4 o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



same time there arise large bodies of ecclesiastical officials. Not for 

 these reasons alone, however, does the ceremonial organization fail to 

 grow as the other organizations do: their development causes its de- 

 cay. Though, during early stages of social integration, local rulers 

 have their local courts with appropriate officers of ceremony, the pro- 

 cess of consolidation and increasing subordination to a central govern- 

 ment, results in decreasing dignity of the local rulers, and disappear- 

 ance of the official upholders of their dignities. Among ourselves in 

 past times, " dukes, marquises, and earls, were allowed a herald and 

 pursuivant ; viscounts, and barons, and others not ennobled, even 

 knights bannerets, might retain one of the latter ; " but, as the regal 

 power grew, " the practice gradually ceased ; there were none so late 

 as Elizabeth's reign." Yet further, the structure carrying on cere- 

 monial control slowly falls away, because its functions are gradually 

 encroached upon. Political and ecclesiastical regulations, though at 

 first insisting mainly on conduct expressing obedience to rulers, divine 

 and human, develop more and more in the directions of equitable re- 

 straints on conduct between individuals, and ethical precepts for the 

 guidance of such conduct ; and in doing this they trench more and 

 more on the sphere of the ceremonial organization. In France, be- 

 sides having the semi-priestly functions we have noted, the heralds 

 were "judges of the crimes committed by the nobility ; " and they 

 were empowered to degrade a transgressing noble, confiscate his 

 goods, raze his dwellings, lay waste his lands, and strip him of his 

 arms. In England, too, certain civil duties were discharged by these 

 officers of ceremony. Till 1688, the provincial kings-at-arms had 

 " visited their divisions, receiving commissions for that purpose from 

 the sovereign, by which means the funeral certificates, the descents, 

 and alliances of the nobility and gentry, had been properly registered 

 in this college" (of heralds). "These became records in all the courts 

 at law." Evidently the assumption of functions of these kinds by 

 ecclesiastical and political agents has joined in reducing the cere- 

 monial structures to those rudiments which now remain, in the almost- 

 forgotten Heralds' College, and in the court officials who regulate in- 

 tercourse with the sovereign. 



Before passing to a detailed account of ceremonial government 

 under its various aspects, it will be well to sum up the results of this 

 preliminary survey. They are these: 



That control of conduct which we distinguish as ceremony pre- 

 cedes the civil and ecclesiastical controls. It begins with sub-human 

 types of creatures ; it occurs among otherwise ungoverned savages ; 

 it often becomes highly developed where the other kinds of rule are 

 little developed ; it is ever being spontaneously generated afresh be- 

 tween individuals in all societies ; and it envelops the more definite 

 restraints which state and church exercise. The primitiveness of 

 ceremonial government is further shown by the fact that, at first, 



