Lethaby, William Richard: Westminster Abbey and the antiquities of the coronation (London: Duckworth & Co., 1911)

altar, but an earl redeemed it for 1005.
and carried it naked by the King. A
sword ceremony is likely to have been
part of the ceremony from early times.
On the Bayeux tapestry a knight stands
by the crowned and throned Harold with
a naked sword upright in his hand.
THE CORONATION CHAIR
Only two ancient objects are still in
use at the Coronation : a most beautiful
spoon of late twelfth-century work and
the famous Coronation chair, which was
made in the last year of the thirteenth
century by the order of Edward I., to
contain under its seat the Coronation
stone of Scotland. It usually stood
behind the high altar as the abbot’s
seat. At Coronations it is now placed
in front of the altar, but in the accounts
for the Coronation of Richard HI. there
is an item for precious stuff called
“baudekin, to cover St. Edward’s chair,
placed on the pulpitum,” that is the raised
stage in the centre of the church. The
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