GOLDEN BULL (Latin, B[JLLA AUREA) is, in general, the designation of any charter decorated with a golden seal or bulls, either from the intrinsic importance of its contents, or from the rank and dignity of the bestower or the recipient. The custom of thus giving distinction to certain documents is said to be of Byzantine origin, though if this be the case it is somewhat strange that the word employed as an equivalent for golden bull in Byzantine Greek should be the hybrid xpeo-4/30vXXov (c.f. Codinus Curopalates, /.ayas AoyoKn'is Starcrra Tie Ira pa Toll (3acri.1Eon et7roo-r€XXiiittEya Trpourciyitara Kai xpoo-673ovAXa, zrpOs TE `Pijyug, :S■oirXi-avus, K Tomipxovs. ; and Anna Comnena, Alexiad, lib. iii., &a xpvo-oflovXc'ou X4you ; lib. viii., xpvo-4/3ovXov X4yov). In Germany a Golden Bull is mentioned under the reign of Henry I. in Chronica Cassia., ii. 31, and the oldest German example, if it be genuine, dates from 983. At first the golden seal was formed after the type of a solid coin, but at a later date, while the golden surface presented to the eye was greatly increased, the seal was really composed of two thin metal plates filled in with wax. The biumber of golden bulls issued by the imperial chancery must have been very large ; the town of Frankfort, for example, still preserves no fewer than eight. But the name has become practically restricted to a few documents of nn-usual political importance, the golden bull of the Empire, the golden bull of Brabant, the golden bull of Hungary, and the golden bull of Milan - and of these the first is undoubtedly flee golden bull par excellence.

It was drawn up under the direction of the emperor Charles IV., and it was formally ratified in 1356, - the first twenty-three chapters by the diet of Nuremberg (10th January), and the remaining seven by the diet of Metz (25th December). The actual redaction has been assigned to Bartolus de Saxoferrato, to Rudolf of Friedberg the imperial secretary, and even to the emperor himself ; but there is no distinct authority for any of the three hypotheses as opposed to the others. A. brief statement of the general purpose of its enactments has already been given at page 495 of the present volume. The exordium is a strangely rhetorical lamentation over the miseries of division, and more especially of a kingdom divided against itself ; and the body of the document gives a survey of the duties, privileges, and relations of the various dignitaries of the empire, the emperor, the electors ecclesiastical and secular, the electoral plenipotentiaries, and the officers of the court. As might almost be expected, a large place is given to rules of ceremony and etiquette. At first the document was known simply as the Lex Carolina ; but by and by the name of the Book with the Golden Bull came into use, and the present elliptical title was sufficiently established by 1417 to be officially employed in a charter by King Sigismund. The original autograph was committed to the care of the electoral prince of Mainz, as chancellor-in-chief of the empire, and it was preserved in the imperial archives at Mainz till 1789. Official transcripts were probab:y furnished to each of the seven electors at the time of the pro mulgation, and before long many of the other members of the empire secured copies for themselves. The transcript which belonged to the elector of Treves is preserved in the state archives at Stuttgart, that of the elector of Cologne in the court library at Darmstadt, and that of the elector of Bohemia in the imperial archives at Vienna. Berlin, Munich, and Dresden also boast the possession of an electoral transcript ; and the town of Kitzingen has a contemporary copy in its municipal archives. There appears, however, to be good reason to doubt the genuineness of most of these so-called original transcripts. But perhaps the best known example is that of Frankfort-on-the-Main, which was procured from the imperial chancery in 1366, and is adorned with a golden seal like the original. Not only was it regularly quoted as the indubitable authority in regard to the election of the emperors in Frankfort itself, but it was from time to time officially consulted by members of the empire.

The manuscript consists of 43 leaves of parchment of medium quality, each measuring about 101 inches in height by 74 in breadth. The seal is of the plate and wax type. On the obverse appears a figure of the emperor seated on his throne, with the sceptre in his right hand and the globe in his left; a shield, with the crowned imperial eagle, occupi'es the space on the one side of the throne, and a corresponding shield; with the crowned Bohemian lion with two tails, occupies the space on the other side ; and round the margin runs the legend, Karolies quartets divina faccnte dementia, Romanorum imperator sniper Augustus et Boemice rex. On the reverse is a castle, with the words Aurae. Roma on the gate, and the circumscription reads, Roma caplet Mundt Regit orbis from rotundi. The original Latin text of the bull was printed at Nuremberg by Creussner in 1474, and a second edition by Kobergen appeared at the same place in 1477. Since that time it has been frequently reprinted from various manuscripts and collections. Goldastus gave the Palatine text, compared with those of Bohemia and Frankfort, in his Collectio Constitutionu»i Iniperiabium, tom, i. Another is to be found in Onuphrins Panvinius, De Comitiis Anperii, and as an appendix to Cujacius, De fendis; and a third, of unknown history, is prefixed to the Codex Reccssuum Imperii, printed at Mainz in 1599, and again in 1615. The Frankfort text appeared in 1742 - Aurea Bala secondum exemplar originate FranAfortensc - from the pen of Wolfgang Ch. Multz. German translations, none of which, however, had any official authority, were published at Nuremberg, 1474(7); at Venice, Johannes Jenson, 1476; and at Strasburg, Joh. Preussen, 1485. Among the earlier commentators. of the document are Buxtorf, Duminicus Amnia:us, blartinus Rumelius, 11. Caninius, G. T. Dietrich, Ostermann, Speidelins, and Limmeus (In Altreant bullion, Strasburg, 1662). The student will find a good account of the older literature of the subject in 13iener, Conimentarii de origins et progressu legion Gersnanicarrmn., 1787 (vol. ii.); and, besides the important work of Oldensehlager, Neue Erlduterungen der Goldoni- Biala, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1766, he may consult H. G. Thillemarins, Dc India anrea argottea, kc., Heidelberg, 1682 (which gives the Frankfort text of the bull of Charles IV., a golden bull of Andronicus of Constantinople, the Bulla Brabantina, and the capitulation of Maximilian II.); Piitters, Staatsvcrfassong des deutschen 'Icicles, Gottingen, 1788; Pfister, Gesehichte der Deutschcn, Hamburg, 1831 (vol. iii.); and Stobbe, Geseh. der Delasehen Reehtsquellen, Brunswick, 1860. A learned article on "Goldene Bulk," by II. Brandos, will be found in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopadie, 1861.

GOLDEN-EYE; a name indiscriminately given in many parts of Britain to two very distinct species of Ducks, from the rich yellow colour of their irides. The commonest of them - the Anas fuligula of Linnaeus and Fuligula cristatit of most modern ornithologists - is, however, usually called by English writers the Tufted Duck, while " Golden-eye " is reserved in books for the A. clangula and A. glancion of Linnaeus, who did not know that the birds he so named were but examples of the same species, differing only in age or sex ; and to this day many fowlers perpetuate a like mistake, deeming the " Morillon," which is the female or young male, distinct from the " Golden eye" or " Battle-wings " (as from its noisy flight they oftener call it), which is the adult male. This species belongs to the group known as Diving Ducks, and is the type of the very well-marked genus Clangula of later systematists, which, among other differences, has the posterior end of the sternum prolonged.

so as to extend considerably over, and, we may not unreasonably suppose, protect the belly - a character possessed in a still greater degree by the Mergansers (.1ferg-ina:), while the males also exhibit in the extraordinarily developed bony labyrinth of their trachea and its midway enlargement another resemblance to the members of the same Subfamily. The Golden-eye, C. glauciom of modern writers, has its home in the northern parts of both hemispheres, whence in winter it migrates southward ; but as it is one of the Ducks that constantly resorts to hollow trees for the purpose of breeding it hardly transcends the limit of the Arctic forests on either continent. So well known is this habit tr the people of the northern districts of Scandinavia, that they very commonly devise artificial nest-boxes for its accommodation and their own profit. Hollow logs of wood are prepared, the top and bottom closed, and a hole cut in the side. These are affixed to the trunks of living trees in suitable places, at a convenient distance from the ground, and, being readily occupied by the birds in the breeding-season, are regularly robbed, first of the numerous eggs, and finally of the down they contain, by those who have set them up.

The adult male Golden-eye is a very beautiful bird, mostly black above, but with the head, which is slightly crested, reflecting rich green lights, a large oval white patch under each eye, and elongated white scapulars ; the lower parts are wholly white and the feet bright orange, except the webs, which are dusky. In the female and young male, dark brown replaces the black, the cheek-spots are indistinct, and the elongated white scapulars wanting. The Golden-eye of North America has been by some authors deemed to differ, and has been named C. americana, but apparently on insufficient grounds. That country, however, has, in common with Iceland, a very distinct species, C. islandica, often called Barrow's Dock, which is but a rare straggler to the continent of Europe, and never, so far as known, to Britain. In Iceland and Greenland it is the only hthitnai representative of the genus, and it occurs from thence to the Rocky Mountains. In breeding-habits it differs from the commoner species, not placing its eggs in tree-holes ; but how far this difference is voluntary may be doubted, for in the countries it frequents trees are wanting. It is a larger and stouter bird, and in the male the white cheek-patches take a more crescentic form, while the head is glossed with purple rather than green, and the white scapulars are not elongated. The New World also possesses a third and still more beautiful species of the genus in C. albeola, known in books as the Buffel-headed Duck, and to American fowlers as the " Spirit-Duck " and " Butter-ball" - the former name being applied from its rapidity in diving, and the latter from its exceeding fatness in autumn. This is of small size, but the lustre of the feathers in the male is most brilliant, exhibiting a deep plum-coloured gloss on the head. It breeds in trees, and is supposed to have occurred more than once in Britain. (A. N.)