236 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
in the twelfth century we have records of at least ten papal accessions.73 The
papal coronation adventus was an integral part of the procession ceremonial which
took place between the consecration/benediction of the new pope in st Peter’s
Vatican basilica and his taking possession of the Lateran (the palace and the
basilica).74 The imperial crown was placed on the pope’s head and the pope himself
then replaced it with the pontifical mitre. By the early twelfth century such a cere-
mony had become the norm and was celebrated on the occasion of the pope’s
inauguration as well as on sixteen stational liturgical occasions, deliberately imitating
the royal/imperial model which consisted of an initial constituitive coronation
followed by confirmative ‘re-coronations’ and by the wearing of the crown on
subsequent specific occasions.75
The earliest record of an adventus ceremony at Easter dates from 1131, which
establishes a terminus ante quem for an origin of the adventus sometime around the
turn of the twelfth century, subsequent to the restoration of the stational liturgy in
the second half of the eleventh century; such Easter ceremonial only came to an
end with the Avignon exile of the papacy after the election of Clement V in 1305.76
suger, abbot of saint Denis, co-organized as well as chronicled the rituals performed
when innocent ii visited his abbey that Easter.77 innocent celebrated Eastertide
in st Denis exactly as he was accustomed to do in Rome.78 indeed three major
twelfth-century manuals, the Liber Politicus of Canon Benedict written 1140–1143,
the Gesta pauperis scolaris of Cardinal Albindus (of 1189), and the Liber Censuum
of Cencius Camerarius (of 1192) all refer to the ceremony in their instructions for
the Easter Monday procession from the Vatican—the stational church of that
day—to the Lateran.79 We find a further description in the poetry of the curial
liturgist Cardinal Jacopo Gaetani stefaneschi, who narrated the coronation proces-
sion of Boniface Viii in 1294.80
Hence, although the Pontifical of the Roman Curia—our primary evidence for
change—dates from the thirteenth century, it was probably at the end of the twelfth
century that the coronation-type adventus evolved in form and in content into an
Easter-type encounter. scholars have argued that the central rite common to both
ceremonies, the Torah presentation, morphed from a coronation ceremony indi-
cating political subjection in a Roman context to a specifically Easter theme of
73 Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 356.
74 Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 350.
75 Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 351.
76 Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 336.
77 Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 337.
78 Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 338.
79 Benedictus Canonicus, ‘Liber politicus’, in Le Liber censuum de l’église romaine, ed. P. fabre,
L. Duchesne, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1910), p.154; Cardinal Albinus, ‘Gesta pauperis scolaris’, in Le Liber cen-
suum de l’église romaine, ed. fabre, Duchesne, Vol. 2, p.132; Cencius Camerarius, ‘Liber censuum’, in
Le Liber censuum de l’église romaine, ed. fabre, Duchesne, Vol. 1, p.299. see Linder, ‘The Jews too were
not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their shoulders’, 338.
80 Cardinal Jacopo Gaetani, in Storia de’ solenni possessi de’ Sommi Pontefici, ed. f. Cancellieri (Rome,
1802), pp.25–6. see Linder, ‘The Jews too were not Absent... Carrying Moses’ Law on their
shoulders’, 349–50.