15 The Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres

Abstract

This chapter presents a short history of the Palm Sunday procession in the Western Church followed by a more detailed study of that ritual as it unfolded in medieval Chartres, especially using ordinals from the diocese. The procession at the cathedral of Chartres is reconstructed, the chants enumerated, and the processional route traced through the streets and into the secondary churches of that city. Finally, to determine what was unique about Palm Sunday in Chartres, the ceremony there is compared to similar practices at other cathedrals in northern France, specifically those at Amiens, Bayeux, Laon, Metz, Paris, Reims, Rouen, Sens, and Soissons. Not until the French Revolution did this colorful Chartres tradition come to an end.

Parading Staurothekes in Norman Sicily: Relics, Community, and the Conversion of the Other†

“…The liturgies of Palm Sunday were particularly important in the twelfthcentury Archdiocese of Palermo. 46 Folio 80v (p. 184) shows the first item, "Domenica Ramis Palmarum Ant. ad Processionem."…”