Under the name of crozier is designated the baculus (staff) worn by church dignitaries as a sign of spiritual power. But it is not to be confused with the rod of honor or other clubs only showing a temporal power. On the left, the figure of the Roman Emperor Arcadius with a cane rod, engraved in Almendralejo silver disk and stored in Madrid. Popes, that’s to say, the papal sovereigns, do not carry the Crozier, but only the ferule, a staff more or less long but straight as a scepter and sometimes with small crosses and oval ornaments on the top. Ornamented crossed scepters were signs of power bearing not only by a pope.
On the right, a staff crossed Pope Clement in Chartres Cathedral. Innocent III’s testimony is formal; in his Missa De Mysteriis (On the Mystery of Mass), he said: “Romanus Pontifex non utitur pastoral virga”, or Roman Pontiff Makes No use of the pastoral stick.
Thomas Aquin reported: “… in dioecesi Treverensi papa baculum portat, et non in aliis”. Or Pope brings Crozier (Baculum) only in the diocese of Trèves, not in the other ones (5). According to Gregory X ceremonial, a Pope is a simple priest.
Croziers are worn only by Latin and Greek bishops, that is, by those concerned about souls and not only temporal power. Indeed bishops are unequivocally the souls’ shepherds of Christendom. Especially in greek orthodox investiture ceremonies, bishops are delivered a short crozier, like a crook, as a symbol of their being shepherds leading the flock. A monk in Saint-Denis, at the time of Charles the Bald, wrote that Crozier was “arcuatum in ima reflexum” or bent into a curve at the top. Tradition has it that the first Croziers were apostles’ rods of the journey.
Together with abbots and abbesses. In “ The life of saint Gal” by Walafrid Strabon, at least sixth century, abbot Colomban allowed his crozier to be sent to Gal as means of reconciliation. We know that in the seventh century, croziers entered abbatial ceremonies. In the Ottonian age, abbesses partook of the same privileges as abbots. Being extremely concerned about temporal power, catholic liturgy prescribed abbots and abbesses to strictly hold croziers with ringlets closing toward their shoulders, meaning that their jurisdictions included just monasteries and nunneries, while bishops’ croziers were closing outward to mean jurisdictions in a broader region. And an ordinance of Clemens III in 1251 ordered abbesses to show their crozier only along processions.
The picture on the right displays the tomb of Abbess Urraca Lopez de Haro (1170-1262), in which she is holding her now broken crozier shaft. Nunnery of Santa Maria del Salvador, Cañas, La Rioja, Spain © Adrian Fletcher (6).
Croziers had been made in wood, horn, ivory, rock crystal, iron, copper, lead, silver, and gold. A rock crystal crozier is conserved in the bibliothéque de Versailles. A lead one has held iron croziers. But the more common are in copper, sometimes enameled or gilded. Silver croziers are scarce; some examples are those of Saint Remi, Godefroi de Mans, and bishop Richard in the London Treasure. Strangely enough, we have not been reported of any still existing golden croziers. The first rods, or shafts, were made of wood, preferably cypress.”
Wooden rods, even if present in hermetic symbolism both for thrashing and piercing, are of such a common day life use that cannot in any way be necessarily claimed to have a hermetic meaning other than obviously being mere croziers supports. Nevertheless, be aware that cypress wood, by many religions, has often been considered sacred or for sacred use only. A wooden piercing cypress stick or spear may sometimes be involved in the dry antimonial way.
To be continued at Croziers & Ringlets of Serpent 2.
- Vitriol here takes the significance of Mercurius Philosophorum;
- Se also Atalanta Fugiens & Mercurius Duplicatus ;
- See also Atalanta Fugiens & Golden Apples;
- “Le Baton Pastoral etude archeologique par l’abbé Barrault et Arthur Martin S.J”. Extrait du Tome IV des Melanges d’Archéologie, d’Histoire et de Literature, redigés ou recueillis par les auteurs de la monographie de la Cathedrale de Bourges. Paris 1856;
- The crozier of the first bishop Saint Peter is said to be conserved in Trèves Cathedral;