The Power Of The Popes Part 2

5 Cod. Carol. Ep. Adriani VI. p. 550 of 5th vol. of Coll. of the Historians of France.

5 Leblanc. Medals of Charlemagne, &c, p. 17.

5 Velly. History of France vol. 1. p. 399.

Charlemagne, before the end of the eighth century, so little thought of investing the popes with a sovereign power, that he avoided, on the contrary, a.s.suming to himself an absolute sovereignty over the city and territory of Rome. He did not dispute that of the Greek Emperors; and although he governed without receiving their commands, he left it to be supposed that he considered himself only as their representative. It is even conjectured, that in 781, he had received from Irene the letter which created him, in express terms, Patrician of the Romans. When Paul Diacre says, that Charles added Rome to his States from the year 774; it is according to Duquet an hyperbolical expression5 since Charles himself was satisfied with the simple patriciate. Theopha.n.u.s ascribes only to the year 779, the commencement of the domination of the French, over the capital of Italy; and even he is not exact, as we shall shortly see, since he antic.i.p.ates by a year, the absolute extinction of the sovereignty of the Greek Emperors over the Romans.

To measure the extent of the authority exercised by Charles in Rome, previous to the year 800, it is necessary to form an idea of the nature of the dignity of patrician, with which he was invested.

5 Rhetorici hac et hyperbolici loquitur Paulus. Anno eriim 774, Roma neque a Longobardis oppressa fuit, neque a Carolo c.u.m dilionibus suis unita, sed a Longobardorum in-sultibus liberata et Carolo jure patriciats tantum subdita.- Collection of Gallic and French Historian, vol. 5. p. 191. n. a.

Constantine, anxious to restore the ancient patricians, had invented this personal t.i.tle of patrician, to be given to the governor or first magistrate of the city of Rome. From 729 to 800, that is, during the existence of a shadow of the Roman republic, the office of patrician was often conferred by the clergy, the n.o.bles, and the people of this city, almost always at the will of the popes, but never at their sole discretion. The Greek emperors ratified either expressly or tacitly the election of the patrician; preferring that it might be supposed he governed in their name, rather than it should be believed he ruled in despite of them. Many barbarous kings, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and others, have received and borne this t.i.tle; and Charlemagne did not disdain a dignity, subordinate in appearance, but in reality independent, and which might serve as a step to a more perfect sovereignty.

Leo III. succeeding, in 790, to Pope Adrian, hastened to address to Charlemagne a letter of homage, similar to those which this prince was accustomed to receive from his va.s.sals.54 However, there remains to us a monument of the supremacy still preserved by the Emperor of the East over the Romans in 797; it is a mosaic, with which Leo III. ornamented the hall of the Lateran palace.55

54 Ann. Lauresh. St. Marc, Abr. Chron. of Hist, of Italy, vol. 1.

year 796.

55 Ciampini, Vetera. Mon. par. 2. p. 128.

We here behold a prince crowned, which circ.u.mstances prove to be Constantine V.: another prince, without a crown, and a pope, are represented kneeling, and by an inscription are named Charles and Leo.

The Emperor receives a standard from the hands of Jesus Christ; Charlemagne receives another of them from St. Peter's left hand, who, with his right hand, bestows a pallium on the pope. This mosaic is at once the emblem of the supremacy of the emperor, the power of the patrician, and the pretensions of the pontiff.

In 799 a conspiracy is formed against Leo III.- he is accused before Charlemagne, who refers to commissioners the investigation and decision of the whole affair.56 This fact suffices to shew, how far the pope was from being a sovereign before the year 800.

The 25th of December this year, Charles is proclaimed emperor. He had been raised to this supreme dignity, not by the pope alone, but by an a.s.sembly of the clergy, of the n.o.bility, and of the people of Rome.57

56 Theophan. Chron. - Eginhard, ad ann. 799.-Anastasius vit. Leonis iii.-Fleury. Hist. Eccles. 1* 45. n. 14.

57 Fleury. Hist. Eccles. 1. 45. n. 14. See also how Anastasias, the historian of the popes, relates the coronation of Charlemagne: Post haec, adveniente die natali. D. N. J. C. in jam dicta basilica B. Petri apostoli omnes interum congregati sunt, et tunc yenerabilis almificus pontifex xnanibus suis propriis pretiosissima corona coronavit eum. Tunc universi jidelcs Romani...unanimiter altisona voce, Dei nutu atque B. Petri clavigeri regni clorum, exclamaverunt: Carolo piissimo Au-gusto a Deo coronato, magno, pacifico imperatori, vita et victoria. Ante sacram confessionem B. Petri apostoliter dictus est, et ab omnibus const.i.tutes est imperator Romanorum. Illico sanctissimus pontifex unxit oleo sancto Carolum, &c.- Anast. Bibl. in vita Leonis III.

Behold, then, the precise period of the extinction of the sovereign rights of the Eastern Emperor in Rome: then, also, ceased the patriciate, properly so called; and the pope, no longer recognizing any intermediate person between him and the Western Emperor, became, indeed, the governor or first magistrate of Rome and of its territory.

Charlemagne, in order to deceive the court of Constantinople, had pretended to fill only a pa.s.sive part in his own coronation:-it was without his knowledge that they decreed him the imperial crown -it was against his consent that he suffered it to be placed on his victorious head: such, at least, is the account which his chancellor Eginhard has given us of this event; an account which Sigonius58 and Muratori5?

have cla.s.sed with the fabulous, and to which even Father David himself refuses all credence.

58 De Regn. Ital. 1. iv. p. 252.

5? Annali d'ltalia, ann. 800.

Charlemagne hastened to dispatch amba.s.sadors to Constantinople; he received in return those of the Emperor Nicephoras, and concluded a treaty of friends.h.i.+p and alliance with him, which fixed the limits of the two empires, without, however, a formal recognition of the Emperors of the West by the Greeks. But the absolute sovereignty of Charles over the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, and the Roman territory, became undisputed.6

6 In uniting all these facts, says Bossuet, it is easy to see that Baronins a.s.serts very inappropriately, that the popes had deposed the emperors because of their heresy, and transferred their empire to the French. It is on the contrary evident, that in Italy and at Rome, the popes themselves have constantly recognized as emperors, the image-breaking princes; and that the empire was only transferred to the French when it was possessed by Irene, a most catholic princess after her rejection of heresy.

It is no less evident, that the popes solicited the a.s.sistance of the French, not on account of the heresy of the Emperor, but because they had no other resources to oppose the Lombards: that their affairs were altogether desperate, and that they could hope for no succour from the emperors of the east. There were wanting none of the circ.u.mstances necessary, as is said in the present day, to justify the deposition of kings. These emperors were heretics, obstinate in error, cruel in their persecutions, and besides, were forgers and perjurers; a circ.u.mstance, which according to our adversaries, rendered them still more worthy of deposition, since it was against the church they sinned, in violating the oath, which they had taken at the foot of the altar, to commit no innovation in religion.

Notwithstanding the violation of these solemn promises, the catholics not only honored as emperor, the prince who persecuted them, but did all which lay in their power, to restrain those who, under such pretext, wished to excite seditions and revolt against the empire: so true it is, that they had not then the least idea of that power, in which, at the present day, all the hopes of the church are made to consist, and which is regarded as the firmest bulwark of the pontifical authority. Def.

Cler. Grail, p. 26. 6 ch. 20. in the year 803,6 and in 806,6 dates from the reign of the Emperor Charles. This prince designates himself 'Head of the Roman Empire;'6 and the confines of his states are, henceforward extended, even to the lower Calabria, by Eginhard64 and other historians.

Stephen IV. as soon as he was elected successor to Leo. III. made the Romans take an oath of allegiance to Louis-le-Debonnaire, the successor of Charlemagne.65 Among the gifts of which the Holy See avails itself, there is one which bears the name of this first Louis, and the date of 816 or 817:66 it is pretended, that in confirming the concessions of Charlemagne and of Pepin, Louis has reckoned Sicily in the number of the territories acquired by the Roman Court, and that he has renounced for himself and his successors also, the right of ratifying the elections of the popes.

6 Imperante nostro domino Carolo piiasimo a Deo coronato. Ugh.e.l.li, Ital. see vol. 5. col. 1095.

6 Concilior. vol. 8. p. 1120.

6 Carolus serenissimus Augustus......imperator Romanorum gubamans imperium......Datum idibus junii, anno iii. imperii nostri, et 35 regni nostri in Francia. Lecoinle Ann. ecclct. Francorvm. vol. 6.

p. 814.

64 Italiamtotam. usque in Calabriam inferiorem. Eginhard.

65 Theg. de gestis Ludovici Pii. ann. 816.

66 Baronius Ann. Eccles. ann. 817.-Sigon. Hist Ital. 1.4.

But we see him, in 827, examine into and approve that of Gregory IV.

Eginhard, and another historian of Louis-le-Debonnaire,67 attest this circ.u.mstance to us. As to Sicily it did not in any wise belong to Louis: he never possessed it; the pope did not even dream of governing it; and it is so incredible that it should have been ceded to the pope in 816, by the emperor, that Father Morin,68 in supporting the authenticity of the donation of Louis I. is obliged to suppose, that the name of this isle had not been originally in it, but had been inserted in the course of time. Furthermore, it is a donation unknown to contemporary writers, and which appears not in historical records until long after its date.

67 Coll. of Histories of France, toI. 6. p. 108.

68 History of the Origin of the Power of the Popes, p. 627.

The forgery of doc.u.ments occurs often in the history of the temporal power of the popes. The Donation of Constantine was fabricated, as we have already observed, between the years 756 and 779, and it was about the same period that an Isidore, Mercator or Peccator, forged the decretals of the ancient popes, Anaclet, Clement, Evaristus, and others, down to St. Sylvester. In the sixth century, Dionysius-le-Pet.i.t was unable to collect any decretals, but those subsequent to St. Siricius, who died at the end of the fourth. Those of Isidore are long, full of common place, and all in the same style, which, according to Fleury6?

is much more that of the eighth century, than of the early ages of the Church. "Their dates are almost all of them incorrect," adds the historian we have just mentioned,:

"and the matter of these letters, still further "evinces the forgery: they speak of archbishops, "primates, patriarchs, as if these t.i.tles had been "received from the birth of the Church. They "forbid the holding of any council, even a provincial "one, without the permission of the pope, and "represent as a usual thing, the appeals to Rome."

These false decretals have contributed to the extension of the popes'

spiritual power, and to invest them with political authority: their fatal effects have been fully exposed by Fleury, in his fourth discourse on ecclesiastical history.

We believe, that from the details we have collected, it is sufficiently clear, that up to the year 800, and still later, the pope and the Romans have always acknowledged, as their sovereigns, the emperors of the East or the West, and even particular governors, as the exarch, the patrician, and the kings of the Lombards, or of Italy.7

6? Hist, eccles. I. 45. n. 22.

7 Muratori introduces the same results, in the three first chapters of his work ent.i.tled: Piena Esposizione di diritti im-periali ed Estensi sopra Comacchio, 1712, in-fol.

The pope at the end of Louis-le-Deboimaire's reign, in 840, was not yet a sovereign; and taking the word in its literal sense, that is, as expressing supreme authority, independent and undelegated, we may maintain with certain authors, that he did not begin to be such until 1355, when the Emperor Charles IV, receiving the imperial crown at Rome, renounced in the most express terms every sort of authority over the Holy See.

But without sovereignty a power may yet be effective. Such was that of the popes long before 1355, and even from the time of Charlemagne. An actual temporal power, though subordinate, delegated or borrowed, rested from that period, in the hands of the pontiffs; and, from this time, the perpetual quarrels between the priesthood and the empire, had no other object, than to emanc.i.p.ate and extend their power. It was necessary in the first place, to render it independent; and from the time it was or a.s.serted itself so to be, to amplify its prerogatives, its rights, its limits, finally to transform itself into a universal monarchy. Behold the common origin, of all the anathemas, all the quarrels, all the wars of which we are about to sketch the picture! Here is the secret of the eternal contentions of the Court of Rome with the greater number of the European powers, especially those which obtained an ascendancy in Italy.

CHAPTER II. ENTERPRIZES OF THE POPES OF THE NINTH CENTURY

CHARLEMAGNE had condemned gifts made to the church, to the prejudice of the children or near relatives of the donor. In 816, a capitulary of Louis I. declared all donations of this kind void. But, far from continuing to limit by such restraints the sacerdotal ambition, Louis was destined to become one of the first victims, and, by the same circ.u.mstance, one of the first founders of the clerical power.

Pascal succeeding Stephen IV. in 817, did not wait for the consent of the prince to instal himself: he confined himself to sending him legates, and an apologetical letter, in which he pretended that he had been compelled hastily to accept the dignity. Some years after, Pascal crowned Lothaire, whom Louis, his father, had a.s.sociated in the empire: the pope, say the ecclesiastical historians of the ninth century, gave to the young prince the power which the ancient emperors had enjoyed; they add, that with the consent and good will of Louis, Lothaire received from the sovereign pontiff the benediction, the dignity, and the t.i.tle of emperor; expressions truly remarkable, and of which they have since availed themselves, in order to erect the pope into the disposer of the imperial crown; as if Charles and Louis had not previously borne it, without being indebted for it to the bishops of Rome!-as if it were not, above all, contradictory, to pretend at once that these two princes founded, the temporal power of the popes, and yet received from these same popes the dignity of Emperors of the West.