Ordines Coronationis Franciae: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Prankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages (review)

208 Reviews distinction precisely because of differences that make community the most temporary and provisional - and desirable - of theatrical experiences. Roger Nicholson Department ofEnglish University ofAuckland Jackson, Richard A., ed., Ordines Coronationis Franciae: Texts and Ordines the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages, Vol. II (The Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, 2000; cloth; pp. xii, 436; illustrations; R.R.P. US$69.95, £52.00; ISBN 0812235428. The coronation and consecration of a monarch was for many centuries and in most European kingdoms the critical element in the legitimation of certain powers, duties and responsibilities in the hands of a particular individual. The vital importance of the ritual reached its apex in France where monarchs dated their reigns from the day of their coronation, not from the date of their accession. Theritualdid not remain unaltered over the centuries and tracing the alterations tells us a great deal about the changing source and nature of royal claims to power and authority, their relationship to the established religion and the circumstances of the specific coronation. The constituent parts of the ceremony; the various additions made to it, including the insignia; the interaction of canon, Roman and customary law in its practices were not stable and the various different ordines show important shifts. The last Capetian ordo, selectively devised from a number of earlier ceremony provided the framework from 1250-1350 when it was replaced by the much-expanded ordo of Charles V designed in the context of the early Hundred Years War. Significantly, at the coronation of Charles VII, the older ordo was used again. In 1461 Louis XI's coronation ceremony was a mixture of the last Capetian and Charles V ordo, and in 1484 Charles VIII's ordo reintroduced some of the last Capetian features. There are over a hundred manuscript texts of the different ordines as well as supporting material such as expense accounts and music. Chroniclers, memoir and letter writers describe what they saw - or thought they saw. Historians from the sixteenth century onwards have written studies ofthe event. A complete, modem and scholarly printed edition of the various ordines has, however, been lacking. Richard Jackson, w h o has devoted most of his academic life to a Reviews 209 longitudinal study of the French coronation, has produced complete texts of the 25 surviving medieval ordines and the existing translations into French. He provides complete lists of the whereabouts of the surviving manuscripts and of known lost manuscrips together with a thorough examination of the styles and dates ofthe surviving manuscripts, which have been co-ordinated for the printed version, the stemma implied and footnote indications given of the variants. For the problems involved in this work he reproduces on pp. 318-19 his computer file for a single short paragraph, which seems to justify his claim that to retain all variants would render the edition incomprehensible. His method is to select what seems to him the most logical base text and to indicate corrections and additions in other texts in the footnotes. Where a word in the base text seems incorrect, the reading is corrected and the variant given in thefirstlayer offootnote. In appendixes he provides some helpful synoptic tabulation of the five ordines in Volume II, complete indexes of biblical citations and both lost and surviving manuscripts. In all of this he acknowledges the essential help of Middle French experts Hans-Erich Keller, Claud Buridant and others. A s Jackson himself points out, much of the work is sheer drudgery and damaging to the eyes. Unless some important, currently unknown, manuscript is discovered, these volumes are likely to remain the most convenient authoritative texts for these important rituals. While m o d e m computer programs might enable all the available texts to be presented individually, linked to show the relationships and perhaps linked to reproductions of the manuscripts themselves, the two volumes which Jackson has produced provide an invaluable, clearly set out, critical edition. His commentary indicates the vital detail of the significant differences between the different ordines. The second volume contains the ordines that are peculiarly French and diverge from the more c o...