The first coronation of an English king of which we possess a detailed account is that of Richard I. (3rd Sept., 1189). It was carried out, says Dr. Stubbs, “in such splendour and minute formality as to form a precedent for all subsequent ceremonies of the sort.”[421] As a more recent writer has observed:
The order of the procession and the details of the ceremonial were arranged with unusual care and minuteness; it was the most splendid and elaborate coronation-ceremony that had ever been seen in England, and it served as a precedent for all after-time.[422]
It is consequently of some interest to learn on what authority the narrative of this coronation rests.
The original authority is that of the writer formerly described as “Benedictus abbas,” but now virtually known to have been Richard ‘Fitz Nigel,’[423] who was not only a contemporary writer, but, as the king’s Treasurer, would probably have been an actual spectator of the ceremony he describes. His account is repeated by Hoveden,[424] who was also a contemporary, and possibly present, but “adds only matter of extremely small importance.”[425] We then come to Matthew Paris, writing some two generations later, who gives, says Dr. Stubbs—
a similar account of the coronation, more closely resembling that of Benedict ... in the few and unimportant places where the two differ. He indicates the common source of information, the Rolls (ed. Wats, p. 154) or Consuetudines (Abbreviatio, Ed. Madden, iii. 209) of the Exchequer.[426]
This view was accepted by Dr. Luard (1874), who says of the narrative given by Matthew in his Chronica Majora (ii. 348–350):
This account is taken from Benedict. The original source (the Consuetudines Scaccarii) is referred to in the Hist. Angl., ii. p. 8, and the Abbreviatio Chronicorum, iii. 209. See Madden’s note, iii. 209.[427]
We are thus referred to Sir Frederic Madden, who, as keeper of the MSS. at the British Museum, possessed special knowledge, and who wrote thus (1869):
The details of Richard’s coronation do not appear either in the Red or Black Books of the Exchequer, but they are given by Benedict Abbas, pp. 557–560, and copied by Hoveden, from whom Wendover somewhat abridges them, and thence repeated in the greater Chronicle of Matt. Paris, ed. Wats, p. 153, and Hist. Ang., ii. 6.[428]
This, it will be seen, hardly commits the writer to the view that some Exchequer record was, as alleged above, the original authority. But such, no doubt, might be the inference from this comment on the text. As important inferences have now been drawn from this error, as I venture to deem it, we must glance at the actual passage on which the theory is based.
Unconnected with the narrative of the coronation, which is complete without it, there is found, in the ‘Historia Anglorum’ (ii. 9) this marginal note:
Officia prelatorum et magnatum quæ ab antiquo jure et consuetudine in regum coronationibus sibi vindicant et facere debent, in rotulis Scaccarii poterunt reperiri.
This obviously refers, not to the narrative in the text, which is that of the coronation ceremony alone, but to the services performed “by ancient right and custom” in the king’s house on that occasion. Of these there is no description in the text. In another work ascribed, but doubtfully, to Matthew Paris, the so-called “Abbreviatio,” the coronation is mentioned, but not described; and there is added a similar note;
Et quia exigit plenitudo historiæ officia quorundam magnatum qui in coronationibus habent implere, de antiqua consuetudine, lectorem hujus libelli abbreviati ad historiam transmitto prolixiorem quæ in consuetudinibus Scaccarii poterit reperiri.[429]
In both cases, it will be observed, an exchequer record is referred to solely for the customary offices or services rendered by certain magnates; and in both cases the present tense and the word “coronationibus” imply that the reference is general, and is not merely a description of what happened at Richard’s coronation. Now my contention is that the record referred to is that of Queen Eleanor’s coronation in 1236, which is preserved, at the present day, in the Red Book of the Exchequer, and which was known to Matthew Paris, who appends to his narrative of the services at that coronation the marginal note: “Hæc omnia in consuetudinario Scaccarii melius et plenius reperiuntur.”[430] We actually find in that record the words: “de prædictis autem officiis nullus sibi jus vendicavit,” etc.,[431] which at once remind us of the marginal note found in the ‘Historia Anglorum.’
The solution, therefore, which I propound is that the narrative of the coronation, which is admittedly derived from the ‘Gesta,’ was written by its author from his own knowledge, and certainly not derived by him from an Exchequer record. In the first place, it is nowhere said that he did so; in the second, it is little less than absurd to assume that Richard would refer to a record in his own Exchequer for a ceremony which must have taken place while he was writing his chronicle, and at which he was probably present. The idea arose, as I have shown, from a simple misunderstanding, and has led those who adopt it to direct self-contradiction, for if Matthew derived, as admitted, his narrative from the ‘Gesta,’ he could not also have derived it, as Dr. Luard writes, from some Exchequer record.
As Richard had not described the coronation services, Matthew, for these, refers us to that precedent preserved at the Exchequer (Eleanor’s coronation), which was, we shall find, the recognised precedent for coronation services so late as 1377.[432]
We may now pass to Mr. Hall’s theory that the non-appearance in the Red Book of “the order of Richard I.’s Coronation, referred to (as he holds) by Matthew Paris, is a third instance of palpable omission”[433] of transcripts it formerly contained. His only reason for denying that the above marginal notes refer (as I hold) to Eleanor’s coronation (1236) is that “Hoveden, Bromton, and other authorities give an abbreviated narrative” which implies the existence of such a record as is supposed to have been lost. But Hoveden, as we have seen, copies his narrative from the ‘Gesta,’ which he does not abbreviate, but expands—and does not describe the “services,” which is what we want.
Mr. Hall’s meaning, however, is, as usual, obscure; for, having cited the supposed narrative as at one time existing in our Red Book (p. xviii.), he next tells us: “It can scarcely be doubted that Matthew Paris’ reference was to some Exchequer Precedent Book which no longer exists” (p. xix.), although, we read, it was certainly from our existing Red Book that he took his “description of the pageant of 1236” (pp. xix., xxxii.). He calls it the “custumal” (consuetudinarium) of the Exchequer. And yet on page xxix. we read of Matthew referring to the
‘custumal’ of the Exchequer wherein a certain document of the reign of Richard I. is said to have been entered, which no longer exists in the Red Book or in any other Exchequer MS.
So also we learn, on page lxii., that Swereford compiled a lost work “which was the custumal known to Matthew Paris, and the probable exemplar of the Red Book of the Exchequer.” So Matthew’s ‘custumal’ (consuetudinarium) was not the Red Book itself, but its now lost “exemplar.” Yet on page xix. we are told that this, the only ‘custumal’ mentioned by Matthew, was, beyond doubt, the Red Book of the Exchequer.
It is here, with Mr. Hall, the same as elsewhere. His work is marred, throughout, by that confusion of thought which makes it almost impossible to learn what he really means.
In any case my own position is clear. I assert that the note by Matthew Paris refers, not to the narrative of the coronation, which he derived from the ‘Gesta,’ but to a description of the “services”; and I hold that he found this description, not in a lost Exchequer record, but in the Red Book’s account of Queen Eleanor’s coronation.