From Episcopal Dubbing to Sacrament of Confirmation (Twelfth– Fourteenth Centuries)

If the episcopate officiates the entirety of the royal coronation, the same cannot be said of dubbing. A few rare canonical and liturgical texts, however, do present bishops intervening in the ceremonies of entry into knighthood. In most cases, they perform only secondary rites, such as the blessing of the sword and other weapons. These gestures are ancillary to the knighthood, unlike the more substantial handing over of the sword and the less essential colée, or stroke. There are, however, some exceptions to this rule, which occurred in a specific theocratical context. Several factors explain the absence of the episcopate: the success of the theory of two swords and of political Aristotelianism; the disaffection of the clergy itself; and the more ancient history of the coronation. Since they are partly derived from the dubbing, two other late rites will be examined: the reading at the matins office of the Nativity by a prince carrying a sword given by the Pope, and the colée during the confirmation of a teenager in the Latin Church

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