ACCORDING TO THE Ordo of Beroldus, a twelfth-century ordinal from Milan, the city's annual Palm Sunday worship began in the Basilica of San Lorenzo with the chanting of “Magnum salutis gaudium” (Great joy of salvation). Several times, the hymn insisted on Christ's “meekness” in riding an “ass's colt.” The fifth stanza reads:

The entry of the archbishop of Milan to the basilica coincided with the opening line of the seventh stanza, “Rex ecce tuus humilis” (Behold your humble king): the archbishop was understood to represent the Christ of Palm Sunday.

After preaching a sermon and blessing palm and olive branches, the archbishop went back outside, where the branches were distributed among the crowd. Waiting for him was “a white horse covered in a ceremonial saddle cloth.” The saddle cloth (naccum) was probably made of cloth of gold. The horse's bridle was held by an “elegantly dressed” soldier from the private militia of a noble Milanese family. Once the archbishop had mounted the horse, he was given a “cross made of crystal, decorated with palm and olive leaves,” which he held in his left hand while blessing the crowd with his right. Led by the choir from the Basilica of Saint Ambrose, a minor cleric bearing a golden crucifix, and a phalanx of other clergy and monks, and surrounded by a large crowd of laity, the archbishop processed “with triumphal glory” (cum triumphali gloria) through the streets of Milan. The procession ended at the Basilica of Saint Ambrose, where the archbishop dismounted and went inside to celebrate mass.

Palm Sunday in twelfth-century Milan stopped far short of Julius's II's triumphal Palm Sunday entry into Rome. Nor can it be confused with Charlemagne's triumphal entry into Rome in 774. The Milan ceremony was a Palm Sunday procession, not a military triumph; it was an annual rite, not a special event. Nevertheless, the richly vested archbishop, processing “with triumphal glory” through the streets of Milan on a prestigious white horse led by a soldier, was of a very different order from the humble rider on an ass's colt celebrated in the opening hymn.