Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
The Novemdiale: The Body of the Pope
The renowned medievalist Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, who has also lectured at the RIGG, has described the staging of the death and burial of popes in the Middle Ages and Renaissance in his famous book ‘The Body of the Pope’.
In view of recent events, one can only say: nothing new under the sun. Paravicini presents a portrait of morality that is more directly topical than ever. He deals in detail with the delaying of the pope's old age, the scenery of the palace, the funeral rites, the Novemdiale and, as the crowning glory, the holy pope.
He writes about the nine-day mourning ritual, the Novemdiale:
‘The real motives for adopting and organising the public laying in state and the Novemdiale were ecclesiological and institutional. The Novemdiale made it possible to make two ‘bodies’ visible: the body of the deceased pope, who was laid out in public with his face uncovered, and the ‘body’ of the Church, which was represented - just as visibly - by the College of Cardinals.
It is no coincidence that Gregory X, at the beginning of his ceremonial, recalls Damiani's phrase about the brevity of a pope's life:
‘Since the life of any ruler is short, the Roman bishops also die after a short time, they who are at the top of the sub-hierarchical hierarchy’.
Gregory insists on the necessity of the continuity of the institution:
‘Such an illustrious hierarchy must not be headless (acefala), as if it were a monster’.
A few years earlier, Henry of Susa had already emphatically demanded that the cardinals had the duty to bury the deceased pope before electing a new pope‘’.
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- Written by: Stefan Heid
- Category: Recommended reading