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 ORDINES

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ORDINES

composition of this document has recently been inves- tigated by Dr. Kosters in a very able chapter of his "Studien". His conclusions are, that the substance of the Ordo was drawn up in the time of Pope Constan- tine I (708-15), and underwent some revision under Pope Stephen III (752-7). However, the most startling part of Dr. Kiisters' discussion is his demon- stration that the section describing the coronation of the pope, which incidentally introduces the name of Leo, belongs not to the period of Pope Leo lU (c. 800), as has hitherto been .supposed, but to that of Saint Leo IX (1044), and that in fact the papal regnum, or crown, which this Ordo describes as "made of white cloth in the form of a helmet", was for the first time worn by that pontiff. The statement made in this Ordo that the new pope should be a priest or deacon ordained by his predecessor and that he ought not to be a bishop {nam episcopus esse non poterii) is particu- larly interesting in view of the fact that Cardinal Deusdedit in the eleventh century, who comments on the text of this document, had apparently before him no clause to this effect. It is probably an interpola- tion of about that period. Other points of interest are the mention of diaconissir and presbiterissa:, and the ceremony of holding the book of the Gospels over the pope at his ordination (tenet evangelium super caput vel cervicem eius) . We hear of this last ceremony earlier in the East (cf. Apostolic Con.stitutions, VIII, iv) and in Gaul, and it is now part of the rite of consecration of every bishop, but it appears late at Rome. The ap- pendix on the ember days, attached to this Ordo in the Saint-Gall Manuscript, had probably no original connexion with it and may be assumed to be not Roman.

Ordo X is a relatively long and very miscellaneous document and has no real claim to be included in the series of Ordines. It is, strictly speaking, a primitive form of Pontifical, though it is Roman in origin, and it is difficult to persuade oneself that it has not resulted from the fusion of at least two separate elements. The description of the Holy Week ceremonies which occu- pies nn. 1-24 may be described as a Ca?remoniale pure and simple, and so is the burial service for the Roman clergy in nn. 36-40, the Roman character of both being unmistakable, but the intervening sections 26-3.5, which consist of an Ordo for administering the Sacra- ment of Penance, and for visiting, anointing, and giv- ing Viaticum to the sick, form a service-book complete in itself, including not merely the incipits but the en- tire text of the prayers to be said by the priest, like any modern Ritual. Thalhofer (Liturgik, I, 48) has sought to draw a presumption of late date from the form of absolution in n. 29, which is indicative and not precative, absolvimus te tnce beati Petri etc.; but sub- stantially the same formula occurs with an interpo- lated Anglo-Saxon translation in the Egbert Pontifical of the tenth century. Neither are the reasons con- vincing, upon which Kosters bases his conclusion that the document as a whole is posterior to the year 1200. We must probably be content to leave the question of date unsettled.

Ordo XI has a tolerably full account of the papal ceremonial as it extended through the whole ecclesias- tical year. This description is particularly valuable, inasmuch as it includes not only the functions of great solemnities but also the everyday usages and a consid- able amount of detail regarding the Divine Office. It has lately been shown by Dr. Kosters that what we now possess in Ordo XI is only a fragment of a much larger work compiled by Benedict, Canon of St. Peter's, which was primarily a treatise upon the dig- nity of the Roman pontiff and upon the cardinals and various officials of the Roman Court, and which from the nature of its contents was called "Liber Politicus". This title has left a trace of itself in the heading of the manuscript used by Mabillon, where by a strange per- version it appears as "liber pollicitus". The treatise

seems to have been completed just before the year 1143.

Ordo XII likewi.se contains a somewhat minute de- scription of the papal ceremonial in ecclesiastical and quasi-ecclesiastical functions throughout the year, much space being occupied by a detailed record of the regulations followed in the distribution of the bounties called presbyterin. This Ordo is avowedly extracted from the "Liber Censuum", a treatise com- piled towards the end of the twelfth century by Cardi- nal Cencius de Sabellis, afterwards Pope Honorius III (1216-1227). But here again Kosters has shown that the last two sections, dealing with the election and consecration of the pope and with the crowning of the emperor, can be traced back to the "Politicus" of Benedict. Various miscellaneous matters, concern- ing, e. g., the duties and dues of certain minor officials, the oath taken by senators to the pope, etc., also find a place in this collection.

Ordo XIII is one of the few Ordines which we pos- sess, at least substantially, in the form in which it was first written. This is admittedly an official treatise drawn up by command of Pope Gregory X, shortly after the publication of the Constitution "LTbi pericu- lum", issued in 1274 to regulate the procedure of the cardinals a,ssembled in conclave for a papal election. The earliest portion of the document (nn. 1-12) is in fact concerned with the choice, consecration, and coro- nation of a new pope, provision being made for the case of his being a bishop, priest, or deacon. The trea- tise seems to presuppose an acquaintance with Ordo XI and Ordo XII and it is probably in consequence of this that the directions for the ordinary ceremonial are very conci.se. This Ordo marks the transition stage to a different type of liturgical document, much more de- veloped and distinctively framed with a \-iew to the part played by the Roman pontiff and his great retinue of ecclesiastical officials. Up to Ordo XIII we may say that the Ordines Romani are represented at the present day by the "Pontificale" and the "Cseremoni- ale Episcoporum" (q. v.), which are liturgical text- books common to the whole of Latin Christianity. But the two remaining Ordines, XIV and XV, are rep- resented to-day by the " Ca!remoniale Romanum", which constitutes the rubrical code for papal functions in Rome and has no application in the ceremonial of the Catholic Church outside the Eternal City.

Ordo XIV, which in the manuscripts bears the sig- nificant title "Ordinarium" instead of Ordo, is a much longer document than any of those hitherto consid- ered. It is in fact the first rough outline of the bulky " Caeremoniale Romanum" which regulates the detail of papal functions at the present day. The history of Ordo XIV has been very carefully worked out by Dr. Kosters in his "Studien". The substance of the docu- ment seems to have been the work of Napoleone Or- sini and Cardinal Jacopo Gaetani Stefancschi, the lat- ter having by far the larger share of its composition. By the aid of a manuscript found by Father Ehrle, the librarian of the Vatican, at Avignon, we are able to trace how the work took shape. (See Denifle and Ehrle, "Archiv. f. Lit- und Kirchengeschichte des. M.A.", V, 564 sqq.) It was begun in Rome before the popes left for France, but it was further developed and modified during the first third of the fourteenth century while the papal Court was at Avignon, and we know at any rate that the first nine chapters were quoted, as we now have them, in the conclave which assembled in 1334. But there must have been a revision of the trea- tise about or after 1389, when the long chapter 45: " Incipit Ordo qualiter Romanus Pontifex apud basili- cam beati Petri Apostoli debeat consecrari", with its directions for the "possessio", or taking possession of the Lateran, was drawn up, the ceremony being in abeyance while the popes were at Avignon. Long, however, as the document is, and fully as it may seem to cover the ordinary requirements of papal official