Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-54qdv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T19:51:21.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Earliest Queen-Making Rites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Julie Ann Smith
Julie Ann Smith
Affiliation:
lecturer in history at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

While the study of early medieval kingship and king-making rites has generated an extensive literature, scholarship on contemporary queenship has concentrated on themes of authority and power in religious and political contexts, and queen-making rites have received only passing mention. Beginning in the late ninth and early tenth centuries it became customary in England and Francia for a queen to be ritually inaugurated to her position. The rite of consecration endowed her with a new persona, entailing the attributes and virtues of queenship. Of course, sources reveal that kings' wives had been considered queens and significant members of royal households from at least the sixth century. The nature of queenship changed gradually over the period. Initially marriage to a king made a queen, and this position appears to have been quite satisfactory until the late eighth century, when Bertrada was consecrated queen in 751 or 754. Regular consecrations of queens, which included unction, began in the mid- to late eighth century.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 18 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1. Coronatio Iudithae Karoli II Filiae, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (hereafter MGH), Capitularia 2, pars 2 (Hanover, Germany, 1883), pp. 425–427.Google Scholar

2. Coronatio Hermintrudis Reginae, in MGH, pp. 453–455. The ordines discussed will be referred to as “Judith,” “Hermintrudis,”“Leofric,” and “Erdmann.” Hincmar had his royal protocols copied into a single manuscript (see Bouman, C. A., Sacring and Crowning [Groningen, Germany, 1957], p. 9)Google Scholar. This manuscript, found at the monastery of St. Laurence at Liège and later copied by Sirmond, has since been lost. Sirmond's copy provided the source for the MGH edition used for this work.

3. The Fourth Book Of the Chronicle of Fredegar, ed. and trans. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. (London, 1960)Google Scholar, chap. 33: “Quo tempore una cum consilio et consensu omnium Francorum missa relatione ad sede apostolica auctoritate praecepta praecelsus Pippinus electione totius Francorum in sedem regni cum consecratione episcoporum et subiectione principum una cum regina Bertradane, ut antiquitus ordo deposcit, sublimatur in regno” (“All that time, with the counsel and consent of all the Franks, Pippin sent a proposition to the Apostolic See and with its lofty command he was elected by all the Franks to the royal throne with consecration by the bishops along with his queen Bertrada and with the homage of the magnates. So according to an ancient rite he was elevated to the kingship”).

4. Asser, John, Life of King Alfred ed. Stevenson, W. H. (Oxford, 1904), chap. 9.Google Scholar

5. de Gray Birch, W., Cartularium Saxonicum, vol. 1 (1885; repr. New York, 1964), no. 524Google Scholar; and Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated Bibliography (London, 1968), no. 214.Google Scholar

6. Asser's comment that West Saxon kings did not permit their wives to sit in regali solio (chap. 9), as if the bishop believed they would, and should, normally occupy this position, seems to have been based in a story told to him by King Alfred. The custom which Alfred described to him did not have a very long history. From the death of Beorhtric in 802 (which is given as the reason for the West Saxon refusal to recognize their queens) to the consecration of Judith in 856, there were only two known royal wives: Raedburh, wife of Ecgbeorht, and Osburh, Aethelwulf's first wife, who could have been affected by Eadburh's disgrace.

7. See Smith, Julie Ann, “Queen-making and Queenship in Early Medieval England and Francia,” (D.Phil. diss., York University, U.K., 1993).Google Scholar

8. Robinson, J. A., “The Coronation Order in the Tenth Century,” Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1918): 56–72Google Scholar; and Janet, Nelson, “The Earliest Royal Ordo: Some Liturgical and Historical Aspects,” in Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986).Google Scholar

9. Ward, P. L., “The Coronation Ceremony in Medieval England,” Speculum 14 (1939): 160–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Jackson, Richard A., “Who Wrote Hincmar's Ordines?” Viator 25 (1994): 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Jackson, , ed., Ordines Coronationis Franciae: Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, Pa., 1995), 1:80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This work was published after the research and analysis of the ordines for this paper were completed.

12. Fradenburg, Louise Olga, ed., Women and Sovereignty (Edinburgh, U.K., 1992).Google Scholar

13. Enright, M. J., “Charles the Bald and Aethelwulf of Wessex: The Alliance of 856 and Strategies of Royal Succession,” Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979): 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Pauline, Stafford, “Charles the Bald, Judith and England,” in Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, ed. Gibson, Margaret T. and Nelson, Janet L., 2d ed. (Aldershot, U.K., 1990), pp. 139–153.Google Scholar

15. Stafford, , Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King's Wife in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1983), p. 131.Google Scholar

16. Schramm, P. F., History of the English Coronation (Oxford, U.K., 1937), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

17. Bouman, , Sacring and Crowning, p. 151.Google Scholar

18. Stafford, , Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers, pp. 87, 134Google Scholar; and Stafford, , “Charles the Bald, Judith and England,” p. 141.Google Scholar

19. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Frankish Church (Oxford, U.K., 1983), p. 248CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 298.Google Scholar

20. Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 300.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., pp. 292–293.

22. Nelson, Janet L., Charles the Bald (London, 1992), p. 182.Google Scholar

23. Stafford, , “Charles the Bald, Judith and England,” p. 143Google Scholar; and Sproemberg, H., “Judith: Koenigin von England, Graefin von Flandern,” Revue Belge de Philologie et de l'Histoire 15 (1936): 397–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Anglo Saxon Chronicle (hereafter ASC): sub anno (s.a.) 851, in Plummer, C., ed., Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (Oxford, 1892), pp. 64–65.Google Scholar

25. ASC: s.a. 853; and Asser, , Life of King AlfredGoogle Scholar, chap. 7. According to Asser, the Mercian king instigated the alliance.

26. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 855, in MGH (Hanover, Germany, 1883), 1:419–515Google Scholar; and ASC: s.a. 855.

27. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 855.

28. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 856.

29. Sir Frank, Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1971), p. 245Google Scholar; and Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 293Google Scholar. Contrary to the view that leadership of the English kingdom was divided between the king and his sons at this time, Asser contends that Aethelwulf retained kingship of both Kent and the West Saxon kingdoms and was not in political decline.

30. Asser, chaps. 12–13: “orientales plagae patri, occidentales filio.” No mention is made of Aethelberht, who had been underking in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex during his father's absence.

31. Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., eds., Alfred the Great (Harmonsdworth, U.K., 1983), p. 234Google Scholar n. 26; John, Eric, Orbis Britanniae (Leicester, U.K., 1966), p. 42Google Scholar; Stafford, , “Charles the Bald, Judith and England,” p. 150Google Scholar; and Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 296Google Scholar. Aethelwulf's will guaranteed royal estates to his eldest son in order to avoid the dissipation of royal lands by partible inheritance, and the guarantee would pass on to other sons in order of birth. His marriage in no way jeopardized his adult sons' royal prospects.

32. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 855, 856; and Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Early Medieval History (Oxford, 1975), p. 207.Google Scholar

33. Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 292Google Scholar; and Stafford, , “Charles the Bald, Judith and England,” p. 143Google Scholar. Frankish princesses had been wed to Anglo-Saxon kings in the past: Bertha, daughter of King Charibert and Queen Ingoberga, was married to Aethelbergt of Kent, and Searle, W. G. (Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings and Nobles [Cambridge, U.K., 1899], p. 343)Google Scholar suggests that Ecgbeorht, king of the West Saxons, was married to Raedburh, a sister of a Frankish king. Nevertheless, Charles's decision was rare and not lightly made. The positive view of Aethelwulf's political and military status is recorded in the Annales Bertiniani for 855. Enright's analysis of English and French military capabilities corroborates the view that Aethelwulf posed little or no threat to Charles and Frankish sovereignty even in the case of a marital alliance.

34. Ellard, G., Ordination Anointings in the Western Church Before 1000 AD (1933; repr. New York, 1970), p. 38.Google Scholar

35. Bouman, , Sacring and Crowning, p. 152–153.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p. 96; and Ward, , “Coronation Ceremony,” p. 166.Google Scholar

37. Nelson, , “The Earliest Royal Ordo,” pp. 344–348Google Scholar; on the “Leofric” ordo see Warren, F. E., The Leofric Missal (Oxford, U. K., 1883).Google Scholar

38. Nelson, , “The Earliest Royal Ordo,” pp. 352–353.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., p. 295; Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, vol. 1, no. 524; and Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. 214.

40. Dumas, A., ed., Liber Sacramentorum Gellonensis (Paris, 1981), 2:411–414Google Scholar; and Mohlberg, L. C., ed., Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae (Rome, 1960), pp. 208–210.Google Scholar

41. The anointing, handing over of the sceptre, and coronation of “Leofric” are not rubricated. However, the “Egbert” manuscript, which shares most of its formulas with “Leofric,” has fuller rubrical instructions for the pouring of the chrism, the delivery of the sceptre and baculum, and the imposition of the helmet-crown (galea) inserted in the appropriate places (Two Anglo-Saxon Pontificals: The Egbert and Sidney Sussex Pontificals, ed. Banting, H. M. J. [London, 1989], pp. 109–113).Google Scholar

42. The abundance implied by pinguedine could not easily be construed as essentially female fertility when it is also used in a male context both in contemporary king-makings and in the Old Testament.

43. Nelson, , “The Earliest Royal Ordo,” p. 348.Google Scholar

44. Asser, , “Life of King Alfred,” chap. 13.Google Scholar

45. Bouman, , Sacring and Crowning, pp. 91, 107Google Scholar; and Warren, , Leofric Missal, p. 231.Google Scholar

46. Genesis 35:10: “So Jacob was called Israel.”

47. Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 298.Google Scholar

48. Stafford, , Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, p. 131.Google Scholar

49. Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 293.Google Scholar

50. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 856.

51. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 866.

52. Nelson, , Charles the Bald, p. 131Google Scholar. Prudentius comments that Charles took Ermentrude as wife and empress (Annales Bertiniani: s.a, 842): “uxorem ducit atque Augustam.” This untimely use of the title “empress” is not easily explained, as no imperial features were yet present in Charles's regime. To Prudentius, marriage to a king simply elevated a woman to the highest status, and he appears as yet to have been unclear on the appropriate terminology.

53. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 865.

54. Recueils des Actes de Charles le Chauve, ed. Georges, Tessier (Paris, 1943)Google Scholar, nos. 278, 248; see also nos. 12, 182, 212, 269.

55. Ibid., no. 277.

56. Ibid., no. 169: “dulcissima nobis conjunx nostra Hirmintrudis regina et sui monasterii Cale,”

57. Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., “A Carolingian Renaissance Prince: The Emperor Charles the Bald,” Proceedings of the British Academy 64 (1978): 170Google Scholar; Enright, , “Charles and Aethelwulf,” p. 299Google Scholar; Stafford, , Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, p. 131Google Scholar; and Kantorowicz, E. H., Selected Studies (New York, 1965), p. 87.Google Scholar

58. Nelson, , Charles the Bald, p. 210Google Scholar: “Perhaps it was the impressive ceremonial of Theutberga's reinstatement which suggested to Ermentrude herself the idea of ritual consecration … and a promise of divinely blessed fecundity.”

59. Wemple, , Women in Frankish Society, pp. 95–96, 82, 80, 83.Google Scholar

60. McNamara, Jo-Ann and Wemple, Suzanne F., “Marriage and Divorce in the Frankish Kingdom,” in Stuard, Susan Mosher, ed., Women in Medieval Society (Philadelphia, Pa., 1976), p. 108.Google Scholar

61. Wemple, , Women in Frankish Society, p. 85.Google Scholar

62. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 865.

63. Bishop, Jane, “Bishops as Marital Advisors in the Ninth Century,” in Julius, Kirshner and Wemple, Suzanne F., eds., Women of the Medieval World (Oxford, 1985), p. 83.Google Scholar

64. Charles was hoping to ensure Lothar's kingdom for himself and was pleased to support the view that the barren marriage with Theutberga should be enforced.

65. Annales of St.-Bertin, trans. Nelson, Janet L. (Manchester, U.K., 1991), p. 134 n. 20.Google Scholar

66. Coronation Hermintrudis Reginae, in MGH, Capitularia 2, pars 2, pp. 453–455.

67. Ibid., p. 453.

68. Ibid., p. 454: “unde sancta ecclesia solatium et regnum necessarium defensionem … possit habere.”

69. The Gregorian Sacramentary under Charles the Great, ed. Wilson, H. A. (London, 1915), pp. 121–122.Google Scholar

70. Dumas, , Liber Sacramentorum Gelbrensis, p. 413Google Scholar; and Mohlberg, , Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae, p. 210.Google Scholar

71. Hyam, Jane, “Ermentrude and Richildis,” in Gibson, and Nelson, , eds., Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom, p. 160.Google Scholar

72. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 877 (“Caroli et Hermentrudis filio”).

73. Wallace-Hadrill, , “A Carolingian Renaissance Prince,” pp. 164–165Google Scholar; Wallace-Hadrill, , The Frankish Church, p. 246Google Scholar; and Kantorowicz, E., Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Medieval Ruler Worship (1946; repr. Berkeley, Calif., 1974), p. 67.Google Scholar

74. Annales Bertiniani: s.a. 876; and Annales Fuldenses s.a. 876.

75. Kantorowicz, , Laudes Regiae, pp. 44 n. 112, 62, 68.Google Scholar

76. Brightman, F. E., “Byzantine Imperial Coronations,” Journal of Theological Studies 2 (1901): 364.Google Scholar

77. Morrison, K. F., The Two Kingdoms: Ecclesiology in Carolingian Political Thought (Princeton, N.J., 1964), p. 219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. The bridal element of the Hincmar rites did not persist in the later queen-making ordines; presumably the queen as king's wife had already obtained these blessings. Neither would the queen's fertility form an element in the ordines of the tenth and eleventh centuries. In the “Erdmann” ordo of the late ninth century a new queen-making rite was devised which formed the basis of the Anglo-Saxon and West Frankish queen-makings of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The prayer forms of this ordo no longer resemble marital blessings, and once more there is no request that God make the new queen fruitful. This later queen-making ordo may be found in Jackson, , Ordines Coronationis Franciae, pp. 151–152.Google Scholar

79. See Nelson, , “Hincmar of Reims on King-making: The Evidence of the Annals of St.-Bertin, 861–882,” in Bak, Janos M., ed., Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual (Berkeley, Calif., 1990), pp. 16–34.Google Scholar

80. MGH, Leges 2, Capitularia 2, pars 2, pp. 517–530.

81. Nelson, , “Symbols in Context: Rulers' Inauguration Rituals in Byzantium and the West in the Early Middle Ages” in Politics and Ritual, ed.Janet, Nelson, p. 274.Google Scholar

82. Nelson, , “A Tale of Two Princes: Politics, Text and Ideology in a Carolingian Annal,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 10 (1988): 132.Google Scholar