Coronation ritual
Although we have no record of the investiture ceremony of the grand princes of Kievan Rus' or of their counterparts in Muscovite Rus' before the late fifteenth century, some form of installation ceremony surely existed. The direct formula that appears in chronicle accounts simply notes that such-and-such a prince assumed authority (siede lit. 'sat') in a given capital or that a more highly placed ruler installed him on the throne (posadi lit. 'seated').
The earliest evidence of an actual coronation ceremony in Muscovy dates from 4 February i498, when a ritual based on the Byzantine ceremony for co- emperors was used to lend legitimacy to Ivan III's naming a controversial heir apparent - grandson Dmitrii rather than second son Vasilii - to the Muscovite throne. By 1502, Vasilii had regained favour and was named grand prince and thus entitled to succeed his father. Interestingly, the performance of the coronation ceremony had not guaranteed the succession to Dmitrii, thus revealing its culturally compromised status as a political device. This point was driven home when Vasilii himself assumed the role of heir apparent in 1502 and ascended to the throne of his late father in 1505, in both instances without the ritual of coronation.
The accession of Ivan IV in 1533, however, proved a turning point in the conception of the Muscovite ruler. Surviving several court intrigues, Ivan found an ally in Makarii, archbishop of Novgorod, and from 1542, metropolitan of Moscow. Through a number of cultural initiatives, the revision of the Great Reading Menology and the writing of the Book of Degrees among the most significant, Makarii sought to elevate the position and authority of the tsar as a messianic figure, in effect, to sacralise him and accord him special charisma.[307]In 1547, Makarii was prepared to declare Ivan not simply grand prince, but tsar and autocrat, a God-chosen sovereign. Accordingly, he devised an appropriate coronation ceremony based on the Byzantine model used for Dmitrii, a ritual appropriate for transforming the sixteen-year-old prince into a tsar.
Ivan was officially crowned on 16 January 1547 in the Dormition cathedral in a ritual that had many implications for the historical and eschatological significance of the Muscovite ruler. The date was significant because it fell on the first Sunday after the final observance of Epiphany, which celebrates God's satisfaction with Christ's baptism by John ('the Forerunner') in the River Jordan. Ritually 'anointed', Christ begins his ministry in the Holy Land with this event, an appropriate analogue to Ivan's official beginning as tsar of Muscovy, the New Israel.[308]
The coronation ceremony in the Dormition cathedral combined high solemnity with the symbolism of legend and Scripture to create an effect with universal impact. Ordered ranks of the clergy flanked chairs set up for Makarii and Ivan on a specially built dais in the centre of the cathedral. Gold brocades covered the space between the dais and the Royal Doors of the iconostasis, where a stand was placed to hold the royal regalia, which the grand prince's confessor had brought high on a golden plate 'with fear and trembling', accompanied by a highly placed entourage that stood guard. As bells began to ring across Moscow some thirty minutes later, Ivan left his quarters in a solemn procession, preceded by his confessor sprinkling holy water along the path and followed by his brother and members of the nobility.
The regalia were tangible links to the Monomakh legend, overt signs of the ruler's Kievan and Byzantine pedigrees. Significantly, their number changed over the course ofthe sixteenth century, apparently to embellish the ceremony with more visible symbols of power and authority. In Dmitrii's coronation, only the barmy, an elaborately embroidered and bejewelled neck-piece, and a cap (shapka) were mentioned, the same combination found in grand-princely testaments from the time of Ivan I Kalita (c. 1339).[309] In the ceremony for Ivan IV a cross made from the True Cross was included. This inventory matches three of the five items in Monomakh's regalia specifically enumerated in The Tale of the Princes of Vladimir and correlated texts.[310] Of the remaining two, a gold chain was added to the Extended version of Ivan's ceremony, but the carnelian box much enjoyed by Caesar Augustus was never incorporated into the ceremony. Perhaps its exclusion was an explicit sign that as relevant as Roman genealogy might be for foreign recognition of the title 'tsar', only 'Byzantine' artefacts were deemed suitable for the spiritual confirmation of the Muscovite ruler.[311]
Ordered ranks of the clergy and the nobility lined Ivan's way to the dais. All were commanded to stand silent and not dare transgress the ruler's path. The bells stopped on his arrival. After introductory prayers, Metropolitan Makarii lifted the cross from the golden plate, placed it on Ivan's neck, and addressed the God of Revelation. He associated the anointing of David by Samuel as king over Israel with the anointing of Grand Prince Ivan Vasil'evich as tsar of all Rus'. He wished the grand prince a long life, his reign now legitimised by the Byzantine regalia. Makarii invested Ivan with the barmy, and the cap of Monomakh, and after a blessing of the tsar, admonished him on the duties of an Orthodox Christian ruler, the text based largely on Pseudo-Basil's Instruction to his son Leo.[312] The liturgy ended with communion before the iconostasis.
Ivan left the Dormition through the south portal and stood at the exit while a shower of gold and silver coins was poured over his head three times. He then processed over a path strewn with velvet and damask cloth to the Archangel Michael cathedral to hear a litany and pray before the graves of his royal predecessors. Leaving that cathedral through the western door, he was again showered three times with gold and silver coins. He processed over a cloth-strewn path to the Annunciation cathedral, where he heard a litany. Descending the stairs onto the square again, he walked to the central staircase leading up to the Golden Hall and was showered once again with gold and silver coins three times before leaving for his own quarters in the palace.40 He hosted a magnificent banquet for the high clergy and nobility in the Faceted Hall. Meanwhile those remaining behind in the Dormition were permitted to break up the specially built dais and take away material keepsakes sanctified by the ritual itself.41
An additional ceremony, the anointing of the new tsar, was apparently introduced only in 1584 for the coronation of Fedor Ivanovich, as represented in the Extended version of the ritual. Performed before communion, it was not equivalent to the Byzantine anointing of the forehead with sacred myrrh, but rather identical with the sacrament of chrismation, as performed at baptisms, with anointing of the head, the eyes, the ears, the chest and both sides of the hands (see Plate 17).42 This additional act not only likened the Muscovite tsars to the Byzantine emperors and the Old Testament kings they were emulating, but to Christ himself at his baptism, a further sacralisation of the Muscovite ruler.43
The act of showering the tsar with coins provided a visible connection between locale and function. He acted as Christ's representative on earth at the Dormition, heir of a noble dynasty at the Archangel Michael and ruler of the realm at the Annunciation, with the symbolic values of fecundity and longevity signified by the showering of coins at each station. Ironically, the inclusion of this ritual act is based on error contained in a pilgrim's description of the 1392 Byzantine coronation ceremony, apparently used as a source in composing the Muscovite ritual. Either Ignatii of Smolensk misinterpreted the Byzantine custom of showering coins on the milling crowd out of imperial largesse, or a later scribe misread his copy of Ignatii's text, mistaking a particle for an object pronoun, thereby showering him (the emperor) with the coins.44
307
David B. Miller, 'The Velikie minei chetii and the Stepennaia kniga of Metropolitan Makarii and the Origins of Russian National Consciousness',
309
310
R. P. Dmitrieva,
311
In general, the importance of the notion Moscow - Third Rome is grossly exaggerated in the historiography of sixteenth-century Muscovy; see Ostrowski,
312
Ihor Sevcenko, 'A Neglected Byzantine Source of Muscovite Political Ideology', in his