The Romans adopted the custom from Greece, where leafy honours were bestowed on victors at public games.

This coronation of poets, it is said, ceased under the reign of the Emperor Theodosius.

After his death, during the long subsequent barbarism of Europe, when literature produced only rhyming monks, and when there were no more poets to crown, the discontinuance of the practice was a natural consequence.
At the commencement of the thirteenth century, according to the Abbe Resnel, the universities of Europe began to dispense laurels, not to poets, but to students distinguished by their learning.

The doctors in medicine, at the famous university of Salerno, established by the Emperor Frederic II., had crowns of laurel put upon their heads.

The bachelors also had their laurels, and derived their name from a baculus, or stick, which they carried.
Cardinal Colonna, as we have said, advised him, "_nothing loth_," to enjoy his coronation at Rome.