Pontifical

PONTIFICAL. - It is the liturgical book that contains the description (rubrics) and the formulas of the functions normally reserved to the bishop (pontifex-p.). As a book in its own right it does not appear before the 8th century, nor is its name constant. It was called Ordinale or Ordinalis liber (from the Ordinations, one of the principal functions described in it), Mitrale (Sicard of Cremona, 13th century), Benedictionale, Pontificalis ordinis liber (Durandus), Pontificalis liber (1485), Pontificale Romanum (1596). Its history is relatively recent and, after the studies of P. Batiffol, P. De Puniet, V. Leroquais, and the critical edition of the medieval Pontificals by M. Andrieu, its stages can be followed with confidence.

I. FIRST ELEMENTS (1st-4th centuries)

They belong to the prehistory of the pontifical and consist of the benedictory formulas scattered fragmentarily in the earliest Christian writers. For several centuries, at the beginning, worship hinged on a single rite, the Eucharistic celebration. Around it and connected with it there took place, in linear form, the various consecrations and blessings, including the most solemn ones reserved to the pontifex, invested with the fullness of the priesthood, that is, the episcopus, head of the Christian community. Thus Confirmation, Ordination, episcopal consecration, the solemn blessings of persons and things. Traces of such rites are found in the New Testament writings or in those barely later, such as those of Tertullian, Justin, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Cyril of Jerusalem, in Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions, in the Euchologion of Serapion, in the Testamentum Domini. Eusebius speaks of the dedication of churches. To the same period belongs the blessing of the holy Oils. In 450 Marcian is crowned emperor by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The blessing of abbots and abbesses, on the other hand, is later (6th century).

II. SOURCES (5th-8th centuries)

A true written tradition, for the formulas first of all, begins in the 5th-6th century with the first Western euchological collections. Naturally the formulas most commonly used are fixed in the codex or on the rotulus. For the Latin liturgy the first documents of note are represented by the Sacramentaries, in which the formulas reserved to the celebrant are gathered together. The so-called Leonine Sacramentary, the most ancient type, contains the formulary of the Mass for the dedication, the consecration of bishops, the ordination of deacons and priests, the consecration of virgins (ad virgines sacras) and the solemn blessing of spouses (velatio nuptialis). This list grows still longer in the Gelasian Sacramentary, the official liber Missae of the Roman Church. Gregory the Great (d. 604) reformed this Sacramentary multa subrohens, pauca convertens, nonnulla superadiciens (Vita Gregorii, II, 17: PL 75, 94). The Gregorian Sacramentary

Gregorian Sacramentary sent, between 784 and 791, by Adrian I to Charlemagne had inherited from the Gelasian also the formularies for episcopal functions, which in Frankish territory then found an exceptional development. The same addition that Alcuin made to the Hadrianic exemplar to adapt it to the churches beyond the Alps already included a certain number of formulas relating to the consecration of virgins, the dedication of churches, the consecration of kings, and exorcisms. But the sacramentaries contained only the formulas. The directive norms (rubrics and ceremonies) were lacking. This was abundantly provided for by that series of libelli of Roman origin, but flourishing luxuriantly from the 8th to the 14th century in Gaul, called Ordines Romani (v.), which contain the detailed description of the ceremonies, sometimes also the texts of the solemn pontifical functions. Progressively — in the 8th century under the pressure of external factors — the Church organizes its liturgy. One notes the tendency to separate the rites reserved to the pontiff and to the bishops, gathering them into special collections. The Liber sacramentorum becomes more properly the Liber missalis, while for the sacramental rites and blessings a new book is coined, more practical and manageable, the P. This process of disintegration and the consequent systematization begins in Gaul in the 9th century.

III. ORIGINS OF THE PONTIFICAL (9th-16th centuries)

The first attempts lack a character of their own. The liturgical books brought from Rome to Gaul had first of all to adapt themselves to the new environment, sometimes merging with pre-existing books, above all with the old Gelasian Sacramentary, creating a mixed sacramentary (Gelasian of the 8th century), or else assimilating local uses. To the strictly liturgical elements were added an infinity of other documents, giving rise to a kind of manual of sacred science, which a century later became vast and voluminous compilations. One type of these archaic P. destined to enjoy a rare fortune was compiled at Mainz, in the Rhineland, in the Benedictine abbey of St. Alban, shortly after 950. The original has been lost, but copies remain in Germany, Italy and France. The elements composing it are extremely heterogeneous. Sometimes the two sources merge and the Roman rubrics are found inserted and mixed into a bombastic ceremonial, where the symbolism so dear to medieval Gallican liturgists is displayed. The monk compiler left it without a title. M. Andrieu has proposed calling it the Roman-Germanic P. of the 10th century, a name that well indicates its composite nature, its country of origin and its date. The same scholar is now preparing its critical edition. The P. of Mainz had a rapid diffusion, favored by the political conditions of the time. After the restoration of the Empire (962) many German prelates, in the retinue of the imperial court or placed at the head of Italian and French dioceses, brought with them a copy of the P. Rome too welcomed it around the year 1000, substituting it for its own liturgical books and thus bringing about an irreparable break with its pure and venerable tradition. Throughout the 11th century German influence was very great. The four German popes of that era certainly used the P. of Mainz. Other copies were made in Germany and in Rome. The core remained common, but the particulars varied. Roman ecclesiastics, therefore, knew many different editions of this book. With Gregory VII (1073-85) there ended the period in which Teutonicis concessum est regimen nostrae Ecclesiae (M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani, I, pp. 526-45). The influx of liturgical books from the north also ceased, but those already existing were not banished; they were only adapted more to local uses. Thus there arose a whole Roman family of P., in which the P. of Mainz remains the basis, but with a whole range of particulars, according to the genius of the copyists and of the bishops for whom the copy was made. The criteria by which such particulars were introduced can be reduced to two: a) the desire to abbreviate and to insert only what was useful (there were therefore eliminated the ancient Ordines Romani, the consecration of a king, the didactic treatises, the rituals of excommunication, the exorcisms and the Masses against the possessed, the series of Masses for the dead, the long series of blessings, the rituals for ordeals); b) the Ordines preserved were reproduced not as they had been originally drafted, but according to the lightenings carried out upon their entry into Rome. Thus for the election and consecration of a bishop, which in Rome had a character of its own because of the presence of the pope, and for the Ordinations, performed by the pontiff himself. As for the pontifical functions that took place on the various solemnities of the year, the Roman copyists took account of local color (stational churches, basilicas, uses of the papal court). So that in the 12th century the P. of Rome was substantially an episcopal P., but with such modifications as to give it a markedly papal character.

At the beginning of the 13th century another P. appears, whose archetype was composed under the pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216). Andrieu calls it, in imitation of the Missal of the Curia, diffused in the same period, P. secundum consuetudinem et usum romanae Curiae. Three recensions of it are known: the first (called by Andrieu recension α) is the base recension; the second (recension γ) appears in the middle of the 13th century and is the work of a Roman liturgist who made notable additions to recension α, developing above all the description of the papal ceremonies; the third (recension β) is still the first recension, in which the copyists inserted the appropriate updatings, first in the margin, as postils, then, more developed, in the text. The three families lived simultaneously in the course of the 13th century. But the longer recension (γ) in the 14th century decidedly prevailed over the other two. Precisely then a competitor blocked its path: the P. domini Gulielmi Durandi. William Durand, bishop of Mende (d. 1296; v.), between 1293 and 1295 had composed a P. for his own use, in which, however, his intention to be useful also to the other churches and to Rome itself is clear; he had in fact introduced into it rites and ceremonies proper to metropolitans and to the Supreme Pontiff. Durand had therefore thought of a P. for universal use.

Substantially the P. of Durand was the P. of the Curia (long recension), which underwent a twofold operation: the rites that could not be used outside Rome were removed, and others were added to make it a convenient and complete directory for episcopal functions. Some chapters were rewritten, others introduced ex novo. The material was divided into three books (a division common to the theologians and canonists of the 13th century) and grouped by order of ideas: I. De personarum benedictionibus et consecratione; II. Consecrationes et benedictiones rerum; III. Quaedam ecclesiastica officia (cf. the complete description of these parts in P. De Puniet [bibl.], I, pp. 52-54). This division and various particular features were subsequently adopted in the P. and remain there to this day. Durand's P. enjoyed great success. It was the Liber Pontificalis par excellence, soon adorned with the title of authentic (= official). The expression Patrum Pontificale, which is read in Durand's funeral inscription, shows how faithful he had remained to tradition. For this reason his work was greatly appreciated also in Rome, where Clement V (1305-14) cited it as an authority. Innocent VIII (1484-92) wished to extend it as an official book to the whole Latin Church and entrusted the bishop of Pienza, Agostino Patrizi Piccolomini (d. 1496), formerly master of ceremonies to Paul II, with revising it and preparing a corrected text for printing. The rubrical part was entrusted to the pontifical master of ceremonies Giovanni Burckard (d. 1506), author of the Ordo servandus in celebratione Missarum. The P., thus revised, appeared in 1485, preceded by a letter from Patrizi to Innocent VIII, in which the reasons for and the method of the edition are set out (text in De Puniet, I, pp. 67-68; cf. also pp. 56-58). A second, improved edition saw the light in 1497 through the efforts of Giacomo de Lutis and Burckard. Other editions in Venice and Lyon in 1511, perpulchris characteribus diligentissime annotatum. It is the so-called P. of Julius II. The Dominican Alberto Castellani republished it with revisions and additions in 1520. It was the most popular edition in the 16th century. Reprinted several times, it was taken as the basis of the P. which, under the title Pontificale romanum, was officially extended to the universal Church in 1596.

IV. THE «PONTIFICALE ROMANUM» (16th-20th centuries). It was promulgated by the apostolic constitution Ex quo in Ecclesia Dei, of 10 February 1596, by Clement VIII, who thereby abrogated all the other P. in use: «Motu proprio omnia et singula Pontificalia in hunc usque diem in quibuscumque terrarum orbis partibus impressa et approbata... per praesentes supprimimus et abolemus». Even very ancient rites, which preserved their own particular features in the Mass and the Office, accepted the P. Thus the Ambrosian rite (cf. G. Mercati, Antiche reliquie liturgiche ambrosiane e romane [Studi e testi, 7, Rome 1902, p. 7]), the Bragan rite, which had the so-called P. of St. Gerald (cf. A. de Vasconcelos, Notas liturgico-bracarenses, in Opus Dei, 5 [1930-31], pp. 21-28, 46-54; cf. also Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft, 10 [1930], p. 237). The Christians of the Syro-Malabar rite use the p. translated into the Syriac language (J. Vosté, Projet d'édition du Pontifical des Syriens Orientaux, in Ephemerides liturgicae, analecta, 53 [1939], p. 3). The P. was republished by Urban VIII on 17 June 1644, with the constitution Quamvis alias. Typographical errors were, naturally, eliminated, but the text remained intact and has remained so from then until today. Benedict XIII, in order to facilitate the performance of the more difficult ceremonies of the P., prepared a new edition of it, adding various illustrations but leaving the text unchanged to such a degree that, wishing to include the imposition of hands in the rite of Confirmation, he added a special rubric in the appendix. Benedict XIV, with the apostolic letter Quam ardenti studio of 25 March 1752, promulgated the new edition of the P., of the Rituale and of the Ceremoniale of bishops. The last typical edition, made in 1888, by order of Leo XIII at Regensburg, changed the chant, corrected the spelling and added the accents. Pius XI in 1931 intended to reform the P. To this end he appointed a commission presided over by the Benedictine abbot H. Quentin, but difficulties of various kinds, above all the lack of critical editions of the early P., which Andrieu was then preparing, caused the undertaking to stall; so that, needing copies of the P., it was preferred to reproduce photographically the folio edition of the Apostolic Camera of 1848.

The P. is divided into three books. In Book I is found everything concerning the ordination, consecration and blessing of persons (De personis); Book II contains the blessings and consecrations of churches and altars, and all that pertains to the celebration of the Eucharist (De rebus); in Book III are the ceremonials of receptions, synods, visitations and the various pontifical functions of the year. Clement VIII approves only these three parts. But since the P. gives the rites in the singular or in the plural and often the numerical order is changed, it was necessary to introduce various rites with a change of number; confirmation and ordinations in the singular; consecration of bishops and of altars in the plural. Moreover, certain functions of the Ritual are sometimes performed in solemn form, and therefore it seemed opportune to prepare their description for when they are carried out by a bishop. All these rites were gathered into a separate volume bearing the title Appendix and Supplementum ad appendicem. In the rites of Confirmation, ordination and consecration of bishops, some rubrics were also changed or made anew. The various parts of the appendix do not have a different origin. The part concerning Confirmation and the Ordination of a single ordinand or the consecration of several bishops appeared first in the edition of Benedict XIII. The rite of the Baptism of adults was taken from the Ordo urvondus in Ecclesia Beneventana (Cesena 1683) published by Card. Orsini (later Benedict XIII). Other rites entered the appendix in the editions of the Apostolic Camera of 1848 and 1855, and a few others in the Regensburg edition of 1888, in which the supplement to the appendix was also introduced. Although the P. is not a historical book, it nevertheless still preserves rites no longer in use, namely: in the 2nd part: the rite of monastic profession, because in ancient times abbots who were clerics but not professed were not infrequently elected, and because they had to make their religious profession before receiving the abbatial blessing (A. Paladini, De ritu professionis religiosae in P., in Ephemerides liturgicae, 49 [1935], pp. 385-89); blessing of an abbot auctoritate Ordinarii, coronation of a king and of a queen, blessing of a soldier. In the 2nd part: the solemn blessing of reliquaries, the blessing and imposition of the cross (for the Crusaders of the Holy Land) and of arms. In the 3rd part there remain as a historical remembrance: the Ordo of the expulsion and reconciliation of penitents, the suspension and degradation of an ordained man, the Ordo of excommunication and absolution, the Ordo for the reconciliation of an apostate, schismatic or heretic, the Ordo of the scrutinium serotinum (before the consecration of a suffragan bishop by the metropolitan) and, finally, De barba tondenda (the initiation of a clericus) and De officio psalmistatus. Apart from these now obsolete rites, the P., like all the other liturgical books, is in need of a general revision. Some rites must be corrected and conformed in their text according to the recent critical editions, others must be made uniform with similar rites found in the Ritual; still others must be simplified and abbreviated. And then an accurate revision of the rubrics of the P. is necessary, and finally account must be taken of the problems, neither slight nor few, raised by pastoral liturgy, because the pontifical rites too, among the most evocative and important of Christian worship, form part of the living liturgy of the Church. - See plate CXVII.

Annibale Bugnini