“Partying Leicester City fans filled a hospital emergency department to bursting point, forcing bosses to urge people to stay away,” the Mirror online reported at the weekend. “Most were treated for minor injuries or alcohol related incidents.” The Pope had an unexpected part in the celebrations. According to Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph, a reporter asked Claudio Ranieri, the manager of the team that won the Premier League against all odds, “if he had heard anything from Pope Francis. ‘Has the Vatican been in touch, Claudio?’ ‘Who?’ ‘The Pope.’ ‘No, not yet. You must be more crazy than I am.’ ”

Leicester’s triumph had been a welcome interlude in the relentless campaigning for Britain’s referendum on EU membership, to be held on 23 June, the eve of St John’s Day, traditionally the Midsummer Night that gave its name to Shakespeare’s play of error and enchantment. The Pope, meanwhile, had celebrations of his own, though they did not end in a visit to A&E.

He had won the Charlemagne Prize “for his work on behalf of European solidarity”, The Guardian reported. The prize, had “traditionally been presented in the German city of Aachen”, the paper noted, “but Francis accepted his award at a ceremony in Rome”. That, as it happened, is what Charlemagne settled for when he left Aachen to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in Rome on Christmas Day AD 800.