After the Laudes have been sung, Mass proceeds, the Epistle and Gospel being read in Greek as well as in Latin. At the conclusion of the Mass the Pope goes in procession to the staging erected on the steps at the west end of the Basilica of St Peter. There the ‘Prior diaconorum cardinalium’ removes his mitre, and sets the Tiara or Regnum, which is by this time adorned with three crowns, on his head, the people crying Kyrie eleison. The Pope then blesses the people and returns on horseback to the Lateran.
This represents the final stage of the rite, except for one picturesque feature added in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. As the Pope leaves the chapel of St Gregory for his consecration, the Ceremoniarius lights a piece of tow on the end of a reed which flares for a moment and then goes out, saying, Pater Sancte, sic transit gloria mundi[153].
It will be seen that the Papal rite is very simple. It is clear that the ceremonies, with the Laudes and other acclamations[154], owe much to the Imperial coronation rite of early times, but have undergone very little change or development since the ninth century.
CHAPTER XIV
THE INTER-RELATION OF THE DIFFERENT RITES
The coronation rite first appears in Constantinople, and was there a developed and religious form of the old ceremonies with which the accession of a new Emperor had always been observed. In the West a religious ceremony in connection with the accession of a king first appears in the seventh century in the Visigothic kingdom of Spain. Here we are told that the kings on their accession to the throne took an oath to govern justly, and were then solemnly anointed. But there is this noticeable point, that no mention is made of any crowning, and though the royal gear (regius cultus) is mentioned, there is no reference to an investiture of any kind.
Whence did this Spanish rite come? There is no definite evidence which will permit us to say for certain. It may be that the idea of a religious ceremony of inauguration was borrowed from Constantinople. The barbarian peoples, as they became the new nations, imitated so far as possible the institutions of the Empire, and so it is possible that the Visigoths adopted their coronation rite in imitation of the imperial rite of Constantinople. But if this was so, it is no more than the idea of a religious rite of inauguration which they borrowed. We have seen that the central feature of the Eastern rite was the coronation, and there is no evidence of any unction before the latter part of the ninth century, while on the other hand the central feature of the Visigothic rite was the anointing, and there is no reference to any crowning in Visigothic times. It is true, again, that in the later Spanish rites of Aragon and Navarre there appear very special and peculiar features which we may be tempted to refer to a Byzantine origin, but as we have seen, these features will bear quite well another interpretation. Until we have definite evidence of any connection between the two, it is unsafe to derive the Spanish rite from the Eastern. The outstanding fact is that here in Spain we have, so far as the West is concerned, the beginnings of the coronation or consecration rite of kings, and that its central characteristic clearly consists of the anointing.
In the middle of the eighth century we find France also using an inaugurating rite. In 750 Pippin-le-bref was consecrated by St Boniface as king of the Franks, and at the end of the eighth century we find on two occasions, both of which were exceptional, Saxon kings being consecrated.