ABSTRACT
The line of descent was particularly clear in Anglo-Saxon England, which towards the first half of the ninth century was still divided into five or six kingdoms; genuine heirs—although their number was much smaller—of the states founded not so long before by the invaders. The kingdom of Italy, the successor of the former Lombard state, covered the north and centre of the peninsula with the exception of the Byzantine Venice, and for nearly a century it had a very stormy history. The Roman emperors had also worn the halo of divinity, and from this double heritage, but especially from the Germanic element, the kingships of the feudal age derived their sacred character. Christianity had sanctioned it, while borrowing from the Bible an old Hebraic or Syriac accession rite. The logical conclusion would doubtless have been the exercise of authority in common by all the sons of the dead king, or the division of the realm among them.
