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.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RITE
There remains to be considered the meaning of the rite of the consecration or coronation of a king. We have seen that an exalted idea of kingship was more or less universal before the times of Christianity. In pre-Christian times the king was regarded as far above ordinary men by virtue of his office, which embraced priestly functions, and was looked upon as being the vice-gerent of God. In the Roman Empire from the time of Julius and Augustus the Emperor was also Pontifex Maximus, the spiritual as well as the civil head of the Empire; his effigy was sacred; temples were erected to him or to his Genius; during his lifetime he received semi-divine honours, and on his death he was solemnly enrolled among the company of the gods. The autocrat of the world was the representative of God on earth. The Roman Empire itself was mysterious, sacred, and eternal. The Christians also accepted this theory and followed St Paul’s teaching that ‘the powers that be are ordained by God,’ equally with their non-Christian fellow-citizens regarding Caesar in some sense at least as the representative of divine law and order in the natural world, and as being therefore the vice-gerent of God[170]. When the Emperors became Christian the Church naturally found herself able to accept this doctrine with enthusiasm and without restriction, and the Emperor was acknowledged as spiritual as well as civil ruler. Thus we find that the Council of Nicea had no hesitation in admitting the right of the Emperor to control the Church, and Constantine claiming to be a sort of Episcopus episcoporum appointed by God[171]. This conception of the Emperor has never been lost by the Eastern Church.
We have seen that there was a ceremonial in pre-Christian times on the accession of an Emperor. The Church very naturally transformed this inauguration ceremony into a Christian rite in much the same way as the civil marriage ceremony was made religious by the addition to it of the benediction of the Church. The accession of an Emperor was by the will of God. The Church gave him her solemn benediction at the outset of his career. It is the idea of a benediction rather than a consecration that the earliest Eastern rites, and even the earlier Western rites, seem to contemplate. At the same time the Church by her benediction proclaimed the new Emperor as the chosen of God, thereby affording a certain stability to his throne and in some degree offering some assurance of peace to Empire and Church. The idea of a consecration gradually evolved itself, and rapidly developed when the use of an unction was introduced. We have seen that there is some uncertainty as to the date of this introduction. St Gregory the Great not only speaks of the anointing of rulers as a well-known fact, but certainly regards it as being in some sort sacramental, just as St Augustine had long before asserted that the Jewish unction conferred grace on its recipients[172]. Photius evidently regarded the Emperor as being in some way set apart and solemnly consecrated by the inauguration rite. But there still remained the practical idea of obtaining general recognition as Emperor by the performance of the ceremony, for the Emperors were crowned immediately on their accession. This idea is just as manifest in the West as in the East. There we see that Pippin in his anxiety to obtain a definite recognition and acceptance of his dynasty when the Merovingian fainéants were set aside, was anointed or consecrated on two different occasions, by St Boniface, and secondly by the Pope himself, who came across the Alps for the purpose. In the same way we find Richard I of England being crowned a second time on his return from his captivity, this second coronation being apparently regarded as necessary in view of the fact that his brother John had acted at least as king de facto. Henry II was crowned no less than three times. Henry III was crowned twice. All these cases of repeated coronations were intended to procure the firm establishment of the king upon his throne rather than for any other reason. Or again a king might be held to have forfeited his throne by some grievous crime, as in the case of Lothair II of Lotharingia, but on amendment might be confirmed upon his throne by a reconsecration, as was Lothair by Archbishop Hincmar.
But in process of time in the two oldest monarchical states, England and France, a theory came to be held that the consecration of a king was a consecration proper, and was to be ranked with the Sacrament of Order as conferring character, and that after his consecration the king was no longer a layman but at least a Mixta Persona. This view, popular though it was in England and France, was never accepted by authority, and Lyndwood mentions it as being taught only ‘secundum quosdam’; while St Thomas lays down that only the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Order confer character, thus excluding the consecration of a king. On the other hand, in the rite of Navarre the unction is spoken of as ‘the Sacrament of unction.’
We find an excellent example of the popular belief in the effect of the consecration in the French and English rite of the Healing. In France the power of the king to heal by his touch was certainly generally attributed to the fact that he had been anointed. Though this theory was also largely held in England, there was also the counter and perhaps more general view held, that the power of healing was possessed in virtue of rightful succession from the Confessor; on the other hand the kings of England blessed cramp rings by rubbing them in their anointed hands, with a prayer for their consecration.
Three facts may be regarded as contributing towards this common belief in England and France that the consecration of a king was a sort of ordination; the fact that he was anointed ‘as prophets, priests and kings were anointed,’ according to the language of the form in most of the orders; the fact that the regal vestments were very like those of a bishop; and the fact that there is considerable similarity between the rite of the consecration of a king and that of the consecration of a bishop. The king was anointed ‘as prophets, priests and kings were anointed.’ Unction was used in the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Order, all of which conferred character. It was difficult to explain what was the meaning of the unction of a king. Grosseteste[173] held that it bestowed grace, the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit. So far as there was any official doctrine on the subject, it seems that it was that the unction of a king was a Sacramental, a means by which grace might be obtained. The Roman Church seems to have always discouraged the theory that it was in any way an ordination. The fact that in the East the Emperor took part in the procession as a Deputatus proves very little, and the fact that the Western Emperors sometimes read the Epistle at their coronation if anything goes against the theory of ordination, for if the Emperor was to be regarded as in any way ‘in Orders,’ surely his Orders would have ranked above the sub-diaconate.