial mantle in the account of the coronation of Otto of Saxony in the tenth century.

The French vestments as used at the coronation of Charles V of France are described in the order used on the occasion[167].

1. A Tunica serica, which is apparently part of his ordinary habit and is the tunica talaris.

2. Tunica, in modum tunicalis quo utuntur subdiaconi.

3. Sokkos, ‘fere in modum cappe.’

4. Buskins.

5. Gloves.

The ornaments of the kings of Aragon were[168]:

1. An ample Camisa like a ‘Roman rochet,’ evidently an undergarment.

2. An Amice of linen.

3. A long Camisa of white linen.

4. A Girdle.

5. A Maniple on the left wrist.

6. A Stole over the left shoulder hanging before and behind, i.e., an Armill.

7. A Tunicle.

8. A Dalmatic.

The Regalia in the East seem to have consisted of the Crown and the Shield and Spear. Symeon of Thessalonica (c. 1400) also speaks of a Rod of light wood, and also of the Akakia among the imperial ornaments. The Akakia was a purple bag containing earth which was put into the hand of the Emperor as a reminder of corruptibility, of which the Western Orb is perhaps the descendant[169]. The Crown was shaped like a helmet and partially closed in at the top.

The Western Regalia comprise:

1. The Crown, called still among the Anglo-Saxons Stemma or Galeus, sufficiently shewing the provenance of this ornament. The Roman imperial Crown seems to have been much after the shape of the Eastern Stemma. The English Crown is a fairly narrow band surmounted by a cross.

2. The Sceptre.

3. The Verge or Staff. In France the Staff was a rod of ivory surmounted by an open hand and called the Main de justice.

4. The Orb, which is generally held to be another form of the Sceptre, but is more probably an elaborated form of the Greek Akakia. The Orb was given at first without any form, but in the English use a form has been introduced comparatively lately.

5. The Ring, which was placed on the ‘medicinal,’ or marriage finger.

6. The Sword and Spurs, which perhaps originally belonged to the order for the making of a knight which was early incorporated into the coronation rite. It may be noticed that in the conservative rite of Aragon the Shield and Spear, the arms of the Eastern emperors, still appear among the regal weapons as well as the sword.

The question arises as to how far the vestments mentioned in the above lists are to be regarded as ecclesiastical. Many have seen in them an ecclesiastical vesture stamping the monarch after his anointing as at least a quasi-ecclesiastical person. The vestments are undoubtedly very similar to the mass vestments, and this similarity was noticed and remarked upon even in the middle ages. Both in England and France the appearance of the king vested in the royal vestments has been compared to a bishop vested for mass, and to the ordinary beholder this comparison would most naturally occur. But as a matter of fact, if one vesture is to be regarded as descended from another, it is the episcopal which is descended from the imperial, and not vice versa. The true fact however seems to be that both are descended from a common ancestor. The ecclesiastical vestments represent a conservative retention on the part of the Church of a vesture which the clergy and laity once used in common. The Church has retained the old lay vestments, and has elaborated them in the process of time. The imperial vestments are derived from the official dress of the Roman republic, again elaborated. The official dress of the Roman republic was itself an elaboration of the ordinary dress of the Roman citizen. Of ecclesiastical vestments the chasuble and cope seem to have been derived from the ordinary lay vesture, while on the other hand the dalmatic and pallium and perhaps the stole are derived from the official dress, and have always appeared in a gorgeous form among the vestments of the Eastern Emperor. The dalmatic, familiar in the West as the dress of the deacon, and originally granted as a privilege to the deacons of the Roman Church only, is in the East the distinctive vestment of the bishop. The pallium or loros, once the badge of the Roman Consul, and later of the Emperor, granted at first by imperial permission to the most eminent prelates of the Church, still appears as the royal Armill on the one hand, and as a distinguishing badge of a bishop in the East, while in the West it has long been granted by the Pope chiefly to metropolitans as a mark of honour and a symbol of jurisdiction.

Thus really the episcopal and the imperial vestments are cousins: and just as the rites, outwardly similar, of the consecration of a bishop and the consecration of a king, tended to be assimilated, so the vestures, in their very origin derived ultimately from the same source, shewed a natural tendency to influence each other: and it is doubtless this similarity of rite and vesture that is the chief reason for the theory that has been held by some, that the anointed monarch is a quasi-ecclesiastical personage, or to use technical language, a Mixta Persona.