It is right that we should place at the head of political ceremonies those
having reference to the coronation of sovereigns, which were not only
political, but owed their supreme importance and dignity to the necessary
intervention of ecclesiastical authority. We will therefore first speak of
the consecration and coronation of the kings of France.
Pepin le Bref, son of Charles Martel and founder of the second dynasty,
was the first of the French kings who was consecrated by the religions
rite of anointing. But its mode of administration for a long period
underwent numerous changes, before becoming established by a definite law.
Thus Pepin, after having been first consecrated in 752 in the Cathedral of
Boissons, by the Archbishop of Mayence, was again consecrated with his two
sons Charlemagne and Carloman, in 753, in the Abbey of St. Denis, by Pope
Stephen III. Charlemagne was twice anointed by the Sovereign Pontiff,
first as King of Lombardy, and then as Emperor. Louis le Debonnaire, his
immediate successor, was consecrated at Rheims by Pope Stephen IV. in 816.
In 877 Louis le Begue received unction and the sceptre, at Compiegne, at
the hands of the Archbishop of Rheims. Charles le Simple in 893, and
Robert I. in 922, were consecrated and crowned at Rheims; but the
coronation of Raoul, in 923, was celebrated in the Abbey of St. Medard de
Soissons, and that of Louis d'Outremer, in 936, at Laon. From the
accession of King Lothaire to that of Louis VI. (called Le Gros), the
consecration of the kings of France sometimes took place in the
metropolitan church of Rheims, and sometimes in other churches, but more
frequently in the former. Louis VI. having been consecrated in the
Cathedral of Orleans, the clergy of Rheims appealed against this supposed
infraction of custom and their own special privileges. A long discussion
took place, in which were brought forward the titles which the Church of
Rheims possessed subsequently to the reign of Clovis to the exclusive
honour of having kings consecrated in it; and King Louis le Jeune, son of
Louis le Gros, who was himself consecrated at Rheims, promulgated a
special decree on this question, in anticipation of the consecration of
his son, Philippe Auguste. This decree finally settled the rights of this
ancient church, and at the same time defined the order which was to be
observed in future at the ceremony of consecration. From that date, down
to the end of the reign of the Bourbons of the elder line, kings were
invariably consecrated, according to legal rite, in the metropolitan
church of Rheims, with the exception of Henry IV., who was crowned at
Chartres by the bishop of that town, on account of the civil wars which
then divided his kingdom, and caused the gates of Rheims to be closed
against him.
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