Ever since Hildebrand had claimed for the priesthood exclusive sanctity and supreme jurisdiction, the papal party had not ceased to speak of the civil power as being, compared with that of their own chief, merely secular, earthly, profane. It may be conjectured that to meet this reproach, no less injurious than insulting, Frederick or his advisers began to use in public documents the expression 'Holy Empire;' thereby wishing to assert the divine institution and religious duties of the office he held. Previous Emperors had called themselves 'Catholici,' 'Christiani,' 'ecclesiæ defensores[244];' now their State itself is consecrated an earthly theocracy. 'Deus Romanum imperium adversus schisma ecclesiæ præparavit[245],' writes Frederick to the English Henry II. The theory was one which the best and greatest Emperors, Charles, Otto the Great, Henry III, had most striven to carry out; it continued to be zealously upheld when it had long ceased to be practicable. In the proclamations of mediæval kings there is a constant dwelling on their Divine commission. Power in an age of violence sought to justify while it enforced its commands, to make brute force less brutal by appeals to a higher sanction. This is seen nowhere more than in the style of the German sovereigns: they delight in the phrases 'maiestas sacrosancta[246],' 'imperator divina ordinante providentia,' 'divina pietate,' 'per misericordiam Dei;' many of which were preserved till, like those used now by other European kings, like our own 'Defender of the Faith,' they had become at last more grotesque than solemn. The Emperor Joseph II, at the end of the eighteenth century, was 'Advocate of the Christian Church,' 'Vicar of Christ,' 'Imperial head of the faithful,' 'Leader of the Christian army,' 'Protector of Palestine, of general councils, of the Catholic faith[247].' The title, if it added little to the power, yet certainly seems to have increased the dignity of the Empire, and by consequence the jealousy of other states, of France especially. This did not, however, go so far as to prevent its recognition by the Pope and the French king[248], and after the sixteenth century it would have been a breach of diplomatic courtesy to omit it. Nor have imitators been wanting[249]: witness such titles as 'Most Christian king,' 'Catholic king,' 'Defender of the Faith[250].' FOOTNOTES: [201] 'Pruzzi,' says the biographer of St. Adalbert, 'quorum Deus est venter et avaritia iuncta cum morte.'--_M. G. H._ t. iv. It is curious that this non-Teutonic people should have given their name to the great German kingdom of the present.