(E. Br.)
[1] Bryce points out, with much subtlety and truth, that the rise of a second Rome in the East not only helped to perpetuate the Empire by providing a new centre which would take the place of Rome when Rome fell, but also tended to make it more universal; “for, having lost its local centre, it subsisted no longer by historic right only, but, so to speak, naturally, as a part of an order of things which a change in external conditions seemed incapable of disturbing” (Holy Roman Empire, p. 8 of the edition of 1904).
[2] The de facto importance of the event of 476 can only be seen in the light of later events, and it was not therefore noticed by contemporaries. Marcellinus is the only contemporary who remarks on its importance, cf. Marcellini Chronicon (Mon. Germ. Hist., Chronica minora. ii. 91), Hesperium Romanae gentis imperium ... cum hoc Augustulo periit ... Gothorum dehinc regibus Romam tenentibus.
[3] A passage in Malchus, a Byzantine historian (quoted by Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, p. 25, note u, in the edition of 1904), expresses this truth exactly. The envoys sent to Zeno by Odoacer urge ὡς ἰδίας μὲν αὐτοῖς βασιλείας οὐ δέοι κοινὸς δὲ ἀποχρήσει μόνος ὤν αὐτοκράτωρ ἐπ᾽ ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς πέρασι. The envoys then suggest the name of Odoacer, as one able to manage their affairs, and ask Zeno to give him, as an officer of the Empire, the title of Patricius and the administration of Italy.
[4] According to the view here followed, the Church was the ark in which the conception of Empire was saved during the dark ages between 600 and 800. Some influence should perhaps also be assigned to Roman law, which continued to be administered during these centuries, especially in the towns, and maintained the imperial tradition. But the influence of the Church is the essential fact.
[5] In the 5th century the title patricius came to attach particularly to the head of the Roman army (magister utriusque militiae) to men like Aetius and Ricimer, who made and unmade emperors (cf. Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, iv. 537, 545 sqq.). Later it had been borne by the Greek exarchs of Ravenna. The concession to Pippin of this great title makes him military head of the Western empire, in the sense in which the title was used in the 5th century; it makes him representative of the Empire for Italy, in the sense in which it had been used of the exarchs.
[6] See the famous bull Venerabilem (Corp. Jur. Canon. Decr. Greg. i. 6, c. 34).
[7] Even on this view, an imperial coronation at the hands of the pope was necessary to complete the title; but this was regarded by the Germans (though not by the pope) as a form which necessarily followed.
[8] It is a curious fact that imperial titles (imperator and basileus) are used in the Anglo-Saxon diplomata of the 10th century. Edred, for instance (946-955) is “imperator,” “cyning and casere totius Britanniae,” “basileus Anglorum hujusque insulae barbarorum”: Edgar is “totius Albionis imperator Augustus” (cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. c. vii. § 71). These titles partly show the turgidity of English Latinity in the 10th century, partly indicate the quasi-imperial position held by the Wessex kings after the reconquest of the Dane-law. But there seems to be no real ground for Freeman’s view (Norman Conquest, i. 548 sqq.), that England was regarded as a third Empire, side by side with the other Empires of West and East Europe. That the titles were assumed in order to repudiate possible claims of the Western Empire to the overlordship of England is disproved by the fact that they are assumed at a time when there is no Western emperor. The assumption of an imperial style by Henry VIII., which is mentioned below, is explained by the Reformation, and does not mean any recurrence to a forgotten Anglo-Saxon style.