Debet apostolicis manibus reverenter inungi.'
By the crowning at Aachen, the old Frankish capital, the monarch became 'king;' formerly 'king of the Franks,' or, 'king of the Eastern Franks;' now, since Henry II's time, 'king of the Romans, always Augustus.' At Monza, (or, more rarely, at Milan) in later times, at Pavia in earlier times, he became king of Italy, or of the Lombards[224]; at Rome he received the double crown of the Roman Empire, 'double,' says Godfrey, as 'urbis et orbis:'—
'Hoc quicunque tenet, summus in orbe sedet;'
though others hold that, uniting the mitre to the crown, it typifies spiritual as well as secular authority. The crown of Burgundy[225] or the kingdom of Arles, first gained by Conrad II, was a much less splendid matter, and carried with it little effective power. Most Emperors never assumed it at all, Frederick I not till late in life, when an interval of leisure left him nothing better to do. These four crowns[226] furnish matter of endless discussion to the old writers; they tell us that the Roman was golden, the German silver, the Italian iron, the metal corresponding to the dignity of each realm[227]. Others say that that of Aachen is iron, and the Italian silver, and give elaborate reasons why it should be so[228]. There seems to be no doubt that the allegory created the fact, and that all three crowns were of gold, though in that of Italy there was and is inserted a piece of iron, a nail, it was believed, of the true Cross.
Meaning of the four coronations.
Why, it may well be asked, seeing that the Roman crown made the Emperor ruler of the whole habitable globe, was it thought necessary for him to add to it minor dignities which might be supposed to have been already included in it? The reason seems to be that the imperial office was conceived of as something different in kind from the regal, and as carrying with it not the immediate government of any particular kingdom, but a general suzerainty over and right of controlling all. Of this a pertinent illustration is afforded by an anecdote told of Frederick Barbarossa. Happening once to inquire of the famous jurists who surrounded him whether it was really true that he was 'lord of the world,' one of them simply assented, another, Bulgarus, answered, 'Not as respects ownership.' In this dictum, which is evidently conformable to the philosophical theory of the Empire, we have a pointed distinction drawn between feudal sovereignty, which supposes the prince original owner of the soil of his whole kingdom, and imperial sovereignty, which is irrespective of place, and exercised not over things but over men, as God's rational creatures. But the Emperor, as has been said already, was also the East Frankish king, uniting in himself, to use the legal phrase, two wholly distinct 'persons,' and hence he might acquire more direct and practically useful rights over a portion of his dominions by being crowned king of that portion, just as a feudal monarch was often duke or count of lordships whereof he was already feudal superior; or, to take a better illustration, just as a bishop may hold livings in his own diocese. That the Emperors, while continuing to be crowned at Milan and Aachen, did not call themselves kings of the Lombards and of the Franks, was probably merely because these titles seemed insignificant compared to that of Roman Emperor.
'Emperor' not assumed till the Roman coronation.
In this supreme title, as has been said, all lesser honours were blent and lost, but custom or prejudice forbade the German king to assume it till actually crowned at Rome by the Pope[229]. Matters of phrase and title are never unimportant, least of all in an age ignorant and superstitiously antiquarian: and this restriction had the most important consequences. The first barbarian kings had been tribe-chiefs; and when they claimed a dominion which was universal, yet in a sense territorial, they could not separate their title from the spot which it was their boast to possess, and by virtue of whose name they ruled. 'Rome,' says the biographer of St. Adalbert, 'seeing that she both is and is called the head of the world and the mistress of cities, is alone able to give to kings imperial power, and since she cherishes in her bosom the body of the Prince of the Apostles, she ought of right to appoint the Prince of the whole earth[230].' The crown was therefore too sacred to be conferred by any one but the supreme Pontiff, or in any city less august than the ancient capital. Origin and results of this practice. Had it become hereditary in any family, Lothar I's, for instance, or Otto's, this feeling might have worn off; as it was, each successive transfer, to Guido, to Otto, to Henry II, to Conrad the Salic, strengthened it. The force of custom, tradition, precedent, is incalculable when checked neither by written rules nor free discussion. What sheer assertion will do is shewn by the success of a forgery so gross as the Isidorian decretals. No arguments are needed to discredit the alleged decree of Pope Benedict VIII[231], which prohibited the German prince from taking the name or office of Emperor till approved and consecrated by the pontiff, but a doctrine so favourable to papal pretensions was sure not to want advocacy; Hadrian IV proclaims it in the broadest terms, and through the efforts of the clergy and the spell of reverence in the Teutonic princes, it passed into an unquestioned belief. That none ventured to use the title till the Pope conferred it, made it seem in some manner to depend on his will, enabled him to exact conditions from every candidate, and gave a colour to his pretended suzerainty. Since by feudal theory every honour and estate is held from some superior, and since the divine commission has been without doubt issued directly to the Pope, must not the whole earth be his fief, and he the lord paramount, to whom even the Emperor is a vassal? This argument, which derived considerable plausibility from the rivalry between the Emperor and other monarchs, as compared with the universal and undisputed[232] authority of the Pope, was a favourite with the high sacerdotal party: first distinctly advanced by Hadrian IV, when he set up the picture[233] representing Lothar's homage, which had so irritated the followers of Barbarossa, though it had already been hinted at in Gregory VII's gift of the crown to Rudolf of Suabia, with the line,—
'Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolfo.'
Nor was it only by putting him at the pontiff's mercy that this dependence of the imperial name on a coronation in the city injured the German sovereign[234]. With strange inconsistency it was not pretended that the Emperor's rights were any narrower before he received the rite: he could summon synods, confirm papal elections, exercise jurisdiction over the citizens: his claim of the crown itself could not, at least till the times of the Gregorys and the Innocents, be positively denied. For no one thought of contesting the right of the German nation to the Empire, or the authority of the electoral princes, strangers though they were, to give Rome and Italy a master. The republican followers of Arnold of Brescia might murmur, but they could not dispute the truth of the proud lines in which the poet who sang the glories of Barbarossa[235], describes the result of the conquest of Charles the Great:—