Paul us Afiarta, the evil genius
of the late Pope, who had brought about the ruin of Christophorus and
Sergius, was sent under arrest to Ravenna, where the archbishop Leo, to
Hadrian's indignation, put the unfortunate prisoner to death.
of the late Pope, who had brought about the ruin of Christophorus and
Sergius, was sent under arrest to Ravenna, where the archbishop Leo, to
Hadrian's indignation, put the unfortunate prisoner to death.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
739-754
7 July 751 the exarchate had come to an end and the Greeks were no
longer a power in Italy. The Pope had also lost his Sicilian estates
which afforded his principal revenue. The experience the Papacy had
gained by its connexion with Constantinople was not forgotten, and
moulded its subsequent policy. It became evident that to work out its
destiny it needed alike freedom and protection—freedom to assert its
claims to rule over the conscience of mankind, and protection from the
enemies who encompassed the defenceless city.
Neither of these could the Byzantine government afford. The
Lombards were pressing closer on Rome, and no prospect of aid from
the Emperor was at hand; and in any case it would be too great a
price to yield to his demands in matters theological. The aims of the
Empire and the East were distinct from those of Rome and the West.
In the latter there was practically no great religious difference, and the
priests, secure in their monopoly of learning, were unlikely to disturb
men's minds by explaining the traditional faith or adapting it to the
conditions of the hour. In the more educated East questions of the
utmost moment caused serious divisions among clergy and laity alike;
nor is it without significance that Pope Agatho had to explain to the
Sixth General Council that his delegates were rude and unlettered men
who had to live by the labour of their hands. So far then were the
rough and ignorant clergy even of Rome removed from their brethren of
the East. But, though ignorant of the arts of life, the Roman clergy
haul one distinct advantage over the more cultured ecclesiastics of Con-
stantinople. They had fought a long and stubborn battle with the
barbarian invaders of Italy with no one to come to their aid, and in the
struggle they had developed political instincts denied to the servants of
a political and spiritual despotism. Thus the popes of the eighth century
learned the statecraft with which their successors were to raise the papal
power to its highest pitch. From the birth of Christ there is approxi-
mately as long an interval backwards to Romulus as forwards to the
political severance of Rome from the Empire, and at the latter period
the foundations of a world-governing power were as surely laid as when
the first king built the walls of Rome.
(2) The Lombard invaders of Italy after a long struggle had
succeeded in dispossessing the Empire of all pretence to exercise
sovereignty in Italy. They had made their appearance in the year 568
under Alboin, and though Paul the Deacon testifies to the comparative
mildness of their rule at first, on the death of Alboin it became
intolerable. Two facts are worth bearing in mind, namely that the
Lombards are the first invaders of Italy who settled with no sort of
imperial sanction—Alaric, Odovacar and Theodoric having all had
recognition from the Roman government; and further that under their
occupation the theory of a united Italy was abandoned, never to be
realised till the nineteenth century. There was further a sort of
## p. 693 (#725) ############################################
673-675] Lombard and Roman territory 693
undeveloped feudalism in the Lombard settlement by which the
kingdom was divided into more or less independent dukedoms, some—
like those of Spoleto and Benevento—eventually detaching themselves
completely from the king's authority. After the death of Alboin in 578
there were no less than thirty-six dukes each exercising unrestrained the
power of a petty tyrant. But anarchical as was the condition of affairs
among the Lombards at the close of the sixth century, it was becoming
evident that the Byzantine government was powerless to expel them
from Italy and even that its abandonment of the peninsula was only a
matter of time.
The condition of Byzantine Italy was not altogether dissimilar from
that of the Lombard territory. As at Pavia, the capital of the king, so
at the exarch's seat at Ravenna, the central authority was at times
deplorably weak; and in both cases the "dukes" were practically
independent princes. The duke of Naples for example was as little
amenable to the exarch as the Lombard dukes of Benevento were to
their sovereign. The difficulty was principally one of communication.
The Lombards held the country and the Byzantines the coast, and
unless the road between Rome and Ravenna could be kept open it
was impossible for the exarch to govern, succour, or advise the Pope;
and in one case a pope's enthronement had to be deferred for more than
a year owing to the difficulty in obtaining confirmation of his election.
Hence it was of the utmost importance to keep open the Flaminian
way leading from Rome to Ravenna and the coast, and the possession
of such places as Perugia was vital to the Romans.
The territory occupied in Italy by the Lombards and the exarchate
in Italy respectively, say during the pontificate of Gregory I (590-604),
was approximately as follows. The Byzantines on the east coast held
Istria on the Adriatic, the islands along the coast already known as
Venetia, the marshes around Comacchio and Ferrara, the mouth of
the Po where Ravenna is situated, and inland as far as Bologna.
Practically from Venetia to Ancona the frontiers of the Empire were the
Apennines and the sea. Then came a very debatable territory giving
access by way of Perugia to the Roman duchy. Proceeding south-
ward, Calabria remained imperial till 675, when Brindisi and Tarento
fell into the hands of Romuald, duke of Benevento, and Bruttium
and Sicily were held by the Greeks. On the western coast were two
duchies, Naples and Rome. The Roman duchy was constantly shrinking
owing to the encroachments of the Lombard dukes of Benevento and
Spoleto, the latter having pushed his frontier almost to the N. E. wall
of the city, his boundary being the old Sabine one formed by the Tiber
and the Anio. The rest of Italy was held by the Lombards, the
valley of the Po being more directly under the authority of the king,
whose capital was Pavia, whilst the three great almost independent
duchies were Friuli (Forum Julii), north of Venetia, Spoleto, extending
## p. 694 (#726) ############################################
694 The Conflict unavoidable [593-741
from the Pentapolis to the Roman duchy, and Benevento in the south.
This partition of Italy was practically recognised by the treaty made,
mainly by Pope Gregory I, in 593, but throughout the seventh century the
power of the Lombards increased whilst that of the exarchate diminished.
It is not necessary for our purpose to trace the progress of the Lombard
power till we reach the eighth century when the popes came into sharper
conflict with it than they had done since the days of Gregory I.
In the century which intervened between the death of Gregory I and
the accession of Gregory II the Lombards had been transformed from
Arian heretics into devout Catholics, so that the religious difficulty
, which parted Roman from Lombard had disappeared. The hostility
of the popes to the Lombards was therefore political rather than religious.
The cause of it was a feeling, inherent in the Papacy, that any supreme
secular power in Italy would be detrimental to its interests. This was
natural and not wholly unjustifiable, as the sequel of events tends to
shew. The whole spirit of the Roman Church in Italy being anti-national,
the predominance of one people was felt to be inconsistent with its
ideal of universality. We have seen how sorely tried the patience of the
clergy had been by the policy of the Byzantine Caesars; but these, at
least in theory, were the rulers of the world. The Lombard kings on
the contrary were merely local princes, representative of the two things
most detested by the Papacy—nationality and barbarism. An even
worse evil was in store should (as was far from unlikely) the Lombard
territories become a number of independent dukedoms, for in that case
the Pope would be at the mercy not even of a king but of a petty_prince
like the duke of Spoleto; and Rome itself would be the carcass over
which the Lombard chieftains would be constantly quarrelling. The
breach between the Lombards and the popes was therefore inevitable
directly it was understood that the end of the Byzantine rule in Italy
was a mere question of time. Let the monarch and his dukes be never
so conciliatory and the Pope never so gracious, their interests were
radically dissimilar, and either the Lombard dominion must perish or
the Papacy must abandon the very motive of its existence. In one
respect the pontiffs had a distinct advantage; they were perfectly
indifferent to the fate of the Lombards; whilst these, as Catholics, held the
priestly office of the bishops of Rome in the highest honour. The period
therefore we are about to survey from Gregory II (715) to the accession
of Hadrian I (772) is fraught with the most important consequences, as
what happened then gives the clue to the whole secular policy of the
Papacy for eleven centuries, from Charles the Great to Napoleon III—a
policy which, despite all adverse circumstances, is not yet abandoned.
The somewhat complicated relations of six popes, Gregory II and III,
Zacharias, Stephen III, Paul, and Stephen IV, with three Lombard kings,
Liutprand, Aistulf, and Desiderius, must now occupy the attention of
the reader. Liutprand, the Lombard king, reigned 712-744 and this
## p. 695 (#727) ############################################
726-757] Pope Stephen crosses the Alps 695
period isalmost covered bythe pontificates of the two Gregories (715-741),
men of great ability as popes and statesmen. Under Gregory II came
the breach with the exarchate not so much on account of the Iconoclastic
decrees, which were not promulgated till 726, as of the heavy taxation
imposed on Italy by Leo the Isaurian.
The politics of the time are certainly perplexing. First we find the
Lombards on the side of the Pope labouring to defeat the dastardly plot
to murder Gregory hatched by the exarch Paulus and Marinus, duke of
Rome. Next the Pope takes part with the great dukes of Spoleto and
Benevento against Liutprand, who is in alliance with the Empire against
his vassals. Twice we find the Lombard king advancing into the Roman
duchy: on the first occasion withdrawing after presenting Sutrium,
which he had captured, to the Pope, on the second, in 729, marching to
the very gates of Rome only to find the intrepid Gregory entering
his camp in peaceful guise and himself conducted as a suppliant to
the tomb of St Peter. Gregory II died in 731, and was succeeded by a
Syrian of the same name who occupied the chair of St Peter for ten
years. His policy was to play the Empire, Liutprand, and the Lombard
dukes against one another, and he entered into an alliance with Spoleto
and Benevento against their king. The duchy of Rome was invaded by
Liutprand in 739, and Gregory III made the first advances towards the
Frankish Charles Martel—a momentous step in the history of the
Papacy.
Notwithstanding this, Liutprand was throughout subservient to the
papal will, and Gregory's successor, Zacharias, obtained from him several
cities which had belonged to the Empire. Thus the principle was
recognised at Rome that the territory which the Byzantines had once
held justly belonged to the Pope. Liutprand, the great Lombard bene-
factor of the Papacy, died in 744. In the Liber Pontificalis he is called
"most wicked," shewing that neither gifts nor piety could avert the
papal animosity if a monarch's claims were in conflict with those of
St Peter.
It was under the ambitious Aistulf that the mutual hostility of Pope
and Lombard came to a head. Despite oaths and treaties made by
Liutprand and his successor Ratchis, whom Zacharias' exhortations had
induced to exchange the crown for the cowl, the king persisted in the
conquest of Ravenna. Instigated by Constantine V (Copronymus), Pope
Stephen III made his famous journey first to Pavia, where he remonstrated
with Aistulf, and then, when he found his protests of no avail, supported
by the Frankish envoys to the Lombards, the undaunted Pope crossed
the Alps and met Pepin king of the Franks face to face. By the
agreement at Kiersy (754) Ravenna was secured for the Pope. Stephen
returned to Rome and died in 757, Aistulf having been killed by a fall
from his horse in the previous year.
Now that the Byzantine influence at Rome had almost vanished, we
## p. 696 (#728) ############################################
696 Disorders in Rome [765-767
begin to see that the interference of exarch and Emperor in papal affairs
had not been wholly an evil. ~ The Roman priesthood, great as werejts
claims, was not really capable of maintaining itself without the support
of some external force. For the last century and more" papal elections
had been uniformly peaceful: but now that the imperial power was_no
longer a restraint, this peace was at an end. Paul the brotheroflJtephen
was however elected after a contest with the archdeacon Theophylact,
and reigned for ten years (757-767), occupied mainly in disputes with
Desiderius the last king of the Lombards, who refused, though constantly
prevaricating, to observe the agreement made between Pepin and Aistulf
after the Prankish invasion of 755, and to restore (reddere propria
propriis) to the Roman see the cities he had taken. Passing over the
negotiations between the Papacy and Desiderius, we may take notice of
some incidents which shew the weakness of the Papacy and the danger
which threatened it from the Lombard supremacy. The seizure of the
papal chair by Toto duke of Nepi, who placed his brother Constantine in
it after the death of Paul, the ejection of Constantine by the primicerius
Christophorus and his son the sacellarius Sergius, the choice of Stephen
IV, and the horrors which followed—blindings, imprisonments, murders
and other cruelties—shewed the savage lawlessness of the Romans when
left to themselves. Next we have Pope Stephen and Desiderius caballing
together against the too powerful papal officials Christophorus and his
son, their betrayal and cruel treatment, and the rise of Paulus Afiarta, the
real ruler of the Church and city in the latter days of Stephen IV.
This disgraceful state of things at the time of Stephen's death and the
accession of Hadrian I, shewed the impotence of the Romans to govern
themselves and of Desiderius and his Lombards to restore order. A new
act in the drama of papal history is about to begin, dominated by the
majestic figure of Charles the Great.
(3) The Franks who succeeded the Lombards as controllers of the
destiny of the Papacy enjoyed tthe distinction of having been the
first of the continental Teutons to embrace the orthodox Faith and the
only ones which never held any creed save that of Nicaea. Since the days
of Clovis who had borne the title of "patrician " their connexion with
the Empire had been particularly friendly: and" thlfRoman pontiffs
had seen the wisdom of attaching this powerful and energetic__nation to
the see of St Peter.
One reasoiTTor the amity which existed between the Roman eccle-
. siastics and the Franks lay in the fact that, unlike other barbarian
nations, they were not disposedlx) migrate from their home in northern
Gaul; and—widely as their conquests extended—they never contemplated <*«.
making Italy the centre of their government. Aachen, Laon, Soissons
and Rheims were the citiesjrf the Frankish monarch; and the popes felt
they could safely summon so remote a nation to deliver Rome from their
enemies and then to retire leaving the sacred city to it^ecclesiaslicaLrulers.
## p. 697 (#729) ############################################
664-750] Boniface of Crediton 697
A still more remote nation was destined to play its part in the events
of the eighth century. The conversion oiEngland, planned by Gregory
the Great and begun by Augustine, had gone on apace and in it the
Church of Rome had played a most honourable part. The Church of
Canterbury already acknowledged as a primatial see, was essentially a
Roman outpost, though already it had been presided over by a native
born archbishop in the person of Frithonas who took the name of
Deusdedit. On his death in 664 another native by name Wighard was
elected and sent to Rome to be consecrated by Vitalian (657—672).
Wighard was presented to the Pope but died before he could be
consecrated, and Vitalian sought earnestly for a suitable successor.
Failing to induce the African Hadrian to undertake the office he
accepted his nominee Theodore. _a-natiye of Tarsus, a man of ripe years
and learning to whom the infant Church of the English owes so much.
It must not however be supposed that, in thus nominating an occupant
of the throne of St Augustine, Vitalian can in any way be reproached
for setting a precedent for the interference of his medieval successors
in the election of English primates. It was not arrogance which made
Vitalian nominate, nor did avarice induce Theodore to accept the charge of
the Church in a land so remote and barbarous as Britain, and the whole
business is illustrative of the care taken on behalf of the most remote
Churches by the Roman see of that age.
The close relation which sprang up between the Papacy and the
descendants of Arnulf, a Frankish noble who became bishop of Metz
(died 624), who ultimately became the famous royal family known as the
Carlovingians^ was fostered by our great countryman Boniface, the
indefatigable missionary in Germany during the first half of the eighth
century. This remarkable man combined the zeal of p. missionary with
complete devotion to the Roman see; and may almost be compared to
some proconsul, who, in the days of Rome's secular glory, spent his life
in bringing kingdoms and territories under her conquering sway. A
native of Crediton and a monk of Netley near Winchester, WJnfxid, for
that was his original name, joined his countryman Willibrord in his
missionary labours among the Frisians. Full of that zeal which makes
him a worthy predecessor of Selwyn and Livingstone, he devoted his
chief efforts to. the conversion of the heathen. His objective was the
Saxon nation beyond the Elbe, for his heart seems to have yearned
towards the men of his own race; but he laboured in Thuringia and
among the Hessians, and finally with his own hands struck a blow at
German heathenism by felling the sacred oak at Geismar. His own country
sent willing monks and nuns to aid the great missionary. Monastery
after monastery was founded to secure the permanence of his labours and
thus to pave the way for Frankish conquest and Roman influence. His
devoted labours in the cause of the Gospel were supported by the
blessings of the popes and the arms of the Franks; since he was both
## p. 698 (#730) ############################################
698 First Appeal to the Franks [723-755
the pioneer of the see of Rome and of the rising house of Charles Martel.
Pope followed pope only to receive fresh testimonies of the loyalty of
Boniface and to load him with fresh honours.
In 728 the wise and statesmanlike Gregory II recognised the nierits
of the ardent Englishman by making him a regionarius or bishop
without a see. When we remember the perilous times of this Pope,
harassed alike by the Iconoclastic emperors, and by the prospect of the
ruin of the imperial power in Italy, we cannot fail to compare him with
his great predecessor and namesake, who when the Lombards were
threatening Rome was carefully planning the conversion of England.
That Gregory II could in equally anxious times find leisure to send the
Englishman Winfrirl, who probably then assumed the name of Bonifatius
(the fair speaker), to convert Germany^proves that this Pope was no
unworthy successor of St Gregory the Great.
Gregory HI raised BonTface to the~Trank of an archbishop, still
without confining his labours to any single city, but thereal" object in
thus honouring the great missionary was to give him authority in Gaul
where the disorders of the Church, especially in Neustria, were most
serious; and indeed the Roman see seems to have desired a reform of the
episcopate even more than missionary extension. Boniface loyally co-
operated with the Popes in this object and did his utmost to enlist
the support of Charles Martel. During the pontificate of the saintly
Zacharias we find Boniface at the height of his influence. Council after
Council was held under his presidency: the disorders among the clergy
both in Austrasia and Neustria were suppressed, and new sees were
founded in far Bavaria. In 743 the see of Mogontiacum (Mainz) was
raised to the dignity of an archbishopric and conferred on Boniface,
who thus became primate of all Germany. Under Stephen III he won
the crown of martyrdom after resigning his see in order to prosecute his
missionary labours (755).
- Such then is a brief outline of the life of the churchman who did
more than anyone to bind together the Austrasian Franks and the
Roman see. Boniface began his labours as a devoted servant of the
Papacy, but he soon recognised the fact that he could neither continue
the missionary labour, so dear to his own heart, nor carry out the
reforms in Gaul, on which the popes were resolved, without the help
of the great Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel. But engaged as he
was in warlike enterprise, Charles, despite the great victory of Tours
(732) which delivered Gaul from the Muslims, has not gone down to
posterity as a loyal son of the Church. His followers required rewards
for their services, and his enemies kept him actively employed in Gaul.
Consequently when in 739 Gregory III appealed for the first time to
the Franks to enter Italy in order to deliver the Church of Rome from
Liutprand, the most generous "oppressor! " of the Holy See known to
history, Charles ignored his request; and he is further accused, not
## p. 699 (#731) ############################################
741–754] First Appeal to the Franks 699
without reason, of having laid hands on the estates of the clergy. A
century after his death it was generally believed that he had incurred
“that righteous damnation of him by whom the property of the Church
has been unjustly taken away. ”
Charles Martel and Gregory III both died in 741. The next pope
was, as we have seen, the saintly Zacharias (741–752) under whom
Boniface rose to the summit of his influence. The successors of Charles
were his sons Pepin and Carloman. The latter prince was a monk at
heart and in 747 retired from the world, and Pepin himself was far more
religiously disposed than his father. Consequently the reform of the
Church north of the Alps went on apace under Boniface, now Archbishop
of Mainz and Primate of Germany.
The time had now come for the house of Arnulf to assume the office
the power of which they had so long exercised. Confident in the support
of the Church, . *. *. * of Zacharias whether it would not now be
advisable for him to ascend the German—throne. in place of the last
puppet Merovingian Childeric III. How far Boniface took part in the
elevation of Pepin as king-is-much disputed. He had withdrawn much
from public life since 747. At any rate in 751-Childeric-III was deposed,
tonsured and sent into a monastery, and Pepin was solemnly anointed and
was more Francorum elevatus in regno. #. our great
countryman the new Frankish dynasty came into being. It was probably
owing to Boniface's influence that Pepin's bi Carloman, Mayor of
the Palace in Austrasia, renounced the world and settled in Italy in a
monastery on Mount Soracte. Thus the Roman see was continually
entering into a closer and closer relationship with the most vigorous of
the Teutonic nations of the north, the Austrasian Franks, who aided by
their English kinsmen beyond the sea were spreading the Gospel eastward
in Europe.
In the short but memorable pontificate of Stephen III (752–757)
Pepin laid the foundation of the temporal power of the Roman
see in return for his formal recognition by the Pope. Hard pressed
by the Lombard Aistulf, Stephen crossed the Alps on a visit to the
Frankish king. The pontiff was met by . . ". then a
boy of eleven, who brought him to his father at Ponthion. There
Pepin promised to “ ” to the Holy See the exarchate of Ravenna
and the “rights and territories-of-the Roman Republic. ” On 28 July
754 Stephen solemnly anointed and blessed Pepin, his wife Bertrada, and
his two sons Charles and Carloman, pronouncing an anathema-on the
Franks should they ever choose—a king from another family. Pepin at
the same time received the title of “patrician” with all its undefined
liabilities as protector of Rome. In the following year Pepin held a
“diet” of placitum at Carisiacum (Kiersy or Quierzy) and decided to
advance into Italy to win Stephen–H–his rights from the Lombards.
A document was drawn up, which has unfortunately perished, setting
CH. xxii.
## p. 700 (#732) ############################################
700 Donation of Pepin [757-768
forth what territories were to be given to the Pope. This is the
"donation~oX_Pepin. ,, Twice did the Frankish army invade Italy—on
the first occasion at the Pope's personal request and on the second owing
to the receipt of the letter which- St lle^er^himself was believed to
have addressed to the king of the Franks. In the end - twenty. -three
cities inchidiagjlaxenna were surrendered by AistulfjJoStephen III,
who, at the time of his death in April 757, had become a sovereign
prince. But in gaining territory the Papacy lost independence by
becoming too great a prize for any man to _win without a struggle.
The rest of the history of the eighth century shews that in order to
enjoy that which Pepin had bestowed the popes must become dependents
of the Franks, who were thus compelled to invade-Jtaly-as conquerors to
maintain the Papacy which they had enriched.
Paul I, the successor of Stephen, enjoyed a somewhat peaceful
pontificate of ten years, a. d. 757-767; but we are able to see that the
acquisition of the imperial territory on the shores of the Adriatic had
further relaxed the feeble tie which still held the Papacy to Constan-
tinople. Paul had to deal with Constantine V, the most formidable of
the Iconoclasts; and he had to protect alike the holy images and the
possessions of the Roman Church. In his correspondence with Pepin,
the Greeks are styled nefandissimi. Once the Church had obtained
Ravenna and the cities of Emilia and the Pentapolis there could be no
restoration of the exarchate. The political connexion between Rome
and Constantinople was practically severed by the donation . of—Pepin. ^
The king of the Franks died in 76%-* year later than Paul; and we
enter upon one of the most critical eras of papal history. All on which
this chapter has hitherto dwelt: the severance from the imperial
authority at Constantinople, the disputes with the Lombards, the
alliance with the Franks, the work of Gregory II, Boniface, and
Stephen III, culminates in Charles the Great. With his accession we
stand at the opening of a new epoch in the history of Western Europe,
fraught with important consequences. The theological breach between
East and West, the medieval theory of Papacy and Empire, the great
strife of secular and spiritual powers, are traceable to the years
immediately before us.
In considering the relations between the popes and the Franks
during the long reign of Charles the Great it is necessary to bear in
mind that, though Pepin by his donation had made the popes into
priest-kings, their position was precarious in the-extreme. Italy under
Lombard rule was in a state of anarchy; and Romejtself-was the centre
of a barbarism which was intensified-by being concealed under the
specious name of ecclesiastical government and claimed to represent not
only the piety but the civilisation of the West. When we read of kings,
dukes, pontiffs, cardinals (first mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis at this
time), of the senate, of the exercitus or militia; when modern terms like
## p. 701 (#733) ############################################
768-772] Anarchy in Italy 701
that of the " unification of Italy" are applied to the policy of a ruler
like the Lombard Desiderius, we may lose sight of the fact that under
this specious veneer there lay an utterly disintegrated society, charac-
terised by a savagery which could hardly be paralleled by the acknowledged
barbarism of many countries north of the Alps. The pontificate of
Stephen IV (768-772) is, as has been already hinted, a period of
violence and bloodshed: and the events which characterised it are
repeated almost exactly not thirty years later in the days of Leo III:
for centuries not even the person of a pope was safe in Rome without
the protecting hand of some external authority. It is only possible
here to allude to the strange story of Stephen IV as related in the Liber
Poniificalis; and to proceed to a hasty summary of the main events of
the reign of Charles the Great.
On Pepin's death the Frankish dominions were divided between his
two sons Charles and Carloman. The two brothers speedily became
rivals, and the scene of their machinations was Italy. Their mother
Bertrada had brought about a nominal reconciliation between her two
sons Charles king in Austrasia, and Carloman king in Neustria, and in
the interests of peace sought to contract matrimonial alliances with the
Lombard monarch Desiderius. With this end in view she visited Italy
and persuaded Charles to give up the lady whom he had perhaps
irregularly married and to take Desiderata, the daughter of the Lombard
king. These projects alarmed Stephen IV, and his letter to Charles
and Carloman warning them against an alliance with the detestable
* Lombards, a race infected with leprosy and naturally repulsive to noble
Franks, is one of the most extraordinary in the papal correspondence
with the Carlovingian family; and confirms us in the idea that Stephen's
passionate weakness of character was one cause of the misfortunes of
that unhappy pontiff. But the alliance was short-lived. Charles re-
pudiated his Lombard wife, and on Carloman's death in 771 the widow
Gerberga placed herself and her children under the protection of
Desiderius—a proof that the two brothers regarded the Lombard as the
determining factor in their rivalry for the possession of the whole
Frankish realm. The Pope sided with Charles against Gerberga and her
children; for Desiderius, no doubt hoping that the Franks were sufficiently
divided to leave him alone, had ravaged the newly acquired papal
dominions in the exarchate and the Pentapolis.
Stephen died in 772, and was succeeded by two pontiffs who held
the Papacy for no less than forty-four years. Hadrian I from 772 to 795
and Leo III from 795 to 816. Never till our own days have two successive
pontificates occupiecTso long a period. Till the days of Pius IX no
pope so nearly attained to the traditional years of Peter as Hadrian.
Judged by his actions Hadrian was a man of vigour and ability;
and if he shews himself querulous and apprehensive in his correspondence
with Charles, it only reveals the extreme difficulty of the situation in
CH. XXII.
## p. 702 (#734) ############################################
702 Fall of the Lombard Kingdom [772-774
which he was often placed. His first act on succeeding Stephen was
successfully to repress disorder in Rome.
Paul us Afiarta, the evil genius
of the late Pope, who had brought about the ruin of Christophorus and
Sergius, was sent under arrest to Ravenna, where the archbishop Leo, to
Hadrian's indignation, put the unfortunate prisoner to death. In the
following year, 773, Charles invaded Italy, defeated Desiderius, and
invested his capital of Pavia. In. 774-the Frankish king paid his first
memorable visit to Rome, and was received with due honour by the
Pope and the Roman-clergy. Touched by his reception and deeply
impressed by his visit to the tomb of the Apostle and to the holy
churches of Rome, Charles bestowed on Hadrian_all_jhat Pepin had
given to the__Holy^. See, and, if we may believe the Roman account,
something more. The documentary evidence for the donation of
Charles needs separate treatment; but the king is said to have
included in his magnificent gift nil Tt«ly south of^the Po _which the
Lombards occupied. Charles returned to Pavia after his visit to Rome
and completed the conquest of the Lombards. Desiderius was forced to
retire into a monastery, to make way for the victorious Frank who was
now king of the Lombarda amiPafoician^of Rome.
Thus fell the Lombard kingdom after two centuries of rule in Italy;
and it may here be observed that none of the nations which had occupied
the territory of the Empire had been able to survive the baneful
atmosphere of the ruined Roman world. The Visigoths of Spain, the
Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Merovingians of Gaul,
had all like the Lombards rapidly degenerated in contact with the
ancient civilisation. It was beyond the limits of the Empire that a new
and more vigorous life was coming into being. Among the Franks in
Austrasia, in the monasteries of Ireland, in Britain—from which all traces
of Roman dominion had been swept by the conquering Angles and
Saxons, arose the makers of a new world. Columbanus the Keltic monk,
Wilfrid the English bishop, Boniface the missionary from Devon,
Charles Martel and his illustrious sons and grandson, Alcuin the
Yorkshire scholar—nearly all of these hailed from lands which Tertullian
had described as Romanis inaccessa, Christo vero subdita.
When Charles departed from Ita)y '" 774; Hadrian was left alone to
assert his authority over the splendid^pidncipalityJie-had acquired from
his Frankish benefactors. But only by a strong hand could rights be
maintained in those unsettled days; and the Pope was hard pressed on
all sides. Not only did the unconquered Lombard duchy of Benevento
encroach on his territory in the south; his tenure of the exarchate was
threatened by Leo, the ambitious archbishop of Ravenna, who sought
independence, and was resolved to seize the cities in his neighbourhood
over which the Pope claimed jurisdiction. Hadrian, one of the ablest
of the popes, did his best to jiAJntain his authority His troops
defended his frontiers against the Beneventans and even captured
## p. 703 (#735) ############################################
774—799] Outrage on Pope Leo III 703
Terracina. But his correspondence with Charles reveals the weakness of
his position. That Hadrian was a great man is certain; and Charles
seems to have recognised in him somewhat of a kindred spirit to his
own; and at the Pope's death the Frankish monarch mourned as for a
lost brother. But in this case his position was less assured than his
ability, and he needed the support of the arms and influence of Charles
in order to maintain it. How truly Hadrian deserves to be classed
among the greatest* rulers of the Roman Church, and how precarious)
was the situation of a pope in the eighth century, is shewn when we
come to the disastrous commencement of the pontificate of his successor
Leo III.
It is one of the ironies of fate that the pontiff to whose lot it fell to
inaugurate the Middle Ages in Western Europe, by an act second to
none in dramatic circumstances and in its far-reaching consequences,
was not a great ruler like Hadrian, but a man in almost every respect
his inferior. Leo III, the son of Atzuppius and Elizabeth, is described as
a Roman priest of blameless character and abounding charity; but there
is a certain mystery overhanging the early days of his pontificate. If we
may judge from the names of his parents he had not the advantage of
being of noble birth, a matter of the utmost importance in his age; as,
not only was it regarded as one of the chief recommendations for a
bishop, but it gave a man the almost indispensable support of powerful
kinsmen. Hadrian, perhaps the earliest example of papal nepotism,
had given the highest positions in the Roman Church to his relatives,
committing to them the administration of its great wealth and extensive
patrimony. The government of the apostolic Church was vested at this
time in seven officials, who though only in deacon's orders took the
highest rank in the hierarchy under the Pope. The chief of these, the
primicerius notariorum, Paschalis, a nephew of Hadrian, who is also
called the comiliarius of the Holy See, with Campulus the sacellarius or
treasurer, another relative of the late Pope, evidently cherished deep
resentment against Leo; and on the occasion of the procession of the
greater Litany on 25 April 799 (St Mark's day) they determined to
wreak their vengeance. Joining the procession from the Lateran at the
church of St Laurence, the conspirators took their places beside the
Pope, apologising for not wearing their official planetae on the plea of ill-
health. When the procession reached the monastery of SS. Stephen and
Sylvester, a band of ruffians dashed forth and threw Leo to the ground.
Then, with Paschalis standing at his head and Campulus. at his feet, an
attempt was made to blind the pontiff and to cut out his tongue. The
wretched Pope was left for a while bleeding in the street, then dragged
into the church of St Sylvester, and imprisoned in the Greek monastery
of St Erasmus on the Coelian Hill.
Strange to say, the outrage seems to have produced no great effect
on the Roman people, and Leo remained a prisoner till he had recovered
## p. 704 (#736) ############################################
704 Carolus Augustus [799—800
from his wounds. Then his partisans rescued him, and though he is
said to have been welcomed with enthusiasm in St Peter's he did not
again enter the city; but placing himself under the charge of Winichis,
duke of Spoleto, retired thither. Thence he betook himself to Charles
at Paderborn, was received by the king and assured of his protection,
under which he was able to re-enter Rome on 29 Nov. 799. Charles
himself was fully occupied the greater part of the following year. In
the spring we find him in Neustria looking after the defences of the
shores of the Channel, in the summer he is at Tours, visiting Alcuin and
bewailing the loss of Queen Liutgardis, in August he is holding a great
placitum at Mainz; and not till autumn was well advanced did he
undertake his memorable expedition to Italy, arriving at Rome on
24 Nov. 800.
He came not so much as a defender of the rights of the Pope as in
the capacity of his judge. Leo's fair fame as well as his person had
suffered at the hands of his adversaries, and grave though to us mysterious
charges were spread abroad concerning him. Alcuin had received from
his friend Arno, archbishop of Salzburg, so serious an account of affairs
in Rome and of Leo III that he thought it advisable to burn it; and
Charles himself does not seem to have held the same opinion of Leo as
he had of Hadrian. At any rate on 8 Dec. , in the presence of the king,
the Roman clergy, and the Frankish nobles, Leo solemnly exculpated
himself and took an oath on the gospels that he was guiltless of the
crimes laid to his charge. It is particularly important in view of his
subsequent action to remember that three weeks before Leo had been
in the humiliating position of having publicly to profess his innocence.
Charles was now at the height of his glory; master of Italy and
northern Europe, he was regarded as the representative of Christendom.
A woman who had sinned foully against her own son occupied the
throne of the Eastern Caesars, and the eyes of all men turned to the
gigantic Frank whose wars with the surrounding barbarians had been
for the defence and propagation of the gospel. The day after Leo had
professed his innocence the priest Zacharias arrived from Jerusalem with
the Keys of Calvary and of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of
Jerusalem. Leo had already sent him the keys of the tomb of St Peter
and Rome recognised him as its Patrician.
On Christmas day Charles clothed himself in the Patrician's robe
Jnd went, not as a barbarian king but as the greatest of the nobility
f Rome, to the already venerable church of St Peter. Then he knelt
in prayer before the "confession" of the Prince of the Apostles, and
the Mass began. After the reading of the gospel the Pope took from
the altar a most precious crown and placed it upon the head of the
kneeling monarch. With one voice the assembled multitude, Frank and
Roman, ecclesiastic and warrior, shouted "Carolo piissimo Augusto a
Deo coronato magno et pacifico Imperatori Vita et Victoria. " The
## p. 705 (#737) ############################################
8oo] Carolus Augustus 705
birthday of the Christ was the birthday of the new Roman Empire.
"From this moment modern history begins" (Bryce). v
The significance of the act has been variously interpreted from the
first. In the Lives of the Popes and in the German contemporary annals
the papal and the imperial share in the transaction have been respectively
magnified. The claims of the Pope to exact obedience from temporal
rulers and of the Emperors to regard the Popes as their subjects were
based throughout the Middle Ages upon the meaning attached to the
coronation and unction of Charles. Without attempting to pronounce
judgment on so vexed a topic, we may set forth three points: namely
(1) the significance of the proclamation of Charles as Emperor to the
world of 800, (2) the effects on the Empire and the Papacy respectively,
and (3) ultimate results.
(1) The world understood that the nations of the West, after nearly
four centuries of anarchy and decay, still recognised that they belonged
to the Roman Empire_and were resolved to seek for peace and unity
under a single ruler. Charles was no more aFrankish king ruling by
his might, but the lawful lord-of Chrictcndom. As the Faith represented
by the Pope was one, so all temporal authority was centred in the
person of the Emperor. Hitherto the Roman in the West had regarded
the distant Augustus in Constantinople as his lawful mnstpr But the
experience of generations had proved- him powerless to protect Ttnlj^ and
in theory at least in the year 800 there wjusjia-Enaperor. Irene having
usurped the throne of Constantine VI, the allegiance due to the Eastern
Caesar could be lawfully transferred to Charles.
(2) By his coronation fhnrWTTaH nhtainprl an accession nHttlpr of
territory nor of wealth: but he gained that which he never could have
secured by himself. It is difficult for us to understand how great a
departure from precedent his coronation was. The one title withheld
from the barbarians was that nf Emperor They might master Italy as
Ricimer, Odovacar, Theodoric, and the Lombard kings had done. They
might be decorated with the titles of consul and patrkiap-4tke>Clovis.
They might set up puppet emperors n. nA rale i" *hpir "»«"■ But never
did they presume themselves to niinmc the imperial title. To acknow-
ledge a barbarian king to-be-his Emperor, as Leo acknowledged Charles,
was nnpvamplpH in \}\p annals of the Roman world. This explains the
astonishment of Charles when Leo III placed the crown-on, his head, and
accounts for his assurance ty_Einhard that he never would have entered
St Peter's had he suspected the intention of the Pope. The Pope on the
other hand had by this act taken the place of the Roman people, of the
Spnntgj and, of the Army—in a word ofafl the powers which had in the
past proclaimed-an-Emperor. That he had done so entirely on his own
initiative might have been credible of Hadrian, but scarcely of Leo,
whose position was too insecure, and his character not sufficiently
established to warrant so bold an action. Without the consent and
C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. XXII. 4P
## p. 706 (#738) ############################################
706 Significance of the Coronation [m
approval of the Roman people and the nobles who attended Charles
he never could have assumed so mighty a role. If the Frank knelt
unsuspectingly at his devotions to receive the imperial diadem, we can
hardly doubt that Leo's action was the result of a carefully preconceived
plan of which many of the spectators were fully cognisant. By it,
however, the Papacy gained an advantage which no one then possibly
foresaw. Pepin and Charles had> delivered the Popes from Greek
oppression and Lombard tyranny; they had made them princes in Italy
by securing them a kingdom which they held for eleven centuries; and
in return the Papacy sanctioned the conversion of—the_jnayors^of_the
palace of Australia first into__kings and finally_intD--Eniperors, but
in so" doing they laidThe-foundation of claims which were in later days
to shake terribly the earth1.
(3) The new Empire was essentially the creation of the Western
genius. Unlike the older imperial system which made-the—Efnperor,
Justinian as truly as Augustus, supreme in matters spiritual as well as
temporal, the regime inaugurated by Leo III emphasised the Augustinian
ideal of the City of God; and, though in theory the Christian State in
the Middle Ages was essentially one, there arose a _practi«d-~dichotomy
between the province_of the clergy and that_pf the, laity. That these
worked sometimes in harmony, sometimes in discord but never in com-
plete unity, was one of the results of the Carlovingians creating the
Papal States, and of the Popes calling into being the Empire of the West.
1 The significance of the coronation of Charles is notoriously one of the most
disputed points in history. Even the contemporary chronicles, the Frankish and
the Liber Pontificals, are completely at variance as to the position of Leo III in
regard to Charles. It is evident that there had been ample opportunities for
Franks and Romans to confer together on raising Charles to the imperial dignity
for at least a year before the coronation. That Charles had been negotiating with
the Empress Irene since the imperial throne had been vacated by Constantine VI in
796 is equally certain. This may account for Charles' statement to Einhard. He
may well have considered the action of Leo, the Romans and the Franks premature,
though the idea of assuming the title of Emperor was not new to him. (See Dollinger,
Historical and Literary Addresses, in. Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, m. p. 175,
is one of the few to agree with Dollinger in acknowledging that Charles honestly
meant what his biographer records of him. )
Prof. Bury, Eastern Roman Empire, 802-867, discusses the coronation from the
standpoint of Constantinople.
## p. 707 (#739) ############################################
707
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
(1) The following abbreviations are used for titles of periodicals:
A ARAB. Annales de l'Academie royale d'archeologie de Belgique. Antwerp.
A It. Analecta Bollandiana. Brussels.
A 15c. Archives beiges. Liege.
AHR. American Historical Review. New York and London.
AKKR. Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht. Mainz.
AM. Annales du Midi. Toulouse.
AMur. Archivio Muratoriano. Rome.
ASAK. Anzeiger fur schweizerische Alterthumskunde. Zurich.
ASHF. Annuaire-Bulletin de la Societe de 1'histoire de France. Paris.
ASI. Archivio storico italiano. Florence.
ASL. Archivio storico Lombardo. Milan.
ASRSP. Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria. Rome.
BCRH. Bulletins de la Commission royale d'histoire. Brussels.
Bllisp. Bulletin hispanique. Bordeaux.
BRAH. Boletin de la R. Academia de la historia. Madrid.
BZ. Byzantinische Zeitschrift. Leipsic.
CQR. Church Quarterly Review. London.
CR. Classical Review. London.
CRSA. Comptes rendus des seances de l'Academie des inscriptions et belles-
lettres. Paris.
DZG. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft. Freiburg-i. -B.
DZKR. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Kirchenrecht. Leipsic.
EHR. English Historical Review. London.
FDG. Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte.
HJ. Historisches Jahrbuch. Munich.
Hm. Hermes. Berlin.
HVJS. Historische Vierteljahrsschrift. Leipsic.
HZ. Historische Zeitschrift (von Sybel). Munich and Berlin.
JA. Journal Asiatique. Paris.
JB. Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft im Auftrage der historischen
Gesellschaft zu Berlin. 1878 ff. Berlin.
JHS. Journal of Hellenic Studies. London.
JRAS.
7 July 751 the exarchate had come to an end and the Greeks were no
longer a power in Italy. The Pope had also lost his Sicilian estates
which afforded his principal revenue. The experience the Papacy had
gained by its connexion with Constantinople was not forgotten, and
moulded its subsequent policy. It became evident that to work out its
destiny it needed alike freedom and protection—freedom to assert its
claims to rule over the conscience of mankind, and protection from the
enemies who encompassed the defenceless city.
Neither of these could the Byzantine government afford. The
Lombards were pressing closer on Rome, and no prospect of aid from
the Emperor was at hand; and in any case it would be too great a
price to yield to his demands in matters theological. The aims of the
Empire and the East were distinct from those of Rome and the West.
In the latter there was practically no great religious difference, and the
priests, secure in their monopoly of learning, were unlikely to disturb
men's minds by explaining the traditional faith or adapting it to the
conditions of the hour. In the more educated East questions of the
utmost moment caused serious divisions among clergy and laity alike;
nor is it without significance that Pope Agatho had to explain to the
Sixth General Council that his delegates were rude and unlettered men
who had to live by the labour of their hands. So far then were the
rough and ignorant clergy even of Rome removed from their brethren of
the East. But, though ignorant of the arts of life, the Roman clergy
haul one distinct advantage over the more cultured ecclesiastics of Con-
stantinople. They had fought a long and stubborn battle with the
barbarian invaders of Italy with no one to come to their aid, and in the
struggle they had developed political instincts denied to the servants of
a political and spiritual despotism. Thus the popes of the eighth century
learned the statecraft with which their successors were to raise the papal
power to its highest pitch. From the birth of Christ there is approxi-
mately as long an interval backwards to Romulus as forwards to the
political severance of Rome from the Empire, and at the latter period
the foundations of a world-governing power were as surely laid as when
the first king built the walls of Rome.
(2) The Lombard invaders of Italy after a long struggle had
succeeded in dispossessing the Empire of all pretence to exercise
sovereignty in Italy. They had made their appearance in the year 568
under Alboin, and though Paul the Deacon testifies to the comparative
mildness of their rule at first, on the death of Alboin it became
intolerable. Two facts are worth bearing in mind, namely that the
Lombards are the first invaders of Italy who settled with no sort of
imperial sanction—Alaric, Odovacar and Theodoric having all had
recognition from the Roman government; and further that under their
occupation the theory of a united Italy was abandoned, never to be
realised till the nineteenth century. There was further a sort of
## p. 693 (#725) ############################################
673-675] Lombard and Roman territory 693
undeveloped feudalism in the Lombard settlement by which the
kingdom was divided into more or less independent dukedoms, some—
like those of Spoleto and Benevento—eventually detaching themselves
completely from the king's authority. After the death of Alboin in 578
there were no less than thirty-six dukes each exercising unrestrained the
power of a petty tyrant. But anarchical as was the condition of affairs
among the Lombards at the close of the sixth century, it was becoming
evident that the Byzantine government was powerless to expel them
from Italy and even that its abandonment of the peninsula was only a
matter of time.
The condition of Byzantine Italy was not altogether dissimilar from
that of the Lombard territory. As at Pavia, the capital of the king, so
at the exarch's seat at Ravenna, the central authority was at times
deplorably weak; and in both cases the "dukes" were practically
independent princes. The duke of Naples for example was as little
amenable to the exarch as the Lombard dukes of Benevento were to
their sovereign. The difficulty was principally one of communication.
The Lombards held the country and the Byzantines the coast, and
unless the road between Rome and Ravenna could be kept open it
was impossible for the exarch to govern, succour, or advise the Pope;
and in one case a pope's enthronement had to be deferred for more than
a year owing to the difficulty in obtaining confirmation of his election.
Hence it was of the utmost importance to keep open the Flaminian
way leading from Rome to Ravenna and the coast, and the possession
of such places as Perugia was vital to the Romans.
The territory occupied in Italy by the Lombards and the exarchate
in Italy respectively, say during the pontificate of Gregory I (590-604),
was approximately as follows. The Byzantines on the east coast held
Istria on the Adriatic, the islands along the coast already known as
Venetia, the marshes around Comacchio and Ferrara, the mouth of
the Po where Ravenna is situated, and inland as far as Bologna.
Practically from Venetia to Ancona the frontiers of the Empire were the
Apennines and the sea. Then came a very debatable territory giving
access by way of Perugia to the Roman duchy. Proceeding south-
ward, Calabria remained imperial till 675, when Brindisi and Tarento
fell into the hands of Romuald, duke of Benevento, and Bruttium
and Sicily were held by the Greeks. On the western coast were two
duchies, Naples and Rome. The Roman duchy was constantly shrinking
owing to the encroachments of the Lombard dukes of Benevento and
Spoleto, the latter having pushed his frontier almost to the N. E. wall
of the city, his boundary being the old Sabine one formed by the Tiber
and the Anio. The rest of Italy was held by the Lombards, the
valley of the Po being more directly under the authority of the king,
whose capital was Pavia, whilst the three great almost independent
duchies were Friuli (Forum Julii), north of Venetia, Spoleto, extending
## p. 694 (#726) ############################################
694 The Conflict unavoidable [593-741
from the Pentapolis to the Roman duchy, and Benevento in the south.
This partition of Italy was practically recognised by the treaty made,
mainly by Pope Gregory I, in 593, but throughout the seventh century the
power of the Lombards increased whilst that of the exarchate diminished.
It is not necessary for our purpose to trace the progress of the Lombard
power till we reach the eighth century when the popes came into sharper
conflict with it than they had done since the days of Gregory I.
In the century which intervened between the death of Gregory I and
the accession of Gregory II the Lombards had been transformed from
Arian heretics into devout Catholics, so that the religious difficulty
, which parted Roman from Lombard had disappeared. The hostility
of the popes to the Lombards was therefore political rather than religious.
The cause of it was a feeling, inherent in the Papacy, that any supreme
secular power in Italy would be detrimental to its interests. This was
natural and not wholly unjustifiable, as the sequel of events tends to
shew. The whole spirit of the Roman Church in Italy being anti-national,
the predominance of one people was felt to be inconsistent with its
ideal of universality. We have seen how sorely tried the patience of the
clergy had been by the policy of the Byzantine Caesars; but these, at
least in theory, were the rulers of the world. The Lombard kings on
the contrary were merely local princes, representative of the two things
most detested by the Papacy—nationality and barbarism. An even
worse evil was in store should (as was far from unlikely) the Lombard
territories become a number of independent dukedoms, for in that case
the Pope would be at the mercy not even of a king but of a petty_prince
like the duke of Spoleto; and Rome itself would be the carcass over
which the Lombard chieftains would be constantly quarrelling. The
breach between the Lombards and the popes was therefore inevitable
directly it was understood that the end of the Byzantine rule in Italy
was a mere question of time. Let the monarch and his dukes be never
so conciliatory and the Pope never so gracious, their interests were
radically dissimilar, and either the Lombard dominion must perish or
the Papacy must abandon the very motive of its existence. In one
respect the pontiffs had a distinct advantage; they were perfectly
indifferent to the fate of the Lombards; whilst these, as Catholics, held the
priestly office of the bishops of Rome in the highest honour. The period
therefore we are about to survey from Gregory II (715) to the accession
of Hadrian I (772) is fraught with the most important consequences, as
what happened then gives the clue to the whole secular policy of the
Papacy for eleven centuries, from Charles the Great to Napoleon III—a
policy which, despite all adverse circumstances, is not yet abandoned.
The somewhat complicated relations of six popes, Gregory II and III,
Zacharias, Stephen III, Paul, and Stephen IV, with three Lombard kings,
Liutprand, Aistulf, and Desiderius, must now occupy the attention of
the reader. Liutprand, the Lombard king, reigned 712-744 and this
## p. 695 (#727) ############################################
726-757] Pope Stephen crosses the Alps 695
period isalmost covered bythe pontificates of the two Gregories (715-741),
men of great ability as popes and statesmen. Under Gregory II came
the breach with the exarchate not so much on account of the Iconoclastic
decrees, which were not promulgated till 726, as of the heavy taxation
imposed on Italy by Leo the Isaurian.
The politics of the time are certainly perplexing. First we find the
Lombards on the side of the Pope labouring to defeat the dastardly plot
to murder Gregory hatched by the exarch Paulus and Marinus, duke of
Rome. Next the Pope takes part with the great dukes of Spoleto and
Benevento against Liutprand, who is in alliance with the Empire against
his vassals. Twice we find the Lombard king advancing into the Roman
duchy: on the first occasion withdrawing after presenting Sutrium,
which he had captured, to the Pope, on the second, in 729, marching to
the very gates of Rome only to find the intrepid Gregory entering
his camp in peaceful guise and himself conducted as a suppliant to
the tomb of St Peter. Gregory II died in 731, and was succeeded by a
Syrian of the same name who occupied the chair of St Peter for ten
years. His policy was to play the Empire, Liutprand, and the Lombard
dukes against one another, and he entered into an alliance with Spoleto
and Benevento against their king. The duchy of Rome was invaded by
Liutprand in 739, and Gregory III made the first advances towards the
Frankish Charles Martel—a momentous step in the history of the
Papacy.
Notwithstanding this, Liutprand was throughout subservient to the
papal will, and Gregory's successor, Zacharias, obtained from him several
cities which had belonged to the Empire. Thus the principle was
recognised at Rome that the territory which the Byzantines had once
held justly belonged to the Pope. Liutprand, the great Lombard bene-
factor of the Papacy, died in 744. In the Liber Pontificalis he is called
"most wicked," shewing that neither gifts nor piety could avert the
papal animosity if a monarch's claims were in conflict with those of
St Peter.
It was under the ambitious Aistulf that the mutual hostility of Pope
and Lombard came to a head. Despite oaths and treaties made by
Liutprand and his successor Ratchis, whom Zacharias' exhortations had
induced to exchange the crown for the cowl, the king persisted in the
conquest of Ravenna. Instigated by Constantine V (Copronymus), Pope
Stephen III made his famous journey first to Pavia, where he remonstrated
with Aistulf, and then, when he found his protests of no avail, supported
by the Frankish envoys to the Lombards, the undaunted Pope crossed
the Alps and met Pepin king of the Franks face to face. By the
agreement at Kiersy (754) Ravenna was secured for the Pope. Stephen
returned to Rome and died in 757, Aistulf having been killed by a fall
from his horse in the previous year.
Now that the Byzantine influence at Rome had almost vanished, we
## p. 696 (#728) ############################################
696 Disorders in Rome [765-767
begin to see that the interference of exarch and Emperor in papal affairs
had not been wholly an evil. ~ The Roman priesthood, great as werejts
claims, was not really capable of maintaining itself without the support
of some external force. For the last century and more" papal elections
had been uniformly peaceful: but now that the imperial power was_no
longer a restraint, this peace was at an end. Paul the brotheroflJtephen
was however elected after a contest with the archdeacon Theophylact,
and reigned for ten years (757-767), occupied mainly in disputes with
Desiderius the last king of the Lombards, who refused, though constantly
prevaricating, to observe the agreement made between Pepin and Aistulf
after the Prankish invasion of 755, and to restore (reddere propria
propriis) to the Roman see the cities he had taken. Passing over the
negotiations between the Papacy and Desiderius, we may take notice of
some incidents which shew the weakness of the Papacy and the danger
which threatened it from the Lombard supremacy. The seizure of the
papal chair by Toto duke of Nepi, who placed his brother Constantine in
it after the death of Paul, the ejection of Constantine by the primicerius
Christophorus and his son the sacellarius Sergius, the choice of Stephen
IV, and the horrors which followed—blindings, imprisonments, murders
and other cruelties—shewed the savage lawlessness of the Romans when
left to themselves. Next we have Pope Stephen and Desiderius caballing
together against the too powerful papal officials Christophorus and his
son, their betrayal and cruel treatment, and the rise of Paulus Afiarta, the
real ruler of the Church and city in the latter days of Stephen IV.
This disgraceful state of things at the time of Stephen's death and the
accession of Hadrian I, shewed the impotence of the Romans to govern
themselves and of Desiderius and his Lombards to restore order. A new
act in the drama of papal history is about to begin, dominated by the
majestic figure of Charles the Great.
(3) The Franks who succeeded the Lombards as controllers of the
destiny of the Papacy enjoyed tthe distinction of having been the
first of the continental Teutons to embrace the orthodox Faith and the
only ones which never held any creed save that of Nicaea. Since the days
of Clovis who had borne the title of "patrician " their connexion with
the Empire had been particularly friendly: and" thlfRoman pontiffs
had seen the wisdom of attaching this powerful and energetic__nation to
the see of St Peter.
One reasoiTTor the amity which existed between the Roman eccle-
. siastics and the Franks lay in the fact that, unlike other barbarian
nations, they were not disposedlx) migrate from their home in northern
Gaul; and—widely as their conquests extended—they never contemplated <*«.
making Italy the centre of their government. Aachen, Laon, Soissons
and Rheims were the citiesjrf the Frankish monarch; and the popes felt
they could safely summon so remote a nation to deliver Rome from their
enemies and then to retire leaving the sacred city to it^ecclesiaslicaLrulers.
## p. 697 (#729) ############################################
664-750] Boniface of Crediton 697
A still more remote nation was destined to play its part in the events
of the eighth century. The conversion oiEngland, planned by Gregory
the Great and begun by Augustine, had gone on apace and in it the
Church of Rome had played a most honourable part. The Church of
Canterbury already acknowledged as a primatial see, was essentially a
Roman outpost, though already it had been presided over by a native
born archbishop in the person of Frithonas who took the name of
Deusdedit. On his death in 664 another native by name Wighard was
elected and sent to Rome to be consecrated by Vitalian (657—672).
Wighard was presented to the Pope but died before he could be
consecrated, and Vitalian sought earnestly for a suitable successor.
Failing to induce the African Hadrian to undertake the office he
accepted his nominee Theodore. _a-natiye of Tarsus, a man of ripe years
and learning to whom the infant Church of the English owes so much.
It must not however be supposed that, in thus nominating an occupant
of the throne of St Augustine, Vitalian can in any way be reproached
for setting a precedent for the interference of his medieval successors
in the election of English primates. It was not arrogance which made
Vitalian nominate, nor did avarice induce Theodore to accept the charge of
the Church in a land so remote and barbarous as Britain, and the whole
business is illustrative of the care taken on behalf of the most remote
Churches by the Roman see of that age.
The close relation which sprang up between the Papacy and the
descendants of Arnulf, a Frankish noble who became bishop of Metz
(died 624), who ultimately became the famous royal family known as the
Carlovingians^ was fostered by our great countryman Boniface, the
indefatigable missionary in Germany during the first half of the eighth
century. This remarkable man combined the zeal of p. missionary with
complete devotion to the Roman see; and may almost be compared to
some proconsul, who, in the days of Rome's secular glory, spent his life
in bringing kingdoms and territories under her conquering sway. A
native of Crediton and a monk of Netley near Winchester, WJnfxid, for
that was his original name, joined his countryman Willibrord in his
missionary labours among the Frisians. Full of that zeal which makes
him a worthy predecessor of Selwyn and Livingstone, he devoted his
chief efforts to. the conversion of the heathen. His objective was the
Saxon nation beyond the Elbe, for his heart seems to have yearned
towards the men of his own race; but he laboured in Thuringia and
among the Hessians, and finally with his own hands struck a blow at
German heathenism by felling the sacred oak at Geismar. His own country
sent willing monks and nuns to aid the great missionary. Monastery
after monastery was founded to secure the permanence of his labours and
thus to pave the way for Frankish conquest and Roman influence. His
devoted labours in the cause of the Gospel were supported by the
blessings of the popes and the arms of the Franks; since he was both
## p. 698 (#730) ############################################
698 First Appeal to the Franks [723-755
the pioneer of the see of Rome and of the rising house of Charles Martel.
Pope followed pope only to receive fresh testimonies of the loyalty of
Boniface and to load him with fresh honours.
In 728 the wise and statesmanlike Gregory II recognised the nierits
of the ardent Englishman by making him a regionarius or bishop
without a see. When we remember the perilous times of this Pope,
harassed alike by the Iconoclastic emperors, and by the prospect of the
ruin of the imperial power in Italy, we cannot fail to compare him with
his great predecessor and namesake, who when the Lombards were
threatening Rome was carefully planning the conversion of England.
That Gregory II could in equally anxious times find leisure to send the
Englishman Winfrirl, who probably then assumed the name of Bonifatius
(the fair speaker), to convert Germany^proves that this Pope was no
unworthy successor of St Gregory the Great.
Gregory HI raised BonTface to the~Trank of an archbishop, still
without confining his labours to any single city, but thereal" object in
thus honouring the great missionary was to give him authority in Gaul
where the disorders of the Church, especially in Neustria, were most
serious; and indeed the Roman see seems to have desired a reform of the
episcopate even more than missionary extension. Boniface loyally co-
operated with the Popes in this object and did his utmost to enlist
the support of Charles Martel. During the pontificate of the saintly
Zacharias we find Boniface at the height of his influence. Council after
Council was held under his presidency: the disorders among the clergy
both in Austrasia and Neustria were suppressed, and new sees were
founded in far Bavaria. In 743 the see of Mogontiacum (Mainz) was
raised to the dignity of an archbishopric and conferred on Boniface,
who thus became primate of all Germany. Under Stephen III he won
the crown of martyrdom after resigning his see in order to prosecute his
missionary labours (755).
- Such then is a brief outline of the life of the churchman who did
more than anyone to bind together the Austrasian Franks and the
Roman see. Boniface began his labours as a devoted servant of the
Papacy, but he soon recognised the fact that he could neither continue
the missionary labour, so dear to his own heart, nor carry out the
reforms in Gaul, on which the popes were resolved, without the help
of the great Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel. But engaged as he
was in warlike enterprise, Charles, despite the great victory of Tours
(732) which delivered Gaul from the Muslims, has not gone down to
posterity as a loyal son of the Church. His followers required rewards
for their services, and his enemies kept him actively employed in Gaul.
Consequently when in 739 Gregory III appealed for the first time to
the Franks to enter Italy in order to deliver the Church of Rome from
Liutprand, the most generous "oppressor! " of the Holy See known to
history, Charles ignored his request; and he is further accused, not
## p. 699 (#731) ############################################
741–754] First Appeal to the Franks 699
without reason, of having laid hands on the estates of the clergy. A
century after his death it was generally believed that he had incurred
“that righteous damnation of him by whom the property of the Church
has been unjustly taken away. ”
Charles Martel and Gregory III both died in 741. The next pope
was, as we have seen, the saintly Zacharias (741–752) under whom
Boniface rose to the summit of his influence. The successors of Charles
were his sons Pepin and Carloman. The latter prince was a monk at
heart and in 747 retired from the world, and Pepin himself was far more
religiously disposed than his father. Consequently the reform of the
Church north of the Alps went on apace under Boniface, now Archbishop
of Mainz and Primate of Germany.
The time had now come for the house of Arnulf to assume the office
the power of which they had so long exercised. Confident in the support
of the Church, . *. *. * of Zacharias whether it would not now be
advisable for him to ascend the German—throne. in place of the last
puppet Merovingian Childeric III. How far Boniface took part in the
elevation of Pepin as king-is-much disputed. He had withdrawn much
from public life since 747. At any rate in 751-Childeric-III was deposed,
tonsured and sent into a monastery, and Pepin was solemnly anointed and
was more Francorum elevatus in regno. #. our great
countryman the new Frankish dynasty came into being. It was probably
owing to Boniface's influence that Pepin's bi Carloman, Mayor of
the Palace in Austrasia, renounced the world and settled in Italy in a
monastery on Mount Soracte. Thus the Roman see was continually
entering into a closer and closer relationship with the most vigorous of
the Teutonic nations of the north, the Austrasian Franks, who aided by
their English kinsmen beyond the sea were spreading the Gospel eastward
in Europe.
In the short but memorable pontificate of Stephen III (752–757)
Pepin laid the foundation of the temporal power of the Roman
see in return for his formal recognition by the Pope. Hard pressed
by the Lombard Aistulf, Stephen crossed the Alps on a visit to the
Frankish king. The pontiff was met by . . ". then a
boy of eleven, who brought him to his father at Ponthion. There
Pepin promised to “ ” to the Holy See the exarchate of Ravenna
and the “rights and territories-of-the Roman Republic. ” On 28 July
754 Stephen solemnly anointed and blessed Pepin, his wife Bertrada, and
his two sons Charles and Carloman, pronouncing an anathema-on the
Franks should they ever choose—a king from another family. Pepin at
the same time received the title of “patrician” with all its undefined
liabilities as protector of Rome. In the following year Pepin held a
“diet” of placitum at Carisiacum (Kiersy or Quierzy) and decided to
advance into Italy to win Stephen–H–his rights from the Lombards.
A document was drawn up, which has unfortunately perished, setting
CH. xxii.
## p. 700 (#732) ############################################
700 Donation of Pepin [757-768
forth what territories were to be given to the Pope. This is the
"donation~oX_Pepin. ,, Twice did the Frankish army invade Italy—on
the first occasion at the Pope's personal request and on the second owing
to the receipt of the letter which- St lle^er^himself was believed to
have addressed to the king of the Franks. In the end - twenty. -three
cities inchidiagjlaxenna were surrendered by AistulfjJoStephen III,
who, at the time of his death in April 757, had become a sovereign
prince. But in gaining territory the Papacy lost independence by
becoming too great a prize for any man to _win without a struggle.
The rest of the history of the eighth century shews that in order to
enjoy that which Pepin had bestowed the popes must become dependents
of the Franks, who were thus compelled to invade-Jtaly-as conquerors to
maintain the Papacy which they had enriched.
Paul I, the successor of Stephen, enjoyed a somewhat peaceful
pontificate of ten years, a. d. 757-767; but we are able to see that the
acquisition of the imperial territory on the shores of the Adriatic had
further relaxed the feeble tie which still held the Papacy to Constan-
tinople. Paul had to deal with Constantine V, the most formidable of
the Iconoclasts; and he had to protect alike the holy images and the
possessions of the Roman Church. In his correspondence with Pepin,
the Greeks are styled nefandissimi. Once the Church had obtained
Ravenna and the cities of Emilia and the Pentapolis there could be no
restoration of the exarchate. The political connexion between Rome
and Constantinople was practically severed by the donation . of—Pepin. ^
The king of the Franks died in 76%-* year later than Paul; and we
enter upon one of the most critical eras of papal history. All on which
this chapter has hitherto dwelt: the severance from the imperial
authority at Constantinople, the disputes with the Lombards, the
alliance with the Franks, the work of Gregory II, Boniface, and
Stephen III, culminates in Charles the Great. With his accession we
stand at the opening of a new epoch in the history of Western Europe,
fraught with important consequences. The theological breach between
East and West, the medieval theory of Papacy and Empire, the great
strife of secular and spiritual powers, are traceable to the years
immediately before us.
In considering the relations between the popes and the Franks
during the long reign of Charles the Great it is necessary to bear in
mind that, though Pepin by his donation had made the popes into
priest-kings, their position was precarious in the-extreme. Italy under
Lombard rule was in a state of anarchy; and Romejtself-was the centre
of a barbarism which was intensified-by being concealed under the
specious name of ecclesiastical government and claimed to represent not
only the piety but the civilisation of the West. When we read of kings,
dukes, pontiffs, cardinals (first mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis at this
time), of the senate, of the exercitus or militia; when modern terms like
## p. 701 (#733) ############################################
768-772] Anarchy in Italy 701
that of the " unification of Italy" are applied to the policy of a ruler
like the Lombard Desiderius, we may lose sight of the fact that under
this specious veneer there lay an utterly disintegrated society, charac-
terised by a savagery which could hardly be paralleled by the acknowledged
barbarism of many countries north of the Alps. The pontificate of
Stephen IV (768-772) is, as has been already hinted, a period of
violence and bloodshed: and the events which characterised it are
repeated almost exactly not thirty years later in the days of Leo III:
for centuries not even the person of a pope was safe in Rome without
the protecting hand of some external authority. It is only possible
here to allude to the strange story of Stephen IV as related in the Liber
Poniificalis; and to proceed to a hasty summary of the main events of
the reign of Charles the Great.
On Pepin's death the Frankish dominions were divided between his
two sons Charles and Carloman. The two brothers speedily became
rivals, and the scene of their machinations was Italy. Their mother
Bertrada had brought about a nominal reconciliation between her two
sons Charles king in Austrasia, and Carloman king in Neustria, and in
the interests of peace sought to contract matrimonial alliances with the
Lombard monarch Desiderius. With this end in view she visited Italy
and persuaded Charles to give up the lady whom he had perhaps
irregularly married and to take Desiderata, the daughter of the Lombard
king. These projects alarmed Stephen IV, and his letter to Charles
and Carloman warning them against an alliance with the detestable
* Lombards, a race infected with leprosy and naturally repulsive to noble
Franks, is one of the most extraordinary in the papal correspondence
with the Carlovingian family; and confirms us in the idea that Stephen's
passionate weakness of character was one cause of the misfortunes of
that unhappy pontiff. But the alliance was short-lived. Charles re-
pudiated his Lombard wife, and on Carloman's death in 771 the widow
Gerberga placed herself and her children under the protection of
Desiderius—a proof that the two brothers regarded the Lombard as the
determining factor in their rivalry for the possession of the whole
Frankish realm. The Pope sided with Charles against Gerberga and her
children; for Desiderius, no doubt hoping that the Franks were sufficiently
divided to leave him alone, had ravaged the newly acquired papal
dominions in the exarchate and the Pentapolis.
Stephen died in 772, and was succeeded by two pontiffs who held
the Papacy for no less than forty-four years. Hadrian I from 772 to 795
and Leo III from 795 to 816. Never till our own days have two successive
pontificates occupiecTso long a period. Till the days of Pius IX no
pope so nearly attained to the traditional years of Peter as Hadrian.
Judged by his actions Hadrian was a man of vigour and ability;
and if he shews himself querulous and apprehensive in his correspondence
with Charles, it only reveals the extreme difficulty of the situation in
CH. XXII.
## p. 702 (#734) ############################################
702 Fall of the Lombard Kingdom [772-774
which he was often placed. His first act on succeeding Stephen was
successfully to repress disorder in Rome.
Paul us Afiarta, the evil genius
of the late Pope, who had brought about the ruin of Christophorus and
Sergius, was sent under arrest to Ravenna, where the archbishop Leo, to
Hadrian's indignation, put the unfortunate prisoner to death. In the
following year, 773, Charles invaded Italy, defeated Desiderius, and
invested his capital of Pavia. In. 774-the Frankish king paid his first
memorable visit to Rome, and was received with due honour by the
Pope and the Roman-clergy. Touched by his reception and deeply
impressed by his visit to the tomb of the Apostle and to the holy
churches of Rome, Charles bestowed on Hadrian_all_jhat Pepin had
given to the__Holy^. See, and, if we may believe the Roman account,
something more. The documentary evidence for the donation of
Charles needs separate treatment; but the king is said to have
included in his magnificent gift nil Tt«ly south of^the Po _which the
Lombards occupied. Charles returned to Pavia after his visit to Rome
and completed the conquest of the Lombards. Desiderius was forced to
retire into a monastery, to make way for the victorious Frank who was
now king of the Lombarda amiPafoician^of Rome.
Thus fell the Lombard kingdom after two centuries of rule in Italy;
and it may here be observed that none of the nations which had occupied
the territory of the Empire had been able to survive the baneful
atmosphere of the ruined Roman world. The Visigoths of Spain, the
Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Merovingians of Gaul,
had all like the Lombards rapidly degenerated in contact with the
ancient civilisation. It was beyond the limits of the Empire that a new
and more vigorous life was coming into being. Among the Franks in
Austrasia, in the monasteries of Ireland, in Britain—from which all traces
of Roman dominion had been swept by the conquering Angles and
Saxons, arose the makers of a new world. Columbanus the Keltic monk,
Wilfrid the English bishop, Boniface the missionary from Devon,
Charles Martel and his illustrious sons and grandson, Alcuin the
Yorkshire scholar—nearly all of these hailed from lands which Tertullian
had described as Romanis inaccessa, Christo vero subdita.
When Charles departed from Ita)y '" 774; Hadrian was left alone to
assert his authority over the splendid^pidncipalityJie-had acquired from
his Frankish benefactors. But only by a strong hand could rights be
maintained in those unsettled days; and the Pope was hard pressed on
all sides. Not only did the unconquered Lombard duchy of Benevento
encroach on his territory in the south; his tenure of the exarchate was
threatened by Leo, the ambitious archbishop of Ravenna, who sought
independence, and was resolved to seize the cities in his neighbourhood
over which the Pope claimed jurisdiction. Hadrian, one of the ablest
of the popes, did his best to jiAJntain his authority His troops
defended his frontiers against the Beneventans and even captured
## p. 703 (#735) ############################################
774—799] Outrage on Pope Leo III 703
Terracina. But his correspondence with Charles reveals the weakness of
his position. That Hadrian was a great man is certain; and Charles
seems to have recognised in him somewhat of a kindred spirit to his
own; and at the Pope's death the Frankish monarch mourned as for a
lost brother. But in this case his position was less assured than his
ability, and he needed the support of the arms and influence of Charles
in order to maintain it. How truly Hadrian deserves to be classed
among the greatest* rulers of the Roman Church, and how precarious)
was the situation of a pope in the eighth century, is shewn when we
come to the disastrous commencement of the pontificate of his successor
Leo III.
It is one of the ironies of fate that the pontiff to whose lot it fell to
inaugurate the Middle Ages in Western Europe, by an act second to
none in dramatic circumstances and in its far-reaching consequences,
was not a great ruler like Hadrian, but a man in almost every respect
his inferior. Leo III, the son of Atzuppius and Elizabeth, is described as
a Roman priest of blameless character and abounding charity; but there
is a certain mystery overhanging the early days of his pontificate. If we
may judge from the names of his parents he had not the advantage of
being of noble birth, a matter of the utmost importance in his age; as,
not only was it regarded as one of the chief recommendations for a
bishop, but it gave a man the almost indispensable support of powerful
kinsmen. Hadrian, perhaps the earliest example of papal nepotism,
had given the highest positions in the Roman Church to his relatives,
committing to them the administration of its great wealth and extensive
patrimony. The government of the apostolic Church was vested at this
time in seven officials, who though only in deacon's orders took the
highest rank in the hierarchy under the Pope. The chief of these, the
primicerius notariorum, Paschalis, a nephew of Hadrian, who is also
called the comiliarius of the Holy See, with Campulus the sacellarius or
treasurer, another relative of the late Pope, evidently cherished deep
resentment against Leo; and on the occasion of the procession of the
greater Litany on 25 April 799 (St Mark's day) they determined to
wreak their vengeance. Joining the procession from the Lateran at the
church of St Laurence, the conspirators took their places beside the
Pope, apologising for not wearing their official planetae on the plea of ill-
health. When the procession reached the monastery of SS. Stephen and
Sylvester, a band of ruffians dashed forth and threw Leo to the ground.
Then, with Paschalis standing at his head and Campulus. at his feet, an
attempt was made to blind the pontiff and to cut out his tongue. The
wretched Pope was left for a while bleeding in the street, then dragged
into the church of St Sylvester, and imprisoned in the Greek monastery
of St Erasmus on the Coelian Hill.
Strange to say, the outrage seems to have produced no great effect
on the Roman people, and Leo remained a prisoner till he had recovered
## p. 704 (#736) ############################################
704 Carolus Augustus [799—800
from his wounds. Then his partisans rescued him, and though he is
said to have been welcomed with enthusiasm in St Peter's he did not
again enter the city; but placing himself under the charge of Winichis,
duke of Spoleto, retired thither. Thence he betook himself to Charles
at Paderborn, was received by the king and assured of his protection,
under which he was able to re-enter Rome on 29 Nov. 799. Charles
himself was fully occupied the greater part of the following year. In
the spring we find him in Neustria looking after the defences of the
shores of the Channel, in the summer he is at Tours, visiting Alcuin and
bewailing the loss of Queen Liutgardis, in August he is holding a great
placitum at Mainz; and not till autumn was well advanced did he
undertake his memorable expedition to Italy, arriving at Rome on
24 Nov. 800.
He came not so much as a defender of the rights of the Pope as in
the capacity of his judge. Leo's fair fame as well as his person had
suffered at the hands of his adversaries, and grave though to us mysterious
charges were spread abroad concerning him. Alcuin had received from
his friend Arno, archbishop of Salzburg, so serious an account of affairs
in Rome and of Leo III that he thought it advisable to burn it; and
Charles himself does not seem to have held the same opinion of Leo as
he had of Hadrian. At any rate on 8 Dec. , in the presence of the king,
the Roman clergy, and the Frankish nobles, Leo solemnly exculpated
himself and took an oath on the gospels that he was guiltless of the
crimes laid to his charge. It is particularly important in view of his
subsequent action to remember that three weeks before Leo had been
in the humiliating position of having publicly to profess his innocence.
Charles was now at the height of his glory; master of Italy and
northern Europe, he was regarded as the representative of Christendom.
A woman who had sinned foully against her own son occupied the
throne of the Eastern Caesars, and the eyes of all men turned to the
gigantic Frank whose wars with the surrounding barbarians had been
for the defence and propagation of the gospel. The day after Leo had
professed his innocence the priest Zacharias arrived from Jerusalem with
the Keys of Calvary and of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of
Jerusalem. Leo had already sent him the keys of the tomb of St Peter
and Rome recognised him as its Patrician.
On Christmas day Charles clothed himself in the Patrician's robe
Jnd went, not as a barbarian king but as the greatest of the nobility
f Rome, to the already venerable church of St Peter. Then he knelt
in prayer before the "confession" of the Prince of the Apostles, and
the Mass began. After the reading of the gospel the Pope took from
the altar a most precious crown and placed it upon the head of the
kneeling monarch. With one voice the assembled multitude, Frank and
Roman, ecclesiastic and warrior, shouted "Carolo piissimo Augusto a
Deo coronato magno et pacifico Imperatori Vita et Victoria. " The
## p. 705 (#737) ############################################
8oo] Carolus Augustus 705
birthday of the Christ was the birthday of the new Roman Empire.
"From this moment modern history begins" (Bryce). v
The significance of the act has been variously interpreted from the
first. In the Lives of the Popes and in the German contemporary annals
the papal and the imperial share in the transaction have been respectively
magnified. The claims of the Pope to exact obedience from temporal
rulers and of the Emperors to regard the Popes as their subjects were
based throughout the Middle Ages upon the meaning attached to the
coronation and unction of Charles. Without attempting to pronounce
judgment on so vexed a topic, we may set forth three points: namely
(1) the significance of the proclamation of Charles as Emperor to the
world of 800, (2) the effects on the Empire and the Papacy respectively,
and (3) ultimate results.
(1) The world understood that the nations of the West, after nearly
four centuries of anarchy and decay, still recognised that they belonged
to the Roman Empire_and were resolved to seek for peace and unity
under a single ruler. Charles was no more aFrankish king ruling by
his might, but the lawful lord-of Chrictcndom. As the Faith represented
by the Pope was one, so all temporal authority was centred in the
person of the Emperor. Hitherto the Roman in the West had regarded
the distant Augustus in Constantinople as his lawful mnstpr But the
experience of generations had proved- him powerless to protect Ttnlj^ and
in theory at least in the year 800 there wjusjia-Enaperor. Irene having
usurped the throne of Constantine VI, the allegiance due to the Eastern
Caesar could be lawfully transferred to Charles.
(2) By his coronation fhnrWTTaH nhtainprl an accession nHttlpr of
territory nor of wealth: but he gained that which he never could have
secured by himself. It is difficult for us to understand how great a
departure from precedent his coronation was. The one title withheld
from the barbarians was that nf Emperor They might master Italy as
Ricimer, Odovacar, Theodoric, and the Lombard kings had done. They
might be decorated with the titles of consul and patrkiap-4tke>Clovis.
They might set up puppet emperors n. nA rale i" *hpir "»«"■ But never
did they presume themselves to niinmc the imperial title. To acknow-
ledge a barbarian king to-be-his Emperor, as Leo acknowledged Charles,
was nnpvamplpH in \}\p annals of the Roman world. This explains the
astonishment of Charles when Leo III placed the crown-on, his head, and
accounts for his assurance ty_Einhard that he never would have entered
St Peter's had he suspected the intention of the Pope. The Pope on the
other hand had by this act taken the place of the Roman people, of the
Spnntgj and, of the Army—in a word ofafl the powers which had in the
past proclaimed-an-Emperor. That he had done so entirely on his own
initiative might have been credible of Hadrian, but scarcely of Leo,
whose position was too insecure, and his character not sufficiently
established to warrant so bold an action. Without the consent and
C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. XXII. 4P
## p. 706 (#738) ############################################
706 Significance of the Coronation [m
approval of the Roman people and the nobles who attended Charles
he never could have assumed so mighty a role. If the Frank knelt
unsuspectingly at his devotions to receive the imperial diadem, we can
hardly doubt that Leo's action was the result of a carefully preconceived
plan of which many of the spectators were fully cognisant. By it,
however, the Papacy gained an advantage which no one then possibly
foresaw. Pepin and Charles had> delivered the Popes from Greek
oppression and Lombard tyranny; they had made them princes in Italy
by securing them a kingdom which they held for eleven centuries; and
in return the Papacy sanctioned the conversion of—the_jnayors^of_the
palace of Australia first into__kings and finally_intD--Eniperors, but
in so" doing they laidThe-foundation of claims which were in later days
to shake terribly the earth1.
(3) The new Empire was essentially the creation of the Western
genius. Unlike the older imperial system which made-the—Efnperor,
Justinian as truly as Augustus, supreme in matters spiritual as well as
temporal, the regime inaugurated by Leo III emphasised the Augustinian
ideal of the City of God; and, though in theory the Christian State in
the Middle Ages was essentially one, there arose a _practi«d-~dichotomy
between the province_of the clergy and that_pf the, laity. That these
worked sometimes in harmony, sometimes in discord but never in com-
plete unity, was one of the results of the Carlovingians creating the
Papal States, and of the Popes calling into being the Empire of the West.
1 The significance of the coronation of Charles is notoriously one of the most
disputed points in history. Even the contemporary chronicles, the Frankish and
the Liber Pontificals, are completely at variance as to the position of Leo III in
regard to Charles. It is evident that there had been ample opportunities for
Franks and Romans to confer together on raising Charles to the imperial dignity
for at least a year before the coronation. That Charles had been negotiating with
the Empress Irene since the imperial throne had been vacated by Constantine VI in
796 is equally certain. This may account for Charles' statement to Einhard. He
may well have considered the action of Leo, the Romans and the Franks premature,
though the idea of assuming the title of Emperor was not new to him. (See Dollinger,
Historical and Literary Addresses, in. Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, m. p. 175,
is one of the few to agree with Dollinger in acknowledging that Charles honestly
meant what his biographer records of him. )
Prof. Bury, Eastern Roman Empire, 802-867, discusses the coronation from the
standpoint of Constantinople.
## p. 707 (#739) ############################################
707
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
(1) The following abbreviations are used for titles of periodicals:
A ARAB. Annales de l'Academie royale d'archeologie de Belgique. Antwerp.
A It. Analecta Bollandiana. Brussels.
A 15c. Archives beiges. Liege.
AHR. American Historical Review. New York and London.
AKKR. Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht. Mainz.
AM. Annales du Midi. Toulouse.
AMur. Archivio Muratoriano. Rome.
ASAK. Anzeiger fur schweizerische Alterthumskunde. Zurich.
ASHF. Annuaire-Bulletin de la Societe de 1'histoire de France. Paris.
ASI. Archivio storico italiano. Florence.
ASL. Archivio storico Lombardo. Milan.
ASRSP. Archivio della Societa romana di storia patria. Rome.
BCRH. Bulletins de la Commission royale d'histoire. Brussels.
Bllisp. Bulletin hispanique. Bordeaux.
BRAH. Boletin de la R. Academia de la historia. Madrid.
BZ. Byzantinische Zeitschrift. Leipsic.
CQR. Church Quarterly Review. London.
CR. Classical Review. London.
CRSA. Comptes rendus des seances de l'Academie des inscriptions et belles-
lettres. Paris.
DZG. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft. Freiburg-i. -B.
DZKR. Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Kirchenrecht. Leipsic.
EHR. English Historical Review. London.
FDG. Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte.
HJ. Historisches Jahrbuch. Munich.
Hm. Hermes. Berlin.
HVJS. Historische Vierteljahrsschrift. Leipsic.
HZ. Historische Zeitschrift (von Sybel). Munich and Berlin.
JA. Journal Asiatique. Paris.
JB. Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft im Auftrage der historischen
Gesellschaft zu Berlin. 1878 ff. Berlin.
JHS. Journal of Hellenic Studies. London.
JRAS.
