Fig. 158.—State Gloves of embroidered silk, gold, and silver, with the Monogram of Christ, formerly belonging to Louis XIII.—From the originals in the Collection of M. Jubinal.
The Order of the Holy Ghost was the last military order that the sovereigns of France themselves conferred towards the close of the sixteenth century. Both this and the Order of St. Michael were termed orders of the king. Henry III., in 1579, created the order in honour of God, and particularly in that of the Holy Ghost, under whose inspiration he had accomplished “his best and most fortunate exploits,” to use the exact words of the statutes of the order. From the day of his ascending the throne he had always intended to found this order, which had been suggested to him in his childhood by the perusal of the statutes of the first Order of the Holy Ghost, instituted at Naples, in 1352, by one of his ancestors, Louis of Anjou, King of Jerusalem and Sicily. These statutes were carefully preserved in a precious manuscript, the miniature of which represented with marvellous art all the ceremonies of the order. The manuscript was a present from the nobility of Venice to Henry III. on his return from Poland. This prince, however, borrowed but little from these ancient statutes, which had been drawn up in view of the military services which the knights of the order, three hundred in number, might be able to render towards the Crusades in Palestine. The new order of the Holy Ghost, although a military one, was destined to gather round the king, who was its supreme head, a body of a hundred knights, selected from among the most eminent and the most illustrious personages of the court, the Church, and the nobility. The insignia of the order were a collar composed of golden fleurs-de-lis, surmounted with enamelled flames, forming the initials of the king and his wife Louise of Lorraine, with a cross bearing a silver dove, emblem of the Holy Ghost. At the meetings of their order, the knights were clad in costly round-caped mantles of blue velvet spangled with fleurs-de-lis in gold (Fig. 157). These meetings, which at first were held in the Church of the Augustines at Paris, where the solemn receptions of the new members took place, were afterwards transferred to the Louvre, where they were celebrated with extraordinary pomp. It is true that the statutes enjoined on each lay knight the duty of taking arms for his sovereign whenever the latter was preparing to go to war for the defence of his dominions, or in the interest of his crown; but they were never scrupulously obeyed on this point, and the Order of the Holy Ghost, while preserving its military and religious character on all ceremonial occasions, never played any other part than one of display and heraldic pretension. The sovereigns, however, at all times showed themselves extremely jealous of the privilege of appointing its knights, and the latter for more than three centuries composed the actual guard of honour of the royal house of France.
Fig. 159.—St. George, the patron of warriors, vanquishing the Dragon.—From the Tomb of Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, at Rouen (Sixteenth Century).
LITURGY AND CEREMONIES.
Prayer.—Liturgy of St. James, of St. Basil, and of St. John-Chrysostom.—Apostolical Constitutions.—The Sacrifice of the Mass.—Administration of Baptism.—Canonical Penances.—Plan and Arrangement of Churches.—Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.—The Ceremony of Ordination.—Church Bells.—The Tocsin.—The Poetry of Gothic Churches.—Breviary and Missal of Pius V.—Ceremonies used at the Seven Sacraments.—Excommunication.—The Bull In Cœnâ Domini.—Processions and Mystery Plays at the Easter Solemnities.—Instrument of Peace.—Consecrated Bread.—The Pyx.—The Dove.
It was the first Council of Nice, in the year 325, that gave the dignity of canonical law to the custom of prayer on bended knees, and it is a surprising fact that none of the paintings of the Catacombs represent a devotee in the act of kneeling. We, however, know from the Acts of the Apostles that from the very first days of Christianity it was sometimes customary to kneel at prayer. As for the public prayers of the early Christians, the text of the principal ones has survived unaltered to our own days. As early as the close of the first century, the younger Pliny, writing to Trajan, told him that the Christians were accustomed to assemble at daybreak to sing a hymn in honour of Christ, whom they worshipped as God. This is a valuable piece of evidence, and it is moreover corroborated by the known custom that prevailed at the same epoch in the Church of Antioch, of celebrating the Holy Trinity (Figs. 160 and 161) by singing anthems, and of glorifying Christ, the Word of God, by the intoning of canticles and psalms. St. Irenæus, who wrote in the middle of the second century, also mentions in his work against heresy, a kind of Gloria in excelsis, which was chanted in Greek in Christian assemblies at the consecration of the host, and which may be translated thus: “To thee all glory, veneration, and thanksgiving; honour and worship to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and ever, and for century upon century of infinite eternity!” The people responded, “Amen!” In the dogmatic treatises written by Tertullian, at the end of the second century, that great pagan philosopher, who had become a convert to Christianity, alludes more than once to the first attempts at a liturgy which the Church used in the administration of the sacraments. He speaks of secret meetings where the psalms were sung, the Scriptures read, and edifying discourses were delivered; he mentions public prayers on behalf of the reigning sovereign, of his ministers, and of the great functionaries of the State; he describes ceremonies, forms of prayer, and religious chants which were used according to certain rites authorised in the Latin Church, amongst which may be distinguished the Pater of the New Testament, that simple and yet sublime and touching invocation of feeble humanity prostrated before the Almighty.
