The rite by which John and Blanche were crowned in 1429 is more or less the same[130]. The oaths were made as usual, and the elevation on the shield took place, both John and Blanche being elevated, ‘according as the Gothic Kings of Spain were wont to be elevated, and before them certain Emperors of the Roman Empire.’ There are certain features of the Spanish rite which are very reminiscent of the Byzantine rite. For example, the Crown is called the ‘Helmet.’ The Shield and Spear are among the regalia. The monarch is elevated on a shield. And again the king invests himself with the various regal ornaments as was done in some circumstances at Constantinople. On the other hand it is to be remembered that after all the Shield and Spear were arms in general use and common to all nations. The elevation on the shield at Constantinople was without doubt derived from the practice of the Teutonic tribes who furnished the Empire with so many of her soldiers, and may well have been the custom of the Goths. The self-investiture by the king is curious in a land so much under the domination of the Church as was Spain from earliest Visigothic times. And there is no definite evidence of any derivation of the rite of the Spanish kingdoms from the rite of Constantinople. CHAPTER XII PROTESTANT RITES. SCOTLAND The Scottish pre-reformation rite has not been preserved. It was not until the time of Pope John XXII that the kings of Scotland were crowned with an anointing, but in 1329 there was conferred upon the kings of Scotland ‘the right to receive anointing and coronation by the sacred hands of a Pontiff,’ a privilege which most of the kings of Europe at that time enjoyed. There was, however, long before this time some sort of inauguration ceremony. The ‘Ordination’ of King Aidan by St Columba has been mentioned, and there is reference fairly frequently in the Scottish annals to a ‘Custom of the nation,’ some ceremony that took place at the accession of a king, but of the details of which we have no knowledge. It was probably of the nature of an enthronisation. Again we can perhaps obtain some information on a detail of the coronation rite in general from a question that came up over the inauguration of Alexander III in 1249. The king was eight years old, and a dispute arose whether the king should be knighted before he was made king. It will be remembered that in the rite of Aragon the king was invested with the Sword at his coronation only if he had not been knighted before. It would seem that originally the investiture with the Sword was no part of the coronation ceremony, but was in process of time taken into the rite from the order for making a knight. Perhaps, too, we may see in the obligatory oath of the people of the post-reformation Scottish rite a survival of a peculiarity of the old rite. Four coronations took place in Scotland subsequent to the Reformation[131].