tary in his family.

[Illustration: Fig. 385.--Herald (Fourteenth Century).--From a Miniature
in the "Chroniques de Saint-Denis" (Imperial Library of Paris).]

Nevertheless the question of ceremonial, and especially that of
precedence, had already more than once occupied the attention of
sovereigns, not only within their own states, but also in relation to
diplomatic matters. The meetings of councils, at which the ambassadors of
all the Christian Powers, with the delegates of the Catholic Church, were
assembled, did not fail to bring this subject up for decision. Pope
Julius II. in 1504 instructed Pierre de Crassis, his Master of the
Ceremonies, to publish a decree, determining the rank to be taken by the
various sovereigns of Europe or by their representatives; but we should
add that this Papal decree never received the sanction of the parties
interested, and that the question of precedence, even at the most
unimportant public ceremonies, was during the whole of the Middle Ages a
perpetual source of litigation in courts of law, and of quarrels which too
often ended in bloodshed.

It is right that we should place at the head of political ceremonies those
having reference to the coronation of sovereigns, which were not only
political, but owed their supreme importance and dignity to the necessary
intervention of ecclesiastical authority. We will therefore first speak of
the consecration and coronation of the kings of France.

Pepin le Bref, son of Charles Martel and founder of the second dynasty,
was the first of the French kings who was consecrated by the religions
rite of anointing. But its mode of administration for a long period
underwent numerous changes, before becoming established by a definite law.
Thus Pepin, after having been first consecrated in 752 in the Cathedral of
Boissons, by the Archbishop of Mayence, was again consecrated with his two
sons Charlemagne and Carloman, in 753, in the Abbey of St. Denis, by Pope
Stephen III. Charlemagne was twice anointed by the Sovereign Pontiff,
first as King of Lombardy, and then as Emperor. Louis le Debonnaire, his
immediate successor, was consecrated at Rheims by Pope Stephen IV. in 816.
In 877 Louis le Begue received unction and the sceptre, at Compiegne, at
the hands of the Archbishop of Rheims. Charles le Simple in 893, and
Robert I. in 922, were consecrated and crowned at Rheims; but the
coronation of Raoul, in 923, was celebrated in the Abbey of St. Medard de
S