page_title: Imperial Regalia
section_title: Ceremonial decoration
hierarchical_section_title: Imperial Regalia / History / Ceremonial decoration
context_page_description: The Imperial Regalia, also Imperial Insignia, are regalia of the Holy Roman Emperor. The most important parts are the Imperial Crown, the Imperial orb, the Imperial sceptre, the Holy Lance and the Imperial Sword. Today they are kept at the Imperial Treasury in the Hofburg palace in Vienna, Austria.
  The Imperial Regalia are the only completely preserved regalia from the Middle Ages.
  During the late Middle Ages, the word Imperial Regalia had many variations in the Latin language. The regalia were named in Latin: insignia imperialia, regalia insignia, insignia imperalis capellae quae regalia dicuntur and other similar words.
context_section_description: Since the Age of Enlightenment at least, the imperial regalia had no constitutive or confirming character for the imperial function any more. It served merely as an adornment for the coronation of the emperors, who all belonged to the House of Habsburg and since the early 16th century had ceased to be crowned by the pope. 
  Johann Wolfgang Goethe on 3 April 1764, was an eyewitness in Frankfurt during the coronation of the 18-year-old Joseph, Duke of Lorraine to King in Germany. He wrote dismissively about the event in his autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit (English: From my Life: Poetry and Truth):
  The young king, on the contrary, in his monstrous articles of dress, with the crown-jewels of Charlemagne, dragged himself along as if he had been in a disguise; so that he himself, looking at his father from time to time, could not refrain from laughing. The crown, which it had been necessary to line a great deal, stood out from his head like an overhanging roof. The dalmatica, the stole, well as they had been fitted and taken in by sewing, presented by no means an advantageous appearance. The sceptre and imperial orb excited some admiration; but one would, for the sake of a more princely effect, rather have seen a strong form, suited to the dress, invested and adorned with it.
  — J. W. Goethe, Truth and Fiction, Book V
caption: The last Emperor Francis II, dressed with the Imperial Insignia of the Holy Roman Empire.
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