Appendix, I.: Titles of Emperors.

Charles the Great styled himself ‘Carolus serenissimus Augustus, a Deo coronatus, magnus et pacificus imperator, Romanum (or Romanorum) gubernans imperium, qui et per misericordiam Dei rex Francorum et Langobardorum.’

Subsequent Carolingian Emperors were usually entitled simply ‘Imperator Augustus.’ Sometimes ‘rex Francorum et Langobardorum’ was added.

Conrad I and Henry I (the Fowler) were only German kings.

A Saxon Emperor was, before his coronation at Rome, ‘rex’ or ‘rex Francorum Orientalium,’ or ‘Francorum atque Saxonum rex’; after it simply ‘Imperator Augustus.’ Otto III is usually said to have introduced the form ‘Romanorum Imperator Augustus,’ but some authorities state that it occurs in documents of the time of Lewis I.

Henry II and his successors, not daring to take the title of Emperor till crowned at Rome (in conformity with the superstitious notion which had begun with Charles the Bald), but anxious to claim the sovereignty of Rome as indissolubly attached to the German crown, began to call themselves ‘reges Romanorum.’ The title did not, however, become common or regular till the time of Henry IV, in whose proclamations (issued before his Roman coronation) it occurs constantly.

From the eleventh century till the sixteenth, the invariable practice was for the monarch to be called ‘Romanorum rex semper Augustus’ till his coronation at Rome by the Pope; after it, ‘Romanorum Imperator semper Augustus.’

In ad 1508, Maximilian I, being refused a passage to Rome by the Venetians, obtained a bull from Pope Julius II permitting him to call himself ‘Imperator electus’ (erwählter Kaiser). This title Ferdinand I (brother of Charles V) and all succeeding Emperors took immediately upon their German coronation, and it was till ad 1806 their strict legal designation, and was always employed by them in proclamations or other official documents. The term ‘elect’ was however omitted even in formal documents when the sovereign was addressed, or spoken of in the third person; and in ordinary practice he was simply ‘Roman Emperor.’

Maximilian added the title ‘Germaniae rex,’ which had never been known before, although the phrase ‘rex Germanorum’ may be found employed once or twice in early times. ‘Rex Teutonicorum,’ ‘regnum Teutonicum,’ occur often in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Henry VI took the title of Rex Siciliae. A great many titles of less consequence were added from time to time. Charles the Fifth had seventy-five, not, of course, as Emperor, but in virtue of his vast hereditary possessions.

It is perhaps worth remarking that the word ‘Emperor’ has not at all the same meaning now that it had even so lately as two centuries ago. Since a new use began with Napoleon, it has tended to become a title of no special significance, somewhat more pompous than that of King, and supposed to belong especially to despots. It is given to Eastern princes, like those of China, Japan, and Abyssinia, in default of a better name. It was for a time peculiarly affected by new dynasties; and grew so fashionable, that what with Emperors of Brazil, of Hayti, and of Mexico (countries that have now become republics), the good old title of King seemed in a fair way to become obsolete. But in former times there was, and could be, but one Emperor; he was always mentioned with a certain reverence: his name summoned up a host of thoughts and associations, which moderns do not comprehend or sympathize with. His office, unlike that of modern Emperors, was by its very nature elective and not hereditary; and, so far from resting on conquest or the will of the people, rested on and represented pure legality. War could give him nothing which law had not given him already: the people had delegated all their power to him long ago, and he was now the viceroy of God.