Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/346

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[2nd g. NO 17., Arair, 26. '56.

vol. v. p. 87. cent. 6th, where MR. THOMS will find abundant references to authorities.

It may, however, be questioned, whether the golden rose was " substituted " for the keys and the filings, as the letter from Rome, quoted in The Times, informs us. Lenfant, alluding to the acceptance of the golden rose by the Emperor Sigismond from John XXIII., adds that

" The canon lawyers have been at a great deal of pains to show us the origin of the Golden Rose. Tlieophilus Raynaud, who has treated of it expressly, says, that this is a very ancient custom in the Church, and that it is not easy to trace the antiquity of it, nor to discover who was the first author of it. Some say that it was insti- tuted in the fifth, others in the ninth century."

The former period would carry us a century, or more, higher than the time of Gregory. Lenfant gives a long account of the golden rose in his History of the Council of Constance, vol. ii. pp. 244, 5. James Piccart, a canon of S. Victor, at Paris, in his Notes upon the History of England, written by William of Newbourgh, about the end of the twelfth century, gives us the extract of & letter from Alexander III. to Lewis, the young king of France, when he sent him the golden rose :

" In imitation," says this pope to the monarch, " of the custom of our ancestors, who carried a rose of gold in their hands upon Lcetare Sunday (Mid-Lent), we thought we could not present it to any body who better deserved it than your Excellence, by reason of your extraordinary devotion to the Church and to ourselves."

The reader must bear in mind that the cele- brated Pragmatic Sanction was not then enacted. Andrew Du Chesne tells us that Pope Urban V., in 1368, gave the golden rose to Joan, Queen of Sicily, preferably to the King of Cyprus, who was at the ceremony of blessing it, and that from that time began the custom of sending such roses to queens and princesses. At first it was a religious ceremony, but in process of time it became an act of authority, by which popes, when they gave the golden rose to sovereigns, acknowledged them as such.

Henry VOL received the golden rose from Popes Julius II. and Leo X. Durandus enters minutely into the mystical character of the golden rose :

" Rosa pras cseteris floribus colore delectat, odore re- creat, et sapore confortat, delectat in visu, recreat in olfactu, et confortat in gustu. Nempe Rosa in manu Romani Pontificis, gaudium Israelitici populi designat, quando per gratiam Christi data est illi de Babylonica captivitate licentia redeundi : Deinde ilia donatur nobi- liori et potentiori, qui tune in Curia reperitur, in quo nobilitas et excellentia illius peculiaris populi Domini

designator Triplex autem est in hoc flore ma-

teria, aurum, videlicet, muscus et balsamum, quia triplex est in Christo substantia, deltas, corpus et anima." Ra- tionale Dw. Off., lib. 6. cap. 53. n. 8. where the subject, " Rosa Aurea Pontificis Max- imi, quid significet " is treated of at large. Does the present pontiff anticipate that Napoleon III., pleased with the bauble, will follow the example

of Francis I., and betray the liberties of the Gal- lican Church ?

I trust that the readers of " N. & Q." will at least not think that / have any veneration for the olden rose or the filings and the keys; but I have read their own account of this and other mummery, having long been convinced that to peruse popish books is the most efficient way of learning the follies and absurdities of Popery. Take, for ex- ample, the above passage from Durandus, and the letter and present of St. Gregory to the Empress Constantina ! E. C. HABINGTON.

The Close, Exeter.

MR. THOMS asks, " where can I find any ac- count of the ' gold and silver keys,' and ' the pieces cut with a file from St. Peter's chains,' mentioned by the writer " (of a letter from Rome in the Debats) ? I answer, in the epistles of that illustrious doctor of the church, whose memory is, or ought to be, dear to every Englishman, St. Gregory the Great. In his letter to the Empress Constantina, who had begged some relics from him, that learned and zealous Roman pontiff says :

"De catenis quas ipse sanctus Paulus Apostolus in collo et in manibus gestavit, ex quibus multa miracula in, populo demonstrantur, partem aliquam vobis transmittere festinabo, si tamen hanc tollere limando prsevaluero ; quia dum frequenter ex catenis eisdem multi venientes benedictionem petunt, ut parvum quid ex limatura acci- piant, assistit sacerdos cum lima, et aliquibus petentibus ita concite aliquid de catenis ipsis excutitur, ut mora nulla sit. Quibusdam vero petentibus, diu per catenas ipsas ducitur lima, et tamen ut aliquid exinde exeat, non obtinetur." S. Gregorii Papas Op. ii. 711., Parieiis, 1705.

In a letter to Dynamius, the patrician, acknow- ledging the receipt of some money, the same holy pontiff adds :

" Transmisimus autem beati Petri Apostoli benedic- tionem, crucem parvulam, cui de catenis ejus beneficia sunt inserta. Qua? illius quidem ad tempus ligaverunt sed vestra colla in perpetuum a peccatis solvant." Ib., p. 648.

Writing to King Childebert, St. Gregory tells him:

" Claves praterea sancti Petri, in quibus de vinculis catenarum ejus inclusum est, Excellently vestra; direxi- mus, quse collo vestro suspense, k malis vos omnibus tueantur." Ib. p. 796.

Another of such keys the same pope sends to Richaredus King of the Visigoths, with these words :

" Clavem vero parvulam h sacratissimo beati Petri Apostoli corpore vobis pro ejusbenedictione transmisimus, in qua inest ferrum de catenis ejua inclusum." Ib., p 1031.

That such keys were often at least, if not al- ways, of gold we learn by a passage of a letter from the same pontiff to the patrician Theoctista, (ib. p. 872.) too long to be quoted here. Pope Vi- talian, in his letter, A.p. 667, to the Northumbrian