1 DECEMBER 1928, Page 8

Enthronements at Canterbury

THE Dean and Chapter of Canterbury are preparing to enthrone the Primate they have recently .elected in his Cathedral Church of Christ. In Canterbury, of all other storied cities, whenever a page of history is turned, the crowded pages of the past flutter in the wind of memory, and one catches a glimpse of the blue and gold of their illumination. The archbishops, priors,- and monks of the Middle Ages knew incomparably well how to create the_ atmosphere of expectancy, culminating in gorgeous ceremonial. The proceedings, inevitably, were long drawn out, Where two days of telephone and rail- road suffice us to-day for the preliminaries, in bygone centuries they occupied perhaps a month. Thus Arch- bishop Stafford was laid to rest on May 30th, 1452, in front of the new chapel of the Blessed Virgin. The same day two brethren of the .house set out on horseback to ask licence of the King to choose. Stafford's successor ; they were John Waltham, a bachelor of theology; and Walter Hertford, Custodian of the Manor and Farm Steward. On June 28th, John Kempe, Cardinal Arch- bishop of York, was elected Primate in the Chapter HouSe, where the arcaded walls and carved and gilded roof remain, a setting scarcely altered for to-day's proceedings. Next day, again, two messengers, Brother Richard . Graveney, " Steward of the College of Oxford," and Walter the indefatigable, remounted to inform the King and the Archbishop-elect of the Convent's choice. Kempe, alser, was " intronizated " while wintry shadowi filled the Choir with mystery, on December 11th. : Picture now the Archbishop, long expected,- riding up to the Cemetery Gate, that ancient archway, patterned by the Norman axe, which then separated the burying- places of monk and citizen, and stood in the middle of the Precincts. _ Through the gate. files out the Convent Pro- cession, in white copes, chanting_ words of greeting, " Let your loins be girded." With them are guests from neigh- bouring conventual houses, come to welcome the Lord Archbishop, the Abbots of St. Augustine's and of Faver- sham, of Langdon and St. Radegund's, all within a day's journey. _ In the Archbishop's retinue are Peers of the Realm ; Lord Cobham and Lord Stafford acconipanied Archbishop Stafford, and with Cardinal Kempe rode Tiptoft; Earl of Worcester, the Lord de L'Isle, the Prior of St John hi London, and Sir John Tyrrell. .

A hush falls on the company ; the-Prior of Christchurch, Master of the -Ceremonies, receives from a cleric of the archiepiscopal household the pallhun, folded in *a white - . cloth, unfolds and passes it back to the Chaplain, He lifts high in his .hands.the precious token of papal bene7 diet*, -laid in -a. silver . dish under. a, white silic_irkii; and followed by.-the whole -pro-cession bears citintO the chUreh to -rest on the high altar, The nieriks are byaio* in their : seats in the Choir, singing a. loud Te Deum ;" 'the Arch- bishop _occupies a gilded. wooden -chair ; their praises silent, the whole convent, shepherded, by. the Prior, approach, one by one, to kiss the pallium and to giVe_ the Primate their- kiss Of-peace., So ends the first act.; and Primate and pallium vanish into St. Andrew's Chapel..

Archbishop. Winchelsea's . enthronement , is : memor- able because it set up a standard for. his , successors.

King Edward L, with Edward, .Prince of Wales, and innumerable other princes and nobles .attended that mag- nificent -service. The .Royal ,guests 'lodged at St. Augus- tine's Abbey, came thence in procession to the Cathedral, feasting the citizens' eyes with their splendour, and took a stand near St. Augu stine's Chair. the Marble seat was placed at that time—indeed until the eighteenth cen- tury-7-at the summit of the eastward steps, the high altar being on a lower platform. The Archbishop, vested in full pontificals, wearing the pallium, now entered the Choir, attended by the Prior, three deaeons and three Cardinal sub-deacons, and amid _the singing of the brethren stationed himself under the shrine of St. Blasius, behind the high altar, facing east, towards the Chair and Becket's Shrine, jewel-bedecked. At this crowning, Moment, the Prior, the ancient collect ." Almighty and Eternal God " upon his, lips, led the Archbishop to the Marble chair, lifted him reverently into it, and, from a scroll which he held, read the solemn words : `:` In the Name of God, Amen. By His authority,..I, Henry, Prior Of thiS Church of Christ in Canterbury, enthrone thee, Lord Robert, Archbishop in this church of Canterbury, into which may the same Our Lord Jesus Christ guard thy coming, now and for ever more, Amen." A notary public was called up to make a formal record of his words for the information of posterity.

Eight monks now came forward before St. BlasIus's Shrine, chanting the Benedictus in alternate cadence, while the Archbishop still sat on his throne. The scene was one of extraordinary brilliance. Under the rule of Prior Henry of Eastry, the Convent had reached its highest point of prosperity. Its presses were. stored with magni- ficent vestments, copes of red samite, bordered with golden- tassels, copes embroidered. in scriptural scenes and sewn with pearls, chasubles of green or .crocus silk.; Lanfranc's cope, still in use, was heavily jewelled ; at its hem tinkled fifty-one bells of silver gilt ; a great topaz and Drill amethysts glistened on the breast-piece. In the treasury *chests were pearl-trimmed mitres, crosses and staffs; set with many colOured 'stones, rings of turquoise or chalcedony. Adorned in such splendours. the great processions swept along the aisles, past windows jewelled also with the craftsinan' skill, pictures, earvingS,* unimagined beauty. - - - When the last words of the MasS of the Trinity had died away, the ArchbiShop -retired to hii Palaee, - and there entertained his guests,- including every monk of the house Who was not sick at-the' host's table sat the Lords spiritual and temporal ; at the brothers' table, the visit- ing abbots and priori ; the guests overflowed the Great Hall into the White Hall—of Which alai ! no stone can now be recognized. The feast was Ordered no less . . nifiCehtly than - the Cathedral - ritual.; the. expense was enormous. The-feast of John. Peckham, a brother of St4 Francis, cost 12;000 ;. Archbishop ISlip. dared not enter- tain:because of the Miserable poverty of his See. Boni- face, the . Italian, uncle of. Queen Isabella, who attended hiibanquet, was first appointed a High SteWard and BUtler, a regal gesture. for the offices were iieM by Richard de Clare; Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, in whose family they becaine hereditary. His Services were lavishly re- cOMpenSed, the fee-in each-office being seven competent robes of -scarlet; thirty gallons of wine,- thirty pounds of wait to light his way, hay and oats for eighty horses for two nights, and the golden dishes and salts which had :stood before the Master of the Feast. There were also a `high-born Panteler, a Charnberlain; rewarded with the silken hangings of the bedchaniber, a Carver who claimed the table knives: The rebel HartholOmeW de Badlegmere, • whose traitor's head glared from a pOle in Burgate, had Served Archbishop Winehelsea- as Chamberlain; in right Of his Manor of Hatfield; close to Charing.

At the last feast before the monks were driven from their cloister, Edward, Duke of Buckingham, was Arch- . bishop Warham's Senesehal ; bareheaded, on horseback, .holding a white wand of office, he stood on guard before His 'Grace, supported by the Herald-at-arms and the Sewer, while the dishes 'were Served, " every dish in his order." Was it indeed' a foreboding of doom to come that dictated that last extraordinary orgy of flattery ?

The food was not perhaps so 'satiating as the number Of dishes Might • suggest ; ling and lampreys and' roast conger, dolphin fritters and quince and orange tarts are less " filling " than roast beef, and no meat was served. But what- can be said of the " Warners," that strange series of pictures Made of flower-petals, carried round 'before the feast began ! Each was arranged in " panes " Upon a board, and designed,' with appropriate mottoes, to convey the superlatiVe qualities of the latest successor of St. Thomas;. " in the third board of the Warner the Holy Ghost appeared, with bright beams proceeding 'froth him, of the gifts' of grace towards the Lord of the Feast." • - Between the courses _ " subtilties " were displayed, made of sugar and Wax, appropriate to the guests. The monks' subtilty represented King Ethelbert and St. Augustine ; the Corporation had " a town well garnished With the Mayor and his 'Brethren " ; the Barons of the Cinque „Porta, a. great ship. Five hundred plates and dishes in pewter were hired for the occasion ; the cooks and their outfit of pots and 'Pans came down from London ; the wines, the whelks, Conger and lampreys, the oil, the fees of mime and • heralds, stood Warham in some £5,000. With such a bonfire the enthronement feasts of the Middle Ages flared out into ashes.