Abstract
Addressing the coronation issue in France always comes down to talking about Reims, its archbishop, its cathedral, and its Holy Ampulla. If these elements are indeed constitutive of the consecration ceremony, they only became so from the 13th century onwards. Before that, Reims had difficulty asserting its alleged prerogative to welcome the consecration’s ceremony. The practice of “festival crowing”, practiced by monarchs to assert their authority, did not indeed help the metropolitan Reims to assert its monopoly. In this context, Saint-Denis sought recognition of his rights to host the royal ceremony. Saint-Denis has always been intimately connected to the monarchy and hosted Pepin the first consecration, Pepin the Short and his heirs, in 754. In the 12th century, Abbot Suger’s arrival at Abbey’s head marked a new impetus for the Abbey in this race for prestige. The Saint-Denis church’s reconstruction and its liturgical organization demonstrate the great project that the Abbey pursued through the hosting of the ceremony’s coronation of the Kings of France.
Highlights
In the year of the Lord 1180, the second of the reign of magnanimous Philip, on the Ascension of theLord, magnanimous Philip took the crown himself in the church of Saint-Denis again
If the consecration was unique and could not be realized more than once, the coronation could be practiced as many times as the king wished. This practice of multiple coronations is still a blind spot of French research, lurking in the shadow of the king’s anointing and first coronation, namely the sacre, which is traditionally perpetuated in Reims by the archbishop of the city
In 1180, a new space was ready to accommodate the ceremony desired by its religious community: France’s king’s coronation
Summary
In the year of the Lord 1180, the second of the reign of magnanimous Philip, on the Ascension of the. In this passage from his Deeds of Philip Augustus, William the Breton (c.1165–1225), the official biographer of the French King Philip II Augustus (1179/1180–1223), recounts the second coronation of the son of Louis VII (1137–1180) and the consecration of his young wife on 29 May 1180 at the Abbey of Saint-Denis.. King of the Franks and that his archbishop was not the only prelate entitled to carry out this ceremony This situation derived, on the one hand, from the multiple coronations tradition and, on the other hand, from Louis VI’s (1108–1137) consecration in 1108 in Orléans by the Archbishop of Sens. Yves of Chartres (1090–1116), bishop of Reims and close counselor of King Louis VI, responded to the archbishop of Reims’ claims by writing to the Holy See and “to all the churches to which the protest of the Reims clerics would have reached.” In this document, intended to legitimize the consecration of. In 1180, a new space was ready to accommodate the ceremony desired by its religious community: France’s king’s coronation
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