they denied the number of their fees; they alleged that the charge demanded of them was not justified by their charters; and while the prince was ready to march against an enemy, it was not convenient to look into records and registers 31" The caution which gave rise to this clause in the prelates' oath was probably not equally necessary with re. gard to the military vassals, and the same expression does not appear to have been adopted in their conjoined profession of homage and fealty, though something like it will be found in the antient oath as given by Bracton : " Hoc audis Domine N., quod fidem vobis portabo de vita et membris corpore et cattallis et terreno honore, sic me Deus adjuvet et hæc sancta Dei Evangelia. Et quidam hoc adjiciunt in sacramento, et bene, quod fideliter, et sine diminu tione, contradictione, vel impedimento et dilatione injusta terminis statutis faciet servitium suum domino suo et hœredibus suis."

31 Stuart's Discourse prefixt to Sullivan's Lectures, &c. p. xx. The following is a remarkable illustration of our subject: "Ego Willelmus de Cholecherche debeo domino meo Henrico regi servitium dimidii mililis in Nortfolc. de antiquo tenemento à conquæstu Angliæ. Nolo enim ut servitium meum CELETUR, quin fecerim quod facere debeo, et homagium feci vobis ô Domine et meo domino Henrico filio vestro, et vestris vicecomitibus servitium feci."-Liber Niger, p. 289.

P. 209.-Antient Rituals.

PERHAPS there is no inquiry connected with our subject attended with more difficulty in its solution, than that which respects the original of our present formulary of religious service for the consecration of kings:-In what age in what country-and by what author was it first composed? Nor is it necessary for our present purpose to enter upon an inquiry demanding so much research and study: with a view however to make the reader acquainted with the rituals principally referred to in the foregoing pages, I shall offer in the present Note such observations as the use of them has suggested.

Beside the several orders of ceremony which have been drawn up in various ages for the use of particular kingdoms, there are two general authorities for the ritual of coronations which are appealed to in all inquiries upon the subject. Of these, the first, as being the most antient, is that contained in the Ordo Romanus antiquus de divinis Catholicæ Ecclesiæ Officiis. This interesting and most venerable document is supposed to have been compiled about the year 800, when a more perfect service of the church, together with the Gregorian chant, was introduced into the western kingdoms of Europe1, and at the very time when

1 "Quemadmodum quo sit auctore conscriptus hic libellus difficile dictu fuerit, ita antiquissimum esse, argumenta non sunt longè petenda. Et mihi quidem aliquando visum fuit à magistris Romanæ Ecclesiæ tùm esse conscriptum, cùm Stephano pontifice, et Pipino primum, deinde Carolo Magno procurante, divina officia Romana cum Romano cantu in Galliam sunt introductæ."-M. Hittorp. Pref. ad Bibl. Pat. tom. x.

the ceremonies of unction and coronation are first known to have been in use. The second of these public formularies is to be found in the Pontificale Romanum, or ceremonial of the Church of Rome, which hath at different times been printed with the sanction of the Holy See, and remains in authority with the churches in its communion. With regard however to those ceremonies which are the subject of our present attention, it appears that the former ritual has never been entirely superseded by the latter, but that both in the Empire and in France, and elsewhere, the service hath continued to be performed agreeably (in most respects) to the Ordo Romanus.

But it is not to be assumed that the Ordo Romanus was the only source from which our service was derived. The material deviations from it in the ceremonials both of France and England, and the great antiquity of those of the latter country, will warrant us in supposing that some other authority was applied to in composing them; and it will be no unfounded conjecture if we add that the first ceremo nial of France was received from the shores of Britain. In the progress of this work, reference hath often been made to the service book supposed to have been used by Saint Dunstan at the coronation of Æthelred II. in the year 978. This, which is the most antient English ritual, is also probably the oldest that any nation can produce for the inauguration of its kings. On comparing it with those of

2 Titles of Honor, part I. ch. 8. v.

3 There are two other passages in the service which suggest colla tion: one in the prayer on delivering the sceptre, " Honorifica eum præ cunctis regibus Brittanniæ:" the other in the Benediction,

France of different ages, we shall find that though the latter have received considerable additions of ceremony, yet that they contain nearly the whole of what is in the former: to this general proof of their community of origin, I shall now add those additional ones which will confirm the statement made above. "However it came to pass," says Mr Selden, who had taken notice of the circumstance, "the next prayer that precedes the unction in it was not only without question taken out of some Saxon ceremonial, and is almost the same that is before shew'd out of the Saxon Pontificale, but also it retains still here the very syllables that denote the English-Saxon kings by the names of their own territories; as of Mercia, of Northumberland, of the Saxons. The negligence or forgetfulness that left these names in it were almost incredible if we saw it not?."

The prayer referred to by our author is that which begins "Omnipotens sempiterne Deus ;" the passage is that which in our copy reads as follows—“ ut regale solium, videlicet Anglorum, vel Saxonum, sceptro non deserat:" in the French however it is "ut regale solium, videlicet Saxonum, Merciorum, Nordanchimbrorum, sceptra non deserat ;" which is still the more remarkable, inasmuch as the variation shows it to have been taken from another, and probably even a more antient service than that of the time of Ethelred3.

As the inestimable remain of which we are speaking will

65 Sanctique Gregorii Anglorum apostoli, atque omnium Sanctorum intercédentibus meritis." These in the French service are changed respectively to "regibus terræ," and " Sanctique Dyonisii atque omnium,” &c. or "Dyonisii atque beati Remigii," &c.

have a prominent place in our Appendix, I shall add some further particulars of the manuscript from which it is taken. The Anglo-Saxon Coronation Service (which is now for the first time printed entire) is bound up with a number of other antient writings of the same class in a volume of the Cottonian collection markt Claudius A iii. It is written in a fair hand, and is well preserved, the whole being comprised in ten leaves or twenty pages. Selden, who has given large extracts from it in different parts of his Titles of Honor, describes it as "the fragment of a Pontifical;" he also speaks of it as "a piece of a ceremonial:" from what follows, however, it will be seen that although but a portion of the original book, so far as the coronation service goes it is nearly a perfect ritual1. The first page of the manuscript is unfortunately covered by a picture of St Dunstan pasted over it; but by a careful examination I have been able to restore so much of this page as supplies the beginning of the service. It then goes on as far as to the prayer which follows the anointing: "here," Mr Selden observes, " some leaves of the manuscript are lost:" the deficiency, however, is evidently of ONE leaf only, and the service is then continued without interruption nearly to the end of the Mass, the last leaf being also wanting.

In the same volume, next after the ceremonial of Æthelred, is another antient coronation service, frequently

4 In a different place in the volume is another part of the same Pontifical, containing the consecration of abbots, &c.

5 It must not be forgotten that Mr. Turner has given to the public a translation of this Ceremonial in his History of the Anglo-Saxons.