The Manuscripts

Jacob Schwalm,^[1] the first historian who took notice of this text and presented a partial edition, knew of only one manuscript: C : Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Cod. 614, a pontifical compiled around 1200 A.D., written in Beneventan script coming from the Cathedral Library of Benevento. Our ordo is on ff 22r–30r; on ff 30r–33v it has Ista est ordinatio de sollempnitate coronationis regis^[2] and on ff 33v–36v the text Incipit ordo ad reginam noviter benedicendam .^[3] On fol. 36v there is a Missa pro imperatore^[4] seemingly left over from an Ordo romanus ad benedicendum imperatorem included in the register of the manuscript, but later canceled.^[5]

In my first article on this ordo^[6] I was able to point to three additional manuscripts that might be useful in preparating a text. These are:

1. V : Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vaticana, Cod. Vat. lat. 6748 saec. XIII; a pontifical from Monreale.^[7] Our ordo is on ff 103v–111v, followed on ff 111v–112v, 112v–114r, and 114r–115v by the ordines nos. I, II, and III for the coronation of the emperor and the empress.^[8]

2. S : ibid., Cod. Vat. lat. 4746 saec. XIII; a pontifical coming from Syracuse;^[9] Our ordo is on ff 17v–22r, followed by OCI III on ff 22r–22v.

3. M : Madrid, Bibl. Nacional, Cod. 678, saec. SIV; a pontifical from Messina.^[10] Our ordo is written on ff 130v–141r, followed by the three imperial coronation ordines [OCI I–III] on 141r–146r.

I inspected the Roman codices in the Vatican Library and received microfilms of the manuscript in the Madrid National Library. All these liturgical collections are based on the tenth-century Roman-German Pontifical,^[11] which from the eleventh century onward was considered the Roman pontifical par excellence (henceforth: PRG). It was later in part replaced by the "Roman Pontifical of the Twelfth Century".^[12] As far as the Norman kingdom of Sicily is concerned, it seems that the former was regarded as the authoritative Roman pontifical. Our ordo and the imperial ordines that follow it in three manuscripts are derived from that version of the PRG which we find, for example, in the Monte Cassino Cod. 451 (C ) or in the Cod. Valicellianus D5 (D ), both compiled in Beneventan script in the eleventh century. Here we are concerned only with the coronation ordo for Roger II (1130).