Flabellum
flabellum
(Latin: fan)
Liturgical fan made of leather, silk, parchment, or feathers, with long handle, intended to keep away insects from the Sacred Species and priest.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Flabellum
The flabellum, in liturgical use, is a fan made of leather, silk, parchment, or feathers intended to keep away insects from the Sacred Species and from the priest. It was in use in the sacrifices of the heathens and in the Christian Church from very early days, for in the Apostolic Constitutions, a work of the fourth century, we read (VIII, 12): “Let two of the deacons, on each side of the altar, hold a fan, made up of thin membranes, or of the feathers of the peacock, or of fine cloth, and let them silently drive away the small animals that fly about, that they may not come near to the cups”. Its use was continued in the Latin Church to about the fourteenth century. In the Greek Church to the present day, the deacon, at his ordination, receives the hagion ripidion, or sacred fan, which is generally made to the likeness of a cherub’s six-winged face, and in the sacrifice of the Mass he waves it gently over the species from the time of the Offertory to the Communion — in the Liturgy of St. Basil only during the Consecration. Among the ornaments found belonging to the church of St. Riquier, in Ponthieu (813), there is a silver flabellum (Migne, P. L., CLXXIV, 1257), and for the chapel of Cisoin, near Lisle, another flabellum of silver is noted in the will of Everard (died 937), the founder of that abbey. When, in 1777, Martène wrote his “Voyage Littéraire”, the Abbey of Tournus, on the Saône in France, possessed an old flabellum, which had an ivory handle two feet long, and was beautifully carved; the two sides of the ivory circular disc were engraved with fourteen figures of saints. Pieces of this fan, dating from the eighth century, are in the Musée Cluny at Paris, and in the Collection Carrand. The circular disc is also found in the Slavic flabellum of the thirteenth century, preserved at Moscow, and in the one shown in the Megaspileon monastery in Greece. On this latter disc are carved the Madonna and Child and it is encircled by eight medallions containing the images of cherubim and of the Four Evangelists. The inventory, taken in 1222, of the treasury of Salisbury, enumerates a silver fan and two of parchment. The richest and most beautiful specimen is the flabellum of the thirteenth century in the Abbey of Kremsmünster in Upper Austria. It has the shape of a Greek cross and is ornamented with fretwork and the representation of the Resurrection of Our Lord. A kind of fan with a hoop of little bells is used by the Maronites and other Orientals and is generally made of silver or brass.
Apart from the foregoing liturgical uses, a flabellum, in the shape of a fan, later of an umbrella or canopy, was used as a mark of honour for bishops and princes. Two fans of this kind are used at the Vatican whenever the pope is carried in state on the sedia gestatoria to or from the altar or audience-chamber. Through the influence of Count Ditalmo di Brozza, the fans formerly used at the Vatican were, in 1902, presented to Mrs. Joseph Drexel of Philadelphia, U. S. A., by Leo XIII, and in return she gave a new pair to the Vatican. The old ones are exhibited in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania. They are splendid creations. The spread is formed of great ostrich plumes tipped with peacock feathers; on the sticks are the papal arms, worked in a crimson field in heavy gold, the crown studded with rubies and emeralds. St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, had a fan made of peacock feathers, and York Cathedral’s inventory mentions a silver handle of a fan, which was gilded and had upon it the enamelled picture of the bishop. Haymo, Bishop of Rochester (died 1352), gave to his church a fan of silver with an ivory handle.
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ROCK, Church of our Fathers (London, 1904), II, 209; DU CANGE, Glossarium (Niort, 1885); STREBER in kirchenlexicon, s. v.; KRAUS, Gesch. der kirchl. Kunst (Freiburg, 1896), I, 552.
FRANCIS MERSHMAN. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VICopyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Flabellum
(fan; Gr. ). Among the evidences of the Eastern origin of the Christian religion is the use of this implement during the celebration of the eucharist. Having its birthplace and earliest home in a climate teeming with insect life, where food exposed uncovered is instantly blackened and polluted by swarms of flies, it was natural that the bread and wine of its sacramental feast should be guarded from defilement by the customary precautions. The flabellum having been once introduced among the furniture of the altar for necessary uses, in process of time became one of its regular ornaments, and was thus transferred to the more temperate climates of the West, where its original purpose was almost forgotten.
The earliest notice of it as a liturgical ornament is in the Apostolical Constitutions, which direct that after the oblation, before and during the prayer of consecration, two deacons are to stand, one on either side of the altar, holding a flabellum made of thin membrane (parchment), or of peacock feathers, or of fine linen, and quietly drive away the flies and other small insects, that they strike not against the vessels. In the liturgies also of Chrysostom and Basil, the deacons are directed to fan the holy oblations diiring the prayer of consecration. This fanning ceased with the Lord’s Prayer, and was not resumed. Early writers furnish many notices of the use of the flabellum as an essential part of the liturgical ceremonial. Moschus (Prat. Spirit. 196), when narrating how some shepherd boys near Apamea were imitating the celebration of the eucharist in childish sport, is careful to mention that two of the children stood on either side of the celebrant, vibrating their handkerchiefs like fans.
As the deacons were the officers appointed to wave the fan over the. sacred oblations, its delivery constitutes a part of many of the Oriental forms for the ordination to the diaconate. After the stole has been given and placed on the left shoulder, the holy fan is put into the deacon’s hands, and he is placed at the side of the holy table to fan;” and again, the deacon is directed to take the fan and stand at the right side of the table, and wave it over the holy things. SEE ELEVATION OF THE HOST. Although there is no mention of the flabellum in the Latin ritual books, there is no doubt that it was used by the Western Church at an early time. The fan appears to, have gradually fallen into disuse there, and to have almost entirely ceased by the 14th century. At the present day, the only relic of the usage is in the magnificent fans of peacocks’ feathers carried by the attendants of the pope in solemn processions on certain great festivals.
Though the original intention of the fan was one of simple utility, various mystical meanings collected round it. Reference has been already made to the: idea that these feather fans typified the cherubim, and seraphim surrounding the holy throne. Germanus also holds (Contemp. Rev. Eccles. page 157) that the vibration of the fans typifies the tremor and astonishment of the angels at our Lord’s Passion. We find the same idea in a passage from the monk Job, given by Photius, who also states (Cod. 5:25) that another purpose of the vibration of the fans was the raising of the mind from the material elements of the eucharist, and fixing them on the spiritual realities.
See Martigny, De Usage du Flabellum ; Bingham, Christ. Antiq. 8:6, 21; 15:3, 6; Bona, Rer. Liturg. 1:25, 6; Augusti, Christl. Archaeol, 3:536 sq.; Archaeol. Jour. 5:200; 14:17; Smith, Dict. of Christ. Antiq. s.v.