RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA CHIESA IN ITALIA

From the 8th century at least and more over from the gregorian Popes, the organisation of processions in Rome takes a significant place in the political communication of medieval papacy. The pope recovered the antic imperial ceremonial and invested the urban space, especially between the Latran and the Vatican, to show his power as the spiritual father and the temporal master of the city and the world. He first took advantage from the movements linked to the stationnal liturgy, and extended the use of processions (usually on horses) for the day of the crowning and for the Advents, which implied to join spaces outside and inside the city, to organise a way across the decorated town, and to get the peaceful assistance of the clergy, the aristocrats and the population. From the middle of the 11th century and above all after 1304, the more numerous absences out of Rome caused important changes in the ceremonial and its meaning.