bands and lay it on the site which is
said to be that of the manger."{11}

The Midnight Mass appears to have been introduced into Rome in the first
half of the fifth century. It was celebrated by the Pope in the church of
Santa Maria Maggiore, while the second Mass was sung by him at Sant'
Anastasia--perhaps because of the resemblance of the name to the
Anastasis at Jerusalem--and the third at St. Peter's.{12} On Christmas
Eve the Pope held a solemn "station" at Santa Maria Maggiore, and two
Vespers were sung, the first very simple, the second, at which the Pope
pontificated, with elaborate ceremonial. Before the second Vespers, in
the twelfth century, a good meal had to |96| be prepared for the papal
household by the Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. After Matins and Midnight
Mass at Santa Maria Maggiore, the Pope went in procession to Sant'
Anastasia for Lauds and the Mass of the Dawn. The third Mass, at St.
Peter's, was an event of great solemnity, and at it took place in the
year 800 that profoundly significant event, the coronation of Charlemagne
by Leo III.--a turning-point in European history.{13}

Later it became the custom for the Pope, instead of proceeding to St.
Peter's, to return to Santa Maria Maggiore for the third Mass. On his
arrival he was given a cane with a lighted candle affixed to it; with
this he had to set fire to some tow placed on the capitals of the
columns.{14} The ecclesiastical explanation of this strange ceremony was
that it symbolised the end of the world by fire, but one may conjecture
that some pagan custom lay at its root. Since 1870 the Pope, as "the
prisoner of the Vatican," has of course ceased to celebrate at Santa
Maria Maggiore or Sant' Anastasia. The Missal, however, still shows a
trace of the papal visit to Sant' Anastasia in a commemoration of this
saint which comes as a curious parenthesis in the Mass of the Dawn.

On Christmas Day in the Vatican the Pope blesses a hat and a sword, and
these are sent as gifts to some prince. The practice is said to have
arisen from the mediaeval custom for the Holy Roman Emperor or some other
sovereign to read one of the lessons at Christmas Matins, in the papal
chapel, with his sword drawn.{15}

Celebrated in countries as distant from one another, both geographically
and in character, as Ireland and Sicily, Poland and South America, the
Midnight Mass naturally varies greatly in its tone and setting. Sometimes
it is little more than a fashionable