[W/K] :: The Golden Bull

  Bull \Bull\, n. [OE. bulle, fr. L. bulla bubble, stud, knob,
     LL., a seal or stamp: cf. F. bulle. Cf. Bull a writing,
     Bowl a ball, Boil, v. i.]
     1. A seal. See Bulla.
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     2. A letter, edict, or respect, of the pope, written in
        Gothic characters on rough parchment, sealed with a bulla,
        and dated "a die Incarnationis," i. e., "from the day of
        the Incarnation." See Apostolical brief, under Brief.
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              A fresh bull of Leo's had declared how inflexible
              the court of Rome was in the point of abuses.
                                                    --Atterbury.
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     3. A grotesque blunder in language; an apparent congruity,
        but real incongruity, of ideas, contained in a form of
        expression; so called, perhaps, from the apparent
        incongruity between the dictatorial nature of the pope's
        bulls and his professions of humility.
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              And whereas the papist boasts himself to be a Roman
              Catholic, it is a mere contradiction, one of the
              pope's bulls, as if he should say universal
              particular; a Catholic schimatic.     --Milton.
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     The Golden Bull, an edict or imperial constitution made by
        the emperor Charles IV. (1356), containing what became the
        fundamental law of the German empire; -- so called from
        its golden seal.
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     Syn: See Blunder.
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