[345] ‘Cingulo, honore, uestimentisque.’ Cingulum sometimes means ‘dignity,’ ‘office,’ v. Ducange, s. v.; and that may be the meaning here.
[346] Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgesch. ii. 133, cited by Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 145; the authority is Gregory of Tours: ‘in Basilica beati Martini tunica blatea indutus est, et chlamyde, imponens uertici diadema,’ ii. 38.
[347] Ed. Migne, col. 718: ‘Leo tempus et aetatem regnandi regiae unctionis sacramento praeueniens, sicut quondam Samuel puerum Dauid, ita eum in regem … consecrauit.’ Later writers made much of this papal unction, saying not merely that Alfred was the first English king anointed by the pope, which is true, but that he was the first English king who was ever anointed and crowned, e.g. Thorn, in Twysden, col. 1777; Rudborne, Ang. Sac. i. 201, 207: ‘ab ipso descendit inunctio regum Angliae’; Chron. Robert of Gloucester, p. 388: ‘so þat, biuore him, pur king nas þer non’; John de Oxenedes (who puts the papal coronation after Alfred’s accession to the throne!), p. 3; Birch, ii. 256: ‘Alfredus rex totius Anglie, primus coronatus’; see the figure of Alfred in MS. Cott. Claud. D. vi, given in Draper, p. 130, where the crown and ampulla evidently allude to the Roman unction and coronation. Nicolas Smith, titular bishop of Chalcedon († 1655), says: ‘hic solus ex omnibus Angliae regibus Diadema et inaugurationem sumpsit a Romano Pontifice, ut agnoscunt Protestantes,’ in Wise’s Asser, p. 109. I do not know whether modern Roman controversialists derive any satisfaction from the same reflexion. If so, it would be a pity to deprive them of it.
[348] Birch, No. 493; K. C. D. No. 1057.
[349] Chron. ii. 82. So the Charter, Birch, No. 467; K. C. D. No. 269; though the Indiction is wrong, and Stubbs gives the date as 853, Const. Hist. i. 142.
[350] Ebert, ii. 111; Weber, Weltgesch. v. 331, 432.
[351] John xi. 49-52.
[352] Chron.; Asser, sub anno.
[353] Prudentius Trecensis, Pertz, i. 433.
[354] Birch, No. 486; K. C. D. No. 276.