VECHI ŞI NOU ÎN CEREMONIALUL ÎNCORONĂRII ÎMPĂRAŢILOR BIZANTINI DIN SECOLUL AL XIII-LEA
OLD AND NEW IN THE BYZANTINE IMPERIAL CORONATION IN THE 13TH CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The analysis of the ceremonial of Byzantine coronation during the last centuries of the Empire is focused mainly on the imperial raising on the shield and the physical unction. What is new and what is old in the two moments of Byzantine coronation? If the raising on a shield was practiced continuously between mid-4th century and early 7th century, to be resumed only in 1254, at the coronation of Theodore II Laskaris, in order to express more clearly the prominence of the army for the emperor as well as the Byzantine society at large, we can assert that physical unction is an innovation introduced in this ceremonial in the 12th century. Although both rituals are commonly associated with similar ones, performed in the West, their origin and symbolism were known to the Byzantines long before 12th-13th centuries. Thus, the Western influence so often mentioned in connection with the moments when the two rites were introduced in the coronation ceremonial is actually denied on the one hand by the practice of raising on the shield in a different historical period, and on the other hand by the different motivation and the notable differences in the material used for physical unction.

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