Monks or bonzes are very numerous; they live by alms and in return they teach the young to read, and superintend coronations, marriages, funerals and the other ceremonials which play a large part in the lives of the Cambodians.
Westminster Abbey is pre-eminent; in part, it may be, owing to the reverence felt towards it in preference to the classical St Paul's by those whose ideal of a cathedral church is essentially Gothic, but mainly from the fact that it is the burial-place of many of the English monarchs and their greatest subjects, as well as the scene of their coronations.
The royal processions arranged in connexion with coronations were of great antiquity, but one of the earliest to be described is that of Henry III.
"We can trace the pedigree of princes," he reflects, "fill up the catalogue of towns besieged and provinces desolated, describe even the whole pageantry of coronations and festivals, but we cannot recover the genuine history of mankind."
There were, in fact, two sets of regalia, the one used for the coronations and kept at Westminster, FIG.
As well as the superintendence of the royal stables, he had that of the retinue of the sovereign, also the charge of the funds set aside for the religious functions of the court, coronations, &c. On the death of a sovereign he had the right to all the horses and their equipment in the royal stables.
At coronations, however, and great festivals it became the custom in England and elsewhere to appoint magnates of the first rank to discharge for the occasion the domestic functions of the ordinary officials.
The steward's ancient and particular services at coronations are practically obsolete; the full ceremonies, procession from Westminster Hall and banquet in which he figured prominently, were abandoned on the accession of William IV.
See also the various works on Coronations for the steward's services on these occasions.
1546), champion at the coronations of Richard III., Henry VII.
Except at royal coronations, however, the use of the cope, even in cathedrals, had practically ceased in England before the ritual revival of the 19th century restored its popularity.
Akin to this procession also are the others connected with royal functions; coronations, funerals.
Mayor's show in London is the most conspicuous survival; the processions connected with royal coronations and with court ceremonies generally; the processions of friendly societies, so popular in Great Britain and America; processions organized as a demonstration of political or other opinions; processions forming part of the ceremonies of public worship. In a narrower sense of "going forth, proceeding," the term is used in the technical language of theology in the phrase "Procession of the Holy Ghost," expressing the relation of the Third Person in the Triune Godhead to the Father and the Son.
