Being in a peculiar sense the church of the patron saint and protector of the Milanese people, the basilica held from the first a very prominent place in the life of the Ambrosian city. Here the Primates gathered their suffragans to those synods and provincial councils, in which in the days of ecclesiastical rule the affairs of North Italy were decided. The foundation of a monastery of the powerful Benedictine Order in connection with the church, in 783, added to its importance. The archbishops of the reviving See of Milan, in the ninth century, restored it and bestowed upon it the utmost honour and reverence, endowing it with great riches. Here Otho the Great was crowned King of Italy by Archbishop Walperto in 961, and from that time, whenever a coronation took place in Milan, it was performed in St. Ambrogio. Perhaps the curious privilege which the city enjoyed, of keeping all sovereigns excluded from its precincts, was the reason why the Cathedral church was never chosen for the ceremony. In 1186, Frederick Barbarossa was present here when with immense splendour Henry of Suabia wedded Constance of Sicily, the Constance who is moon-arrested in Dante’s _Paradise_, because of her supposed inconstancy to monastic vows, though the old tale of her being dragged from a convent to marry the Emperor’s son has been proved a fable. During the factious age of liberty St. Ambrogio was the church in which the popular party gathered, to seek the sanction and protection of the patron saint and to discuss their affairs, being shut out from the Duomo by the Archbishop and the aristocratic party. Here the short-lived reconciliation of 1258, called the _Pace di St. Ambrogio_, was completed and sworn to before the Altar with great solemnity by the representatives of both factions. In St. Ambrogio Henry of Luxemburg, the looked-for peacemaker, was crowned in 1311, with his consort, Margaret of Brabant, in the presence of all the great nobles of Italy and characters conspicuous in the history of the time. A strange and somewhat ominous circumstance of this occasion was that the crown always used for the coronation of the Kings of Italy—which had become, though only shortly before this time, known as the Iron Crown—was missing. With the rest of the treasure of the Cathedral of Monza—where it was kept then, as to-day—it had been pawned by the Torriani.[8] So a new iron crown, in the form of a laurel wreath, was forged to encircle the brow of Henry VII. The newly anointed monarch created two hundred knights in the church, the first upon whom he laid his sword being Matteo Visconte. From this time the ceremony of knighting was customarily performed in St. Ambrogio, and later on those who received the dignity there were called the Knights of St. Ambrogio. Footnote 8: The treasure was recovered later from Avignon by Matteo Visconte.