[228] Cf. Gewoldus, De Septemviratu imperii Romani. One would expect some ingenious allegorizer to have discovered that the crown of Burgundy must be, and therefore is, of copper or bronze, making the series complete, like the four ages of men in Hesiod. But I have not been able to find any such.
[229] Hence the numbers attached to the names of the Emperors are often different in German and Italian writers, the latter not reckoning Henry the Fowler nor Conrad I. So Henry III (of Germany) calls himself 'Imperator Henricus Secundus;' and all distinguish the years of their regnum from those of the imperium. Cardinal Baronius will not call Henry V anything but Henry III, not recognizing Henry IV's coronation, because it was performed by an antipope.
[230] Life of S. Adalbert (written at Rome early in the eleventh century, probably by a brother of the monastery of SS. Boniface and Alexius) in Pertz, M. G. H. iv.
[231] Given by Glaber Rudolphus. It is on the face of it a most impudent forgery: 'Ne quisquam audacter Romani Imperii sceptrum præpostere gestare princeps appetat neve Imperator dici aut esse valeat nisi quem Papa Romanus morum probitate aptum elegerit, eique commiserit insigne imperiale.'
[232] Universal and undisputed in the West, which, for practical purposes, meant the world. The denial of the supreme jurisdiction of Peter's chair by the eastern churches affected very slightly the belief of Latin Christendom, just as the existence of a rival emperor at Constantinople with at least as good a legal title as the Teutonic Cæsar, was readily forgotten or ignored by the German and Italian subjects of the latter.
[233] Odious especially for the inscription,—
'Rex venit ante fores nullo prius urbis honore;
Post homo fit Papæ, sumit quo dante coronam.'—Radewic.
[234] Mediæval history is full of instances of the superstitious veneration attached to the rite of coronation (made by the Church almost a sacrament), and to the special places where, or even utensils with which it was performed. Everyone knows the importance in France of Rheims and its sacred ampulla; so the Scottish king must be crowned at Scone, an old seat of Pictish royalty—Robert Bruce risked a great deal to receive his crown there; so no Hungarian coronation was valid unless made with the crown of St. Stephen; the possession whereof is still accounted so valuable by the Austrian court.
Great importance seems to have been attached to the imperial globe (Reichsapfel) which the Pope delivered to the Emperor at his coronation.