IV.

An English Coronation Order of the
Twelfth Century

This coronation order represents the third recension of the service, and is sometimes called the coronation of Henry I.; but there is no more reason for believing that it was used for Henry I. than for considering the second recension to be the order for the coronation of Ethelred II. In both cases the opinion has merely arisen from a note designating these sovereigns made by a seventeenth century hand, probably one of the librarians of the Cotton collection. The order is found in a very fine manuscript pontifical, now in the British Museum, dating from the twelfth century, and written for a bishop of the province of Canterbury.

This order is more akin to that in the so-called Ordo Romanus of Hittorp, printed by him in de divinis Catholicae Ecclesiae officiis, than are any of the other three recensions.

[Brit. Mus. Cotton. MS. Tib. B. viii. fo. 81.]

INCIPIT consecratio regis.

[fo. 81

Consecrandum regem de conuentu fidelium seniorum duo episcopi per manus producant ad ecclesiam. et chorus decantet hanc Antiphonam.

Firmetur manus tua et exaltetur dextera tua iusticia et iudicium preparatio sedis tuę misericordia et ueritas precedant faciem tuam alleluia. V. Gloria patri et filio et spiritui

sancto.

Perueniens ad ecclesiam prosternat se super pauimentum ante altare. Pauimentum autem stratum sit tapetibus et palliis. Finita [fo. 816 Antiphona fiat letania. Et episcopi prosternant se super pauimentum hinc et inde circa electum regem. Expleta autem letania: erigant se. Erectus autem ab episcopis electus rex: hec tria seruaturum se esse promittat dicens.

IN christi nomine promitto hęc tria populo christiano mihi subdito. In primis me pręcepturum et opem pro uiribus impensurum: ut ecclesia dei et omnis populus christianus. ueram pacem /nostro arbitrio in [fo. 82 omni tempore seruet. Aliud ut rapacitates et omnes iniquitates omnibus gradibus interdicam. Tercium ut in omnibus iudiciis equitatem et miseri