The Origins of Royal Anointing

Abstract

The anointing of kings emerged as a Christian rite of passage in the early Middle Ages, although the exact circumstances and sequence of events that led to the general emergence of the rite remain controversial. This article argues that royal anointing first became a recognized and repeated practice within two separate societies: seventh-century Visigothic Spain and the eighth-century Frankish kingdom. Whereas previous work has stressed the role of Christian clerics in the emergence of this rite, the article argues that royal anointing had its origins within lay elite political culture and spoke primarily to the needs, not of the clerics who performed it, but of the laypeople who received and beheld it.