It is at the second stage of the rite where the interaction of the two groups of rites is most clear and evident. In the tenth century the second recensions of the English and French rite not only shew considerable developements and a much more fixed and definite form, but they are almost identical, and the French order bears certain marks of English influence. Whence did this elaboration come? In the first place the English and French rites can be taken together from this time forward. Recension by recension they have been subjected to much the same influences and are very close to each other. This was only natural considering the closeness of the communications between England and France. Between the Saxon royal families and the Court of Rome there was considerable intercommunication, and on several occasions we hear of Saxon princes going to Rome. Of Alfred we are told that he was invested by the Pope at Rome with the insignia of a Roman consul, an investiture which the Saxons seem to have mistaken for a coronation rite; and we are also told that the insignia were preserved henceforth among the royal ornaments. Of the Roman rite at this time we have no forms, in fact nothing between the simple forms of the first imperial recension and of the Milanese order and the elaborate order of Hittorp of the tenth or eleventh centuries. Yet whereas in the former of these there were investitures of Sword and Crown only, in the latter the king is invested with Sword, Ring, Verge, and Crown, and the unction is elaborate, being made on head, breast, shoulders, bends of arms, and hands. It is clear that influences have been at work in the intervening period. We know that France had great influence on the Liturgical books of Rome in the ninth and tenth centuries, and it would seem that here is yet another instance of this influence, and that the elaborations in the Roman rite were at some time adopted from France and at Rome reduced into order and fixity. Doubtless at Rome even the rite underwent some developement, but it is noticeable that after the time of the rite of Hittorp’s order the rite at Rome returned to something of its earlier simplicity and drops out many of the elaborations which we find in Hittorp’s order. Thus we may perhaps presuppose an intermediate order at Rome similar to Hittorp’s order. In the case of Edgar of England, the English writers made much of his coronation in the year 973. It was an occasion which called for special pomp and circumstance, and much stress is laid on the magnificence of the whole ceremony. It is likely that this is the occasion for which the second recension was composed, and the natural source of this developement and revision would seem to be a Roman order similar in character to that of Hittorp. This rite of the second English recension was adopted almost word for word in France in the order of Ratold.