Coronation

The Capetian dynasty was blessed for over three hundred years by always having the sons of previous kings to succeed to the throne, a fact of life that allowed the principle of primogenitary right to prosper. For the first two

hundred years, however, from Hugh Capet through Louis VII, every king found it prudent during his own lifetime to secure the crowning of his heir apparent—even, on two occasions, of having him also consecrated. These presuccession rites usually took place somewhere other than Reims, and they did not preclude the need later, after the king-father died, to perform the full consecration and coronation rites at Reims.^[2]

During the course of the twelfth century, the use of a premature sacre and/or couronnement to strengthen the successive right of the heir-apparent was complemented, and then replaced, by the device of naming him in official documents as rex designatus . At least for the first of the reges designati , Louis VI, consecration was still urgently needed to overcome baronial opposition when he succeeded to the throne in 1108. His grandson then, Philip II (1180–1223), was the first Capetian who, during his lifetime, did not have his son either crowned or consecrated—or designated.^[3]

These diverse ways of initiating kings prematurely cannot be considered truly inaugural. In every case, the commencement of the reign was officially reckoned in documents only from the date of the final sacre and couronnement. Rather than the "when" of rulership, presuccession rites served the "who." They were essentially dynastic devices, and they were abandoned when the Capetians' dynastic claim became secure. From a logical point of view, it could even be argued that presuccession initiations diminished the efficacy of the ceremonials as such. For if it was considered necessary for a king to be crowned and consecrated twice during his lifetime, then either one or the other of the performances had to be regarded as superfluous or else neither one of them was constitutive all by itself. Furthermore, since presuccession crownings and consecrations were as often as not performed separately, the interplay between their respective principles of rulership—secular choice operating concommitantly with divine grace—was obfuscated. Only in 1223 was the optimal situation achieved (and observed ever thereafter) of having the sacre and couronnement performed only conjointly and only on one occasion for each king.

One could extend the last sentence to read, ". . . and only at Reims," if one excepted the instance of Henry IV in 1593. The status of Reims is so firmly established in our perception of the cult of the French monarchy that it seems almost perverse to point out that Reims' unassailable claim to be the locus of the sacre et couronnement proved to be, almost inevitably, the cardinal flaw in that ceremony's claim to be the true inaugural event. Sooner or later the successor to the throne would find himself so far from Reims when his predecessor died that even a hurried trip thence would take such a long time to accomplish that the principle of maintaining a reasonable propinquity between the demise of one king and the coronation of the next would break down. That is what happened in 1270, when the heir apparent, Philip III, was with his father, Louis IX, when the latter died on a crusade in North

Africa. We are not told of any ceremonial that was performed, just that Philip was recognized as king of France by the barons who were there. It had to be done: the exigencies of governance had to come before the proprieties of the ceremonial at Reims.^[4]

It has occurred to me, speculating upon the possibilities that presented themselves in Tunisia in 1270, that crowning and sacring might have been separated then. That is, the coronation might have taken place at once, investing Philip with essential powers of command, but the rites of consecration withheld until it was possible to perform them at Reims. The presuccession rites of the not-too-distant past, which had often separated crowning and sacring, could have provided a precedent of sorts. But, as mentioned above, such separation had the flaw of not allowing the secular and sacred principles of rulership to reinforce each other by being acted out simultaneously. Keeping the ceremonials together—that is, heeding Reims' geographical prerogative, which it is difficult to imagine not having been done—did mean, however, that both of them were separated in time from rulership itself. The official dating of the new reign now—and ever after—began from the time of the old king's demise. The traditional rites at Reims were left intact, to be performed when feasible. Philip III did not get to Reims until over a year later, but all that was added to the actuality of royal power by the ceremonials performed there was the power to cure the king's evil.

Not to have given Philip royal powers at once would have been to suggest the existence of an interregnal period. Such was intolerable from a constitutional point of view. There was created, however, what I call a ceremonial interregnum, that is, a hiatus in the rule of properly crowned and sacred kings. Other state ceremonials, to which I now turn, would subsequently enter the inaugural picture. Reims will, however, return to the scene when the time comes to consider how its ritual program was modified to keep step with those other ceremonials. Indeed, nothing shows better the ingenuity of the French in ceremonial matters than their effort to maintain the standing of the oldest of the inaugural rites in the face of new ones that arose.