An Imperial Crown is a crown used for the coronation of emperors.
Design
Crowns in Europe during the medieval period varied in design: During the medieval era the crowns worn by English kings had been described as both closed and open designs. This was in contrast with kings of France who always wore an open crown. However, there is academic debate on how often closed crowns were used in England during this period, as the first unequivocal use of the closed crown was by Henry IV at his coronation on 13 October 1399. However his effigy on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral wears an open crown so the link in England between the style of the crown and its representation as that worn by a king and an emperor was not established. The use of a closed crown may have been adopted by the English as a way of distinguishing the English crown from the French crown, but it also had other meanings to some. For example, Henry V wore a helmet-crown of the arched type at the Battle of Agincourt which the French knight St. Remy commented was "like the imperial crown". The association of the closed crown with imperial crowns was already established in Continental Europe by the late 14th century, for example the florins minted for Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor) sometimes show him with a closed crown. A miniature picture in the Chronica Aulae Regiae written in the great abbey outside Prague depicts his mother Elizabeth, a queen of Bohemia, wearing an open crown, while his two wives, who had imperial titles, have closed ones. During the machinations that surrounded the introduction of the imperial crown under Henry VIII, the closed crown, became associated as a symbolic representation of the English Crown as an imperial crown, and has remained so until this day.
Types of Imperial crowns
Roman Imperial Crowns
Byzantine Imperial Crowns
Imperial Crowns with Mitre
Imperial Crowns with single arch and deployable mitre
Imperial Crowns with single arch and attached mitre
The Silk Imperial Crown of Russia was used as an official coronation gift of the Russian Empire for the coronation of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of the Romanov line. Nicholas II was the first and only monarch to be presented with such a monumental coronation gift. It was not intended as ceremonial regalia, but as private Imperial property - a memento to his coronation event.
