5. The Verge or baculus is delivered to the king with the form Omnipotens det tibi Deus de rore caeli.
6. The crowning takes place. All the bishops set the Crown on the king’s head with the prayer Benedic Domine fortitudinem regis. The people immediately acclaim the king with the cry Vivat rex N. in sempiternum, and the nobles salute him with a kiss[69].
7. The last prayer is Deus perpetuitatis auctor.
After this the Mass proceeds, and there is a special Preface. It is noticeable that all the variable Mass prayers are Roman.
At the end of the rite there is appended a short charge on the three chief duties of a king, Rectitudo regis est noviter ordinati ... haec tria praecepta populo Christiano sibi subdito praecipere, namely to secure the peace of Church and people, to repress violence and rapine, and to be just and merciful. Probably in such words as these the king’s oath ran. The oath in the next recension is in almost the same words, and most of the prayers reappear later in other rites. There is no provision made for the coronation of a Queen consort, just as in the Eastern rite there is no provision made for the ceremonial crowning of the Empress. But there seems to have been some prejudice among the Anglo-Saxons against any very close association of the king’s consort with him on the throne[70], apparently on account of the matrimonial irregularities of which Saxon kings were guilty in common with most other Teutonic monarchs.
It is to be noticed that the crown is called the Galeus, a word which recalls the περικεφάλαιον Καισαρίκιον of the Eastern Emperor. The Saxon kings of later date called themselves βασιλεῖς. And in the charter of Burgred and Aethelswyth, to which reference has already been made, one of the regular Greek terms for the imperial crown is actually used ‘Ego Burgred rex necnon ego Aethelswytha pari coronata stemma regali Anglorum regina.’ These facts may possibly indicate the influence of the Eastern Empire on the courts of the West, though they may simply illustrate the Latin of the period.
II
The order that marks the second recension of the English rite, and which is called the Order of King Ethelred, was in all probability that used at the coronation of Edgar in 973.
In this second recension of the English rite every portion of the older is represented but there is more solemnity. In the delivery of the insignia there is a greater formality; and whereas the rite in ‘Egbert’s’ book is simply called Benedictiones super regem, in this order it is called Consecratio Regis. Alternative forms are provided, and whereas in ‘Egbert’ the rite is inserted into the Mass, in later recensions the whole rite precedes the Mass.