Several liturgical dates called for processions; among these are Palm Sunday, Candlemas
Day (February 2), and the Rogation Days (the day of the Greater Litany, April 15; and
the lesser Rogation Days, the three days before Ascension Thursday). During the
Rogation processions, and many others as well, the Litany of All Saints was chanted,
accounting for use of the word litania as a synonym for “procession.”
In addition to processions required by the liturgical calendar, it was customary to
arrange for them in special circumstances, for example, to pray for rain, peace, or relief
from plague. Processions might be held within the confines of the church, and in fact the
ambulatories and aisles of the great French Romanesque and Gothic churches must have
been planned with this in mind. Saint-Denis saw a marked proliferation of processions
after the 13th-century additions to Suger’s early Gothic east-end ambulatory. Rogation
processions, and others of agricultural significance, moved out into the countryside, while
the late-medieval Corpus Christi procession made its way through the streets of the town
in a carnival-like atmosphere. Processions were led by an individual carrying the
processional cross; originally associated with the movement of some ecclesiastical
dignitary, this was simply a cross or crucifix mounted on a long staff so that it would be
easily visible.
James McKinnon
[See also: ENTRIES, ROYAL; LITURGICAL YEAR; MASS, CHANTS AND
TEXTS]
Bailey, Terence. The Processions of Sarum and the Western Church. Toronto: Pontifical Institute
of Mediaeval Studies, 1971.
Robertson, Ann Walters. The Service-Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis. London: Oxford
University Press, 1991.
PROCESSIONAL THEATER
. Processions have been an integral part of culture from the earliest times. In medieval
France, they were associated with many ritual and ceremonial activities, taking the form
of religious processions, royal and princely entries, funeral cortèges, and carnival
parades. There were also processions of petition in times of plague and war, processions
of thanksgiving for prayers answered, and processions of joy for royal weddings and
births. In addition, jousters and their retinues processed into the lists at tournaments, and
players advertised the Passion plays with montres in which they paraded through the
streets in costume.
All such activities had a theatrical aspect about them, but they were not plays in the
modern sense. In the late Middle Ages, however, plays were routinely integrated into
many civic and religious processions. The practice of staging biblical or allegorical
scenes at royal entries, for example, seems to have begun in northern France in the
second half of the 14th century. Such scenes were often tableaux vivants or mimed
actions, but in many cases they were fully developed plays. In Tournai in 1368, histoires
were played before the king at a royal entry, but only after the procession. The earliest
record of plays or tableaux vivants staged along the route of an entry procession is from
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1436