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eng: The research disproves the theory of the crosier deriving from the 'walking stick' of the Irish missionaries in the early middle ages, which was supposed to have been slowly developed through the centuries to the well known spiral headed staff of the high middle ages. In opposition to this theory established in the fifties by Magda Barany-Oberschall, a critical investigation of the preserved original crosiers and of the illustrations of the early and high middle ages demonstrates that there cannot have been any 'development' of the form of the crosier. Instead of this, the crosiers of the early and high middle ages must be deviled into three types of different origins: the 'real'-shepherds-staff-crosier deriving from the staff of the early Christian pastor bonus; the Irish crosier deriving both from the Irish shepherds staff and the magic wand of the druids; and the spiral headed staff with a knob, which goes also back to the early middle ages. This type, which has become the exclusively dominating crosier-form in the territory of the Roman church since the 11"t"h century, results from the combination of two marks of dignity of the late Roman Empire: the long scepter with a knob on its top and the short spiral headed litutis. The relationship between the litutis and the crosier had not yet been accepted because of the different character of the offices held by the ancient augurs and the Christian bishops or abbots and abbesses. The correct interpretation of the finding- circumstances of the late roman lituus excavated in Brigetio (nowadays Szoeny in North-Western Hungary) shows that it belonged to Marcus Aurelius Verus, who held the office of a forensis, a kind of justice of peace, and therefore his lituus must be seen as a badge of jurisdiction. Probably in the late 5"t"h or in the early 6"t"h century this litius as badge of the forensis must have been mounted on the top of the long scepter with a knob, creating a new badge to demonstrate the two aspects of the offices of the high clergy: the scepter representing the regimental power and the lituus on its top representing the jurisdictional power of the bishops, abbots and abbesses of the western church. |