• Revelation 17:12, 13:⁠— “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings,⁠ ⁠… and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” ↩
• Gower, Confessio Amantis , Prologus:⁠— “The patrimonie and the richesse Which to Silvester in pure almesse The firste Constantinus lefte.” Upon this supposed donation of immense domains by Constantine to the Pope, called the “Patrimony of St. Peter,” Milman, History of Latin Christianity , Book I ch. 2, remarks:⁠— “Silvester has become a kind of hero of religious fable. But it was not so much the genuine mythical spirit which unconsciously transmutes history into legend; it was rather deliberate invention, with a specific aim and design, which, in direct defiance of history, accelerated the baptism of Constantine, and sanctified a porphyry vessel as appropriated to, or connected with, that holy use: and at a later period produced the monstrous fable of the Donation. “But that with which Constantine actually did invest the Church, the right of holding landed property, and receiving it by bequest, was far more valuable to the Christian hierarchy, and not least to the Bishop of Rome, than a premature and prodigal endowment.” ↩