CHAPTER V
THE FLABELLUM AND EARLY FEATHER-FAN
ANGEL WAVING A FLABELLUM
(From the Book of Kells.) THE Christian Church was quick to perceive the utility of the fan as an instrument of religious ceremonial, imparting to this object a mysterious importance, a sacerdotal distinction, preserving and shielding it from common use; it has even been claimed that this appropriation was instituted by the Apostles themselves, Bishop Suarez attempting to substantiate this by an appeal to an apocryphal liturgy attributed to St. James.
The earliest recognised notice, however, of the flabellum as a liturgical ornament is in the Apostolical Constitutions, which direct that after the oblation, before and during the prayer of consecration, two deacons are to stand, one on either side of the altar, holding a fan made of thin membrane (parchment), or of peacocks’ feathers, or of fine linen, and quietly drive away the flies and other small insects, that they may not stick against the vessels; this use of the flabellum being derived, not from the ritual of the synagogue of the Jews, but from that of the Pagan temples. Butler (Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt) quotes a similar rubric from the liturgy of St. Clement. The same author refers also to flabella waved by the deacons in the Syrian Jacobite, and probably also in the Coptic, rite for the ordination of a priest at laying on of hands—they appeared at solemn festivals and at regular celebrations of mass.[64] On Good Friday, also, they were used at the consecrations of Chrism—seven deacons holding flabella, walking on either side of the holy oil when carried in procession.
Many evidences of its early adoption by the Latin Church are extant. Moschus (Prat. Spirituale, § 150) cites an occurrence showing its employment
SILVER PROCESSIONAL FLABELLUM
(From Butler.) in the time of Pope Agapetus, A.D. 535, in which a deacon, who had falsely accused his bishop, was removed from the altar when he was holding the fan in the presence of the Pope, because he hindered the descent of the Holy Spirit on the gifts. This same author (Prat. Spirituale, § 196), in narrating how some shepherd boys near Apamea were imitating the celebration of the Eucharist in childish sport, is careful to mention that two of the children stood on either side of the celebrant, vibrating their handkerchiefs like fans,[65] thus showing that the use of the flabellum was general even at this early period. In a letter of St. Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, c. 1098, accompanying the present of a flabellum made to a friend, its use and mystic import are explained—the flies, representing the temptations of the devil, are to be driven away by the Catholic faith.