A CHURCH TRIUMPHANT 71By this same period Toledo had secured for itself a monopoly on
the right to perform the ecclesiastical consecration of the kings and
added an ecclesiastical dimension to what had probably previously
been a purely secular ceremony. This took the form of royal anoint-
ing or unction. Bishop Julian (680-690) made it clear that the per-
formance of the ceremony in Toledo marked the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate initiation into rule.^28 At a time when a king
such as Wamba (672-680) might be challenged by a rival and both
claim to be anointed monarchs, such a further distinction was clearly
important. The Toledan church developed a royal liturgy that pro-
vided sophisticated ecclesiastical ritual not only for such events as
royal consecration but also for the initiating and concluding of mili-
tary expeditions and also for the way by which, through the formal
adoption of the penitential state, a king should end his reign.^29
Toledo may not have been the permanent royal residence and
centre of government, but its church made sure that it was the heart
of the kingdom, where all major undertakings had to be seen to
begin and end. In such ways and through its position as the only
place where councils of the whole Church of the kingdom might be
held, Toledo acquired a unique and apparently unchallenged pre-
eminence and prestige, which even survived the Arab conquest and
the ensuing decline in the secular importance of the city.
There are no exact parallels to the position achieved by the Toledan
Church to be found in other parts of western Europe. Rome is a
special case, and even its authority inside Italy did not always go
unchallenged. No Frankish archbishopric ever secured preeminence,
although individual bishops such as Hincmar of Reims (845-882)
might. The nearest comparison may be with Canterbury, but even its
authority continued to be disputed by York on into the twelfth cen-
tury, and there were only the two ecclesiastical provinces in England.
On the other hand, Toledo's rise in the sixth and seventh centuries
was unchallenged and its lead, in terms of definition of doctrine and
attempts to impose uniformity of practice, especially liturgical, was
accepted without recorded demur.
Toledo was not an ancient city. Its ecclesiastical past was obscure
and its patron saint, Leocadia, less widely venerated in the peninsula
than St Eulalia of Mhida.^30 The peculiar achievements of the Toledan
church in the seventh century must be linked firmly to the special
relationship of the city with the Visigothic monarchy, and the strong
degree, as clearly evinced in most of the councils, of ecclesiastical