When, however, we turn to the history of the Western rite, we approach a very much more intricate matter, for the contemporary western documents give only general accounts and are not explicit as to details. In the old Empire the coronation of the Emperor took place always at Constantinople and never at Rome, and therefore the old rite was essentially Eastern. When, however, the Neo-Roman Western Empire came into existence, and Charlemagne was crowned at Rome on Christmas day 800, there came into existence a Western Imperial rite. There is no record of the forms used, nor do we even know for certain what took place on that occasion, but we may perhaps presume that the Pope intended to do what was proper on the occasion of the accession of an emperor, and followed the Constantinopolitan ritual in outline, while it seems probable that the actual prayers used were Roman compositions made for the occasion. Here, at any rate, in the coronation of Charlemagne we have the beginnings of the Roman Imperial rite. But if the coronation of Charlemagne marks the origin of the Western imperial rite, it does not mark the introduction into the West of the rite of the consecration of a king, for such a rite had already been in existence in Spain some two centuries before this time. Whether this Spanish rite, which appears to have been well established in the seventh century, was an independent religious developement of the ceremonies which seem to have been observed at the inauguration of a new chieftain among most of the northern peoples, or whether the idea of it was in any way borrowed from Constantinople, there is not sufficient evidence to show. The Spanish rite was, as has been said, well established in the seventh century. In the canons of the sixth council of Toledo in 638 a reference is made to the oath taken by a Spanish monarch. Julian Bishop of Toledo in his _Historia Wambae_[30] gives a short description of the anointing of King Wamba, at which he himself was present in 672, and in his account speaks of the customs observed on such occasions. It is then abundantly clear that a consecration ceremony was observed at the accession of the kings of Spain some two centuries before the rite of the coronation was introduced at Rome.