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Ordines Coronationis Franciae. Texts and Ordines for the Coronation of Frankish and French Kings and Queens in the Middle Ages, Volume I. Edited by Richard A. Jackson. [Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1995. Pp. xiv, 283. $49.95.)
A number of modern scholars have studied or produced editions of the royal or imperial coronation ordines of the Middle Ages; Georg Waitz, Carl Erdmann, Percy Ernst Schramm, Michel Andrieu, Reinhard Elze are a few of the names that come to mind. Richard A. Jackson, the author of a good book on the later French coronation ceremony, now joins this select group with his edition of all French coronation texts and orders from the Sacramentary of Gellone (790-800) down to the Ordo of 1200, some nineteen in all. This constitutes the first volume of a projected two-volume work and contains, among other topics, a general introduction to coronation rituals, a discussion of their manuscript sources, an analysis of the historical development of the ceremony and a statement of principles governing the edition and presentation of texts.
Like some other scholars, perhaps, the present reviewer was initially dubious of the need for a new edition, especially for the Early Middle Ages, since I had long trusted the MGH texts as well as some of those published by the scholars noted above. In his introduction, as well as in related studies recently published in Viator,Jackson convincingly argues otherwise. Not only has he made a real contribution with his new edition of the four orders attributed to...