f the original function.

The added religious service was naturally derived from the Bible, where
mention is frequently made, in the Old Testament, of the anointing and
crowning of kings. The anointing of the king soon came to be regarded as
the most important, if not essential, feature of the service. By virtue
of the unction which he received, the sovereign was regarded, in the
middle ages, as a _mixta persona_, in part a priest, and in part a
layman. It was a strange theory, and Lyndwode, the great English
canonist, is cautious as to it, and was content to say that it was the
opinion of some people. It gained very wide acceptance, and the anointed
sovereign was generally regarded as, in some degree, possessed of the
priestly character. By virtue of the unction he had received, the
emperor was made a canon of St John Lateran and of St Peter at Rome, and
also of the collegiate church of Aachen, while the king of France was
_premier chanoine_ of the primatial church of Lyons, and held canonries
at Embrun, Le Mans, Montpellier, St Pol-de-Leon, Lodeve, and other
cathedral churches in France. There are, moreover, trustworthy records
that, on more than one occasion, a king of France, habited in a surplice
and choir robes, took part with the clergy in the services of some of
those churches. Martene quotes an order, which directs that at the
imperial coronation at Rome, the pope ought to sing the mass, the
emperor read the gospel, and the king of Sicily, or if present the king
of France, the epistle. Nothing like this was known in England, and a
theory, which has prevailed of late, that the English sovereign is, in a
personal sense, canon of St David's, is based on a misconception. The
canonry in question was attached to St Mary's College at St David's
before the Reformation, and, at the dissolution of the college, became
crown property, which it has remained ever since; but the king of
England is not, and never was personally, a canon of St David's, nor did
he ever perform any quasi-clerical function.

At first a single anointing on the head was the practice, but afterwards
other parts of the body, as the breast, arms, shoulders and hands
received the unction. From a very early period in the West three kinds
of oil have been blessed each year on Maundy Thursday, the oil of the
catechumens, the oil of the sick, and the chrism. The last, a compound
of olive oil and balsam, is only used for the most sacred purposes, and
the oi