We may mention especially the
naval car _(carrus navalis), _which had been inherited from pagan
times, and which, as an instance already quoted shows, was admissible
at festivals of very various kinds, and is associated with one of them
in particular-- the Carnival. Such ships, decorated with all possible
splendor, delighted the eyes of spectators long after the original
meaning of them was forgotten. When Isabella of England met her
bridegroom, the Emperor Frederick II, at Cologne, she was met by a
number of such chariots, drawn by invisible horses, and filled with a
crowd of priests who welcomed her with music and singing.
But the religious processions were not only mingled with secular
accessories of all kinds, but were often replaced by processions of
clerical masks. Their origin is perhaps to be found in the parties of
actors who wound their way through the streets of the city to the place
where they were about to act the mystery; but it is possible that at an
early per;od the clerical procession may have constituted itself as a
distinct species. Dante described the 'Trionfo' of Beatrice, with the
twenty-four Elders of the Apocalypse, with the four mystical Beasts,
with the three Christian and four Cardinal Virtues, and with Saint
Luke, Saint Paul, and other Apostles, in a way which almost forces us
to conclude that such processions actually occurred before his time.
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