Note 010
It was confined to the successors of
Charlemagne, and to them only on Christmas-day. On all other
festivals these Imperial deacons were content to serve the
pope, as he said mass, with the book and the corporal. Yet
the abbé de Sade generously thinks that the merits of
Charles IV. might have entitled him, though not on the
proper day, (A.D. 1368, November 1,) to the whole privilege.
He seems to affix a just value on the privilege and the man,
(Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.)
The History Of The Decline And
Fall Of The Roman Empire
—Fall In The East
—Chapter 66