Note 163 — Chapter IX · SAXON AND FRANCONIAN EMPERORS.

Basileus was a favourite title of the English kings before the Conquest. Titles like this used in these early English charters prove, it need hardly be said, absolutely nothing as to the real existence of any rights or powers of the English king beyond his own borders. What they do prove (over and above the taste for florid rhetoric in the royal clerks) is the impression produced by the imperial style, and by the idea of the emperor's throne as supported by the thrones of kings and other lesser potentates.