Charles X: A Forgotten Rite or the End of the Long Middle Ages
France: A year of parting with the past
In the article “The Greek Question in the Concert of Europe” we stopped at the final loss of the Porte of Hellas in 1830, from which, if we think from the point of view of the immediate perspective, the three great powers that defeated the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet in the Battle of Navarino. Petersburg also forced weapons Constantinople to comply with the terms of the Bucharest Peace Treaty and the Ackerman Convention.
But France benefited especially, having regained its great power status, albeit without its former dominance in Europe, and having begun the conquest of Algeria, having entered a new round of building a colonial empire, to the displeasure of Great Britain and the calmly neutral attitude of Russia. Who would have thought then that the conquest of North Africa by the French would come back to haunt us with Sevastopol.
Yes, regarding the immediate perspective, I will repeat what was said in the previous conversation: the independence of Greece has exacerbated the tangle of contradictions in the Balkans, like a snowball that grew and eighty-four years later fell upon Europe with the salvos of the First World War.
For France, the year 1830 turned out to be not only a success in foreign policy, but also the July Revolution.
"Louis Philippe Leaving the Royal Palace on July 31, 1830" by Emile Jean Horace Vernet
I planned to touch on this briefly and continue the story about the events that took place at the concert of the leading powers, which became the prologue to the Crimean the war and those who unjustly dwell in its shadow.
However, it seemed important to me to take a step aside, to wait with the political collisions on the European stage of the second quarter of the 19th century and to talk about a topic that is no less interesting and more profound.
Behind the facade of revolution
In my opinion, the social background of the revolution that has once again shaken France is missing an important cultural aspect: the end, according to the definition of the great medievalist Jacques Le Goff, of the long Middle Ages.
1830 became a turning point for ideas about the sacred nature of monarchical power, which should be understood as the belief of subjects in the ability of monarchs to perform miracles.
Described by the outstanding anthropologist D. Frazer, it has its roots in the archaic and has been found on all continents since the time of the first civilizations. And France, born of the baptism of Clovis - we are talking, of course, about the spiritual and cultural birth - was no exception.
The ideas about the sacred nature of power, originating in the primitive communal system, were often associated with the ruler's clan. With the advent of the squad, a belief in the miraculous abilities of the leader began to form, conditioned by his military success, understood in a broader sense than today.
Jacques Le Goff is an outstanding French medievalist and the author of the concept of the Long Middle Ages, the fidelity of which was, in a sense, confirmed by the reign of Charles X
In fact, the mythological consciousness of both the Franks and the Romanized Gauls endowed the descendants of Clovis, the Merovingians, with magical abilities hidden in their long hair – note the allusions to the biblical Samson.
It was not without reason that the founder of the Carolingian dynasty, Pepin the Short, who ascended to the throne, ordered not only to send the last of the Merovingians, Childeric III, to a monastery, but also to cut his hair, thereby depriving the entire family of magical power and the sacred rights to the throne conditioned by it on a symbolic and very significant for medieval man level.
What is important for us is the support of Pepin by Pope Zacharias and his successor, Stephen II, who performed the rite of anointing the first monarch of the Carolingian dynasty in 754, and for this the Pope specially crossed the Alps and came to Italy, something that no pontiff had done before him.
On the one hand, Stephen II thus expressed his interest in an alliance with Pepin, considering him as a protector from the Lombards who threatened Rome. But it would be an oversimplification to see only this as the reason for the popes' support of the Carolingians. They found in the overthrow of Childeric III and the cutting of his hair an opportunity to emphasize the exclusive prerogative of the Church to perform miracles and perform sacred rites.
"The Last of the Merovingians". The painting by Evariste Vital Luminet depicts the scene of Childeric III's hair being cut
Before the appearance of the Abrahamic religions, Zoroastrianism, or more broadly - before the era called by K. Jaspers the Axial Age, such functions were combined, I repeat, in the ruler. Take, for example, the sacred status of the pharaohs, the divine energies of me inherent in the ensi of Sumerian cities, or the mandate of heaven received by Chinese emperors.
With the strengthening of the papacy's position on the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, such ideas became a stumbling block in the relationship between secular and spiritual power, within which the Church denied the sacredness of the royal family or the personal miraculous abilities of the ruler, which, however, did not correlate with the continuing mythological consciousness of the population.
The latter was expressed in the following belief: starting with Robert II the Pious (996–1031), the son of the founder of the Capetian dynasty, Hugh, kings had the gift of healing those suffering from scrofula by laying on of hands, pronouncing the following formula:
The King lays his hands on you, may the Lord heal you from your illness.
It may have sounded different in the early Middle Ages, but the essence, I believe, remained the same.
"The Excommunication of Robert the Pious." Painting by Jean Paul Laurens. The fact is that the king married his second cousin Bertha of Burgundy, which was forbidden by the canons of the Catholic Church. Robert was later forced to divorce Bertha.
Here, it would seem appropriate to write: according to the superstitious beliefs of the uneducated masses of the people, or, as the outstanding Soviet medievalist A. Ya. Gurevich called them, the silent majority.
Common Man or Sword-Girded Cleric: Debates on the Status of the King
However, the ability of monarchs to perform miracles was not denied by part of the intellectual elite, which gave rise to discussions on the subject: is the monarch's crown identical to the priestly rank, is the king an ordinary layman, or is he a cleric girded with a sword?
The papacy, especially in the context of the Gregorian reforms aimed at asserting the primacy of church authority over secular authority, gave a negative answer to the question posed.
Moreover, oddly enough, it was the pontificate that gave rise to the endowment of monarchical power with sacred prerogatives, since, as the outstanding Russian philologist B. A. Uspensky writes:
It was the anointing that determined the belief in the miraculous power of the monarch's touch in France and then in England. It can be assumed that this belief was supported by the words of the Lord from David's thanksgiving psalm: "Touch not my anointed": if the monarch anointed by the Lord cannot be touched, then the laying on of hands performed by the monarch for healing is not actually a touch - on the contrary, it communicates to the patient the grace-giving (cleansing) power received during the anointing.
This is, you must admit, a logical argument that contains a transparent hint at identifying royal power with priestly power.
Another argument given in one of Boris Andreevich’s works in favor of, albeit indirectly, the argument about the priestly nature of monarchical power:
The connection between the inaugural anointing and the rite of baptism is reflected in the legend of the sacred vessel, created by Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims, in connection with the coronation of Charles the Bald in 869. According to Hincmar, he anointed Charles with the same chrism that was used at the baptism of King Clovis, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, on the day of the Nativity of Christ (496, 498, 499 or 508) and which was sent down from heaven at the prayer of St. Remigius, who baptized Clovis (according to this legend, the vessel containing the chrism appeared in the beak of a white dove). Subsequently, the kings of France were anointed with chrism from this vessel at their coronations (until the Revolution, when the vessel was destroyed in 1793); It was claimed that this was the same myrrh, which was miraculously renewed in the vessel every time after use.
And in general, despite all the efforts of Rome, medieval thinking refused to accept the status of the king as an ordinary layman.
Let us uncover the fundamental work of the outstanding French medievalist, founder of the Annales school, and Resistance hero Marc Bloch, who was shot by the Nazis:
What were kings like? Almost all the people believed in their, to use the expression of Peter of Blois, "holiness." Moreover. What did the people consider the source of this "holiness"? To a large extent, of course, the family destiny in which the masses, the guardians of archaic ideas, undoubtedly never ceased to believe; but from Carolingian times onwards, in greater harmony with Christian teaching, the people began to consider this source in the religious rite, the anointing, in other words, in that holy oil which, on the other hand, seemed to so many sufferers the most effective remedy for their ailments. Thus it turned out that kings were doubly destined to play the role of miracle-working benefactors: first, by their sacred character in themselves, and secondly, by one of its sources, the most obvious and venerable. How could they, under these circumstances, sooner or later not have the reputation of healers?
That is, the rite of anointing, in the view of a part of the public, from peasants and artisans to the military aristocracy and theologians, corresponded to priestly ordination and equated the king with a deacon.
And if so, then the prerogative to perform miracles extended to the royal power as well. As, for example, the 14th century Carmelite Jean Golin wrote in his "Treatise on Coronation".
It is noteworthy that the monarchs sought not only to perform healings through the laying on of hands, but also to convince the popes of the sacred nature of their power:
At least twice, Bloch notes, under Charles VII and Louis XI, the French ambassadors to the papal court mention these miracles in order to prove the supreme sanctity of the French royal house and the consequent legitimacy of the power of their masters over the Church.
The Pontificate rejected such claims, including for mercantile reasons, since the Catholic Church, since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, had often exercised political power in the Apennines and by the High Middle Ages saw this as its prerogative on the scale of all of Europe.
In response, supporters of the identity of royal power with the priesthood presented the following arguments.
Example: Paris 1493, two clerics claim the rank of bishop. One of them, although confirmed by the pope, is also appointed by the king.
In fact, the monarch’s corresponding right was disputed, to which one of the lawyers responded:
In the same way, the king is not a simple layman, for he is not only crowned and anointed (anointing served as an argument for seeing a priest in the monarch - Author's note) to the kingdom, like other kings, but also consecrated; moreover, with one touch of his hand the king, according to legend, heals the sick, therefore, it is not surprising that he also possesses the right of regalia.
And similar discussions took place in the High Middle Ages throughout Europe. Their scale is evidenced by the name of William of Ockham, who wrote "Eight Questions on the Government and Dignity of the Pope" and asserted, using the example of the healing of scrofulous patients by French kings, the religious nature of monarchical power.
Kings, wrote Blok, were different from mere mortals; they were considered sacred beings; moreover, in England, as well as in France, they were reputed to be miracle workers… Peter of Blois (a French theologian and poet of the 12th – early 13th centuries – Author’s note) reasoned something like this: my sovereign is a sacred person; therefore, my sovereign can heal the sick. The conclusion is strange at first glance; however, we will soon see that from the point of view of people of the 12th century, there was absolutely nothing strange in such an approach.
What is interesting is that, at least in the early Middle Ages, the idea of the sacred status of the king was also shared by part of the episcopate.
Blok cites a curious document on this matter:
The priests who took part in the Council of Orleans in 511 reported their decisions to Clovis. For such zeal for the honor of the glorious Catholic faith consumes you, that, under the influence of the priestly spirit, you commanded the priests, when discussing important matters, to meet together.
The fathers of the council called nothing other than the spirit of Clovis priestly. Particularly striking in this case is the closeness to the style of the Eastern councils (apparently, we are talking about the Ecumenical Councils, at the first of which the pagan emperor Constantine was elevated to the rank of deacon – Author's note).
The fathers of the council called nothing other than the spirit of Clovis priestly. Particularly striking in this case is the closeness to the style of the Eastern councils (apparently, we are talking about the Ecumenical Councils, at the first of which the pagan emperor Constantine was elevated to the rank of deacon – Author's note).
Of course, the Great French Revolution dealt a blow to the ideas described above, and even earlier, gentlemen like Voltaire:
“The philosophers,” Blok wrote, putting the word in quotation marks, “having taught their subjects to see in their sovereigns nothing more than hereditary representatives of the State, at the same time taught them not to seek, and consequently, to find, anything miraculous in monarchs.
In a certain sense, one can see in the restoration by the Holy Alliance of the Bourbons an attempt to turn history back. And it is not surprising that the politically short-sighted Louis XVIII, seated on the throne by Russian bayonets, fell from it a year later.
However, while he patronized the revival of Catholic monasteries and the Jesuit order, as far as I know, he still did not claim the return of the sacred status of monarchical power, did not pedal this topic and did not identify, at least publicly, the royal title with holy orders.
But Charles X, who succeeded him in 1824, looked at the matter differently, or rather, not so much he himself, as some of his entourage. First of all, in the Reims Cathedral on May 29, 1825, a magnificent coronation ceremony was performed over Charles X, which became the last not only for the Bourbons, but in the history of France: neither Louis-Philippe I nor Napoleon III were crowned, nor did they restore the rite of laying on hands on those suffering from scrofula.
That is, Charles X ended the era that began on October 15, 816, marked by the coronation and anointing of Louis I the Pious in Reims Cathedral.
But even before the celebration of May 20, 1825, Charles X, who was under the influence of the Jesuits, surprised his compatriots by adopting a law on sacrilege, which was consistent with the paradigm of medieval thinking and had little in common with the realities of the XNUMXth century, and provided for punishment, up to and including the death penalty, if I am not mistaken, for the desecration of sacred vessels; however, it was not applied in practice.
"The Coronation of Charles X at Reims" by François Gérard
In the most magnificent coronation, both the monarch himself and his royalist entourage saw not the completion, but the revival of previous traditions, expressed, among other things, in the sacred rite (I am deliberately putting a question mark here) of the king by laying hands on those suffering from scrofula. It is no coincidence that Blok quotes the words from Victor Hugo's ode "Coronation":
Here he is, the priest and the king.
How did they react to this at court?
In different ways. There were those who dissuaded the king from restoring the rite, but there were also his supporters.
Baron M. De Damas, who headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recalled:
Many of the literary men who were commissioned to study the matter, with an air of importance, asserted that the laying on of hands on the scrofulous was nothing but a popular superstition, which was in no way worthy of resurrection. We were all Christians; nevertheless, the court agreed to this idea, and, in spite of the protests of the clergy, it was decided that the king would not heal. The people, however, decided otherwise…
After internal hesitation, Charles X performed the rite of laying on hands on scrofulous patients.
However, the action did not meet with either support or understanding in the wider society. Although according to official data: out of 121 patients, 5 were cured. The king did not resort to the rite of laying hands on those suffering from scrofula during his relatively short reign.
All this testified to the fact that the high and long Middle Ages in the history of France – perhaps its most brilliant period – had finally become a thing of the past, and the monarchical power no longer claimed sacred status.
Louis-Philippe I, who succeeded Cala X on the throne, was already keeping up with the times, not trying to revive an era that had become history.
Использованная литература:
Blok M. Miracle-working kings. An essay on ideas about the supernatural nature of royal power, widespread mainly in France and England / Preface by J. Le Goff. Scientific ed. and afterword by A. Ya. Gurevich. Moscow: Languages of Russian Culture, 1998.
Degoev V.V. Foreign policy of Russia and international systems: 1700–1918. M.: Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University); "Russian Political Encyclopedia" (ROSSPEN), 2004.
Le Goff Jacques. Heroes and miracles of the Middle Ages. M., 2022.
Uspensky B. A. Tsar and Emperor: Anointing to the Tsardom in the Semantics of Monarchical Titles. Moscow, 2000.
Uspensky B. A. Tsar and God // Semiotics of History. Semiotics of Culture. Selected Works. Vol. 1. Moscow, 1996.
Cheremukhin V.V. Three portraits: Charles X, Louis XIX, Henry V
Kazan: Buk, 2019.
Shokhin V.K. Ideas about secularity and religion of the Enlightenment.
Information