Certain themes come up again and again in the Proclamations of Emperor Norton. The Emperor’s demand for revised or completely new national and California state Constitutions, for example. Or his insistence on being provided with accommodations or clothing better suited to his status as Emperor.

Most often, when the Emperor returns to an earlier theme, he simply issues a fresh iteration of the imperative that reads as though he is stating it for the first time.

Sometimes, though, he makes a point of referencing his original Proclamation on the subject, as if to say: “I shouldn’t have to repeat myself, but your inaction on the matter leaves me with no other choice.”

In at least one documented case, the Emperor issued a Proclamation on a matter more than a decade after he initially stated his policy on it.

This latter practice suggests that Emperor Norton had a good memory. It also raises interesting questions about what kind of records the Emperor might have kept about his Proclamations and their publication history.

Presented here are three examples, together with a few concluding thoughts on the question of imperial record keeping.