Note M. p. . King of England or King of the English?

It is most curious to see how very modern are those territorial titles which, for some centuries past, European Kings have thought good to assume. In Greek we always find a national sovereign described by the national style; it is always Λακεδαιμονίων, Μακεδόνων, even Περσῶν and Μήδων, βασιλεύς. In Livy (xxxi. 14, xxxv. 13) we no doubt read of “Antiochus rex Syriæ” and “Ptolemæus rex Ægypti.” But this is of course, because the kingship of the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ was so utterly unnational that any but a territorial description would have been absurd. In fact it is a description and not a title. As a description of this kind, the words “Rex Franciæ” actually occur as early as the tenth century. (Flodoard, A. 924.) But this is not a formal title; it is merely the annalist’s vague way of describing or pointing at a prince who had as yet no formal title. If one Rudolf is “Rex Franciæ,” in the very same year another Rudolf is “Cisalpinæ rex Galliæ,” which certainly never was the formal title of any man. The truth is that, throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, the various Frankish Kings had no formal title beyond the vague “Rex Francorum,” common to all of them. The Chroniclers had therefore to describe each King as they might, just as the sons of Charles the Great are indifferently called “Rex super Aquitaniam,” or “Italiam,” Ann. Laur. 781 (Pertz, i. 32); “Rex in Aquitania,” Ann. Egin. 781, and “Aquitaniæ Rex” (ib. 813). But when the French Kings adopted a formal title, Rex Francorum Christianissimus was the style down to the end of the line of Valois. Franciæ et Navarræ Rex came in with Henry of Bourbon. When the ancient style was revived in 1791, and again in 1830, many people seem to have thought it a strange innovation.

In both Empires, down to the last days of each, the style is always “Romanorum Imperator,” Ῥωμαίων βασιλεύς. It is only late in the thirteenth century, and when a prince has to be described by his dominions, that we find such a title as the Trapezuntine style πιστὸς βασιλεὺs καὶ αὐτοκράτωρ Ἀνατολής, Ἰβήρων, καὶ Περατείας. (Finlay, Mediæval Greece and Trebizond, 370.) In earlier days Charles the Great was “Patricius Romanorum.”

In England it would seem that Cnut, and Cnut alone before the Norman Conquest, did call himself “King of England.” In the Preface to his Laws (Thorpe, i. 358; Schmid, 250) he is called “Cnut cyningc, ealles Englalandes cyningc, and Dena cyningc and Norðrigena cyningc.” In the letter from Rome in Florence (1031) he calls himself “Rex totius Angliæ et Denemarciæ et Norreganorum et partis Suanorum.” In a doubtful charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 50) he is “Rex totius Angliæ regni atque Danorum;” “Cing ealles Englelandes and ealre Dene.” In two most doubtful charters (Cod. Dipl. iv. 25, 41) he is “Kining of Ænglelande,” and “Rex totius Angliæ et Danmarchiæ et Norwagiæ et magnæ partis Swavorum.” In other charters he is either “Rex Anglorum” (as Florence calls him when speaking in his own person) or else he assumes the Imperial style.

It has been suggested that Cnut took up his territorial style as being a conqueror of the land, not a native monarch of the people. But the above instances show that, though he fluctuates between the two forms, he makes no consistent distinction between his hereditary and his acquired kingdoms. Moreover Cnut, like William, was formally elected King, and he was even less likely than William to assume any title which would be offensive to his English subjects. This makes one inclined to look a little further. In the most authentic documents, Anglia, Englaland, does not occur without a qualification; the words are “totius Angliæ,” “ealles Englalandes.” Is this description so distinctly and unmistakeably territorial as the later forms, “Rex Angliæ,” “King of England”? The totius, the ealles, strikes me as making a difference. It may show that what is meant is, not “King of England” in the later sense, but “King over the whole land of the English,” as distinguished from Cnut’s earlier and narrower dominion while the kingdom was divided between him and Eadmund. But anyhow Cnut stands alone before the Norman Conquest in the use of this style. After the Conquest “Rex Angliæ” begins to creep in, but at first very rarely. William himself is all but invariably “Rex Anglorum.” Richard is the first King who is systematically “Rex Angliæ” in his charters, and even he is “Rex Anglorum” on his seal. And during his reign his mother stuck to the old style “Regina Anglorum.” The final innovation of “Rex Angliæ” on the seal is due to King John. See Allen, p. .

In everything, in short, belonging to our old days it is the people who stand forth and not the mere land. In fact, except in the case of old geographical names like Gaul and Britain, the land can hardly be said to have a being or a name apart from the people. The land is simply called by the name of the people, like Lokroi and Leontinoi in Greek geography, like Franken and Hessen in Germany. So in our Chronicles, in the year 774, we read “gefuhton Myrce and Cantwara,” where Myrce is clearly the people; but in 796 we read “hine læddon on Myrce,” where we must take Myrce for the country. On the use of the name Englaland I shall speak in Note T.

On this modern notion of “territorial sovereignty,” see Maine, Ancient Law, 103. He remarks that “territorial titles were not unknown, but they seem at first to have come into use only as a convenient mode of describing the ruler of a portion; the king of a whole tribe was king of his people, not of his people’s lands.” This is, I suppose, the “rex super Aquitaniam,” and the like.