CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 405 



tions were made ; and in various other ways the functions of the 

 organization were allied to priestly functions. Heralds verified the 

 titles of those who aspired to the distinctions of chivalry, as priests 

 decided on the fitness of applicants for the sanctions of the Church ; 

 and on the occasions of their visitations they were to "correct things 

 ill and dishonest," and to advise princes duties allied to those of 

 priests. Besides announcing the wills of earthly rulers, as priests of 

 all religions announce the wills of heavenly rulers, they were glori- 

 tiers of the first, as priests were of the last part of their duty to those 

 they served being " to publish their praises in foreign lands." At 

 the burials of kings and princes, where observances for honoring the 

 living and observances for honoring the dead came in contact, the 

 kinship of a herald's function to the function of a priest was again 

 shown ; for, besides putting in the tomb the insignia of rank of the 

 deceased potentate, and in that manner sacrificing to him, the herald 

 had to write, or to get written, a eulogy had to initiate that worship 

 of the dead out of which grow higher forms of worship. Similar, if 

 less elaborate, was the system in England. Heralds wore crowns, had 

 royal dresses, and used the plural " we." Anciently, there were two 

 heraldic provinces, with their respective chief heralds, like two dio- 

 ceses. Further development produced a garter king-at-arms, with 

 provincial kings-at-arms presiding over minor heraldic officers ; and, 

 in 1483, all were incorporated into the College of Heralds. As in 

 France, visitations were made for the purpose of verifying existing 

 titles and honors, and authorizing others ; and funeral rites were so 

 far under heraldic control that, among the nobility, no one could be 

 buried without the assent of the herald. 



Why these structures which discharged ceremonial functions once 

 conspicuous and important dwindled, while civil and ecclesiastical 

 structures developed, it is easy to see. Propitiation of the living has 

 been, from the outset, necessarily more localized than propitiation of 

 the dead. The existing ruler can be worshiped only in his presence, 

 or, at any rate, within his dwelling or in its neighborhood. Though 

 in Peru adoration was paid to images of the living Yncas ; and though 

 in Madagascar King Radama, when absent, had his praises sung in 

 the words, " God is gone to the west, Radama is a mighty bull ; " 

 yet, generally, the obeisances and laudations expressing subordination 

 to the great man while alive, are not made when they cannot be wit- 

 nessed by him or his immediate dependents. But when the great 

 man dies and there begin the awe and fear of his ghost, conceived as 

 able to reappear anywhere, propitiations are no longer so narrowly 

 localized ; and in proportion as, with formation of larger societies, 

 there comes development of deities greater in supposed power and 

 range, dread of them and reverence for them are felt simultaneously 

 over wide areas. Hence the official propitiators, multiplying and 

 spreading, severally carry on their worships in many places at the 



