In battle the carroccio was surrounded by the bravest warriors in the army and it served both as a rallying-point and as the palladium of the city's honour; its capture by the enemy was regarded as an irretrievable defeat and humiliation.
Three separate capitals must be discriminated Pavia, the seat of the new Lombard kingdom; Ravenna, the garrison city of the Byzantine emperor; and Rome, the rallying point of the old nation, where the successor of St Peter was already beginning to assume that national protectorate which proved so influential in the future.
A huge car drawn by oxen, bearing the standard of the burgh, and carrying an altar with the host, this carroccio, like the ark of the Israelites, formed a rallying point in battle, and reminded the armed artisans that they had a city and a church to fight for.
The blunders of the government were open to a united attack, andMr Chamberlain's tariff-reform movement in 1903 provided a new rallying point in defence of the existing fiscal system.
The royal kraal was again destroyed and Ulundi ceased to be a rallying point.
