From earliest historical times, with the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Sudanic, reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion, and others, the king held sacral functions directly connected to sacrifice or was considered by their people to have divine ancestry. In Germanic antiquity, kingship was primarily a sacral function. The king was directly hereditary for some tribes, while for others he was elected from among eligible members of royal families by the thing. The role of the Roman emperor as the protector of Christianity led eventually to monarchs ruling 'by the Grace of God' in the Christian Middle Ages, only later in the Early modern period there being a conflation of (increased) power with these sacral aspects held by the Germanic kings bringing forth the notion of the "divine right of kings". The Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period.