Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II

Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor
Leo, are still extant; 33 and if they cannot be praised as the
most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the
portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal
monarchy. “During ten pure and fortunate years,” says Gregory to
the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal
letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred
pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers.
How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now
accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you
betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are
compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the
first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion;
and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the
enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be
provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.” After this
decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction
between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The
former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons,
at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any
visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his
mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles,
the innocence and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed
have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the
perpetual use of images, from the apostolic age, and their
venerable presence in the six synods of the Catholic church. A
more specious argument is drawn from present possession and
recent practice the harmony of the Christian world supersedes the
demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly confesses, than
such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of an orthodox
prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a
heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to
his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of
civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To
the former he appropriates the body; to the latter, the soul: the
sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate: the more
formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy;
and in the exercise of their divine commission a zealous son will
not spare his offending father: the successor of St. Peter may
lawfully chastise the kings of the earth. “You assault us, O
tyrant! with a carnal and military hand: unarmed and naked we can
only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he
will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and
the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance,
I will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break in pieces the
image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin,
shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the
Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread
in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans
serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After his
just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut
off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant: the
saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he
ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for
the edification and support of the faithful people; nor are we
reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as
you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation
of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can
remove to the distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first
fortress of the Lombards, and then—you may pursue the winds. 34
Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the
mediators of peace, between the East and West? The eyes of the
nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon
earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to
destroy. 35 The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present
their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to
visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive
from our hands the sacrament of baptism. 36 The Barbarians have
submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to
the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled
into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East.
Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and
repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be
spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head!”

33 (return) [ The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved
in the Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They
are without a date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the
year 726, by Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729,
and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that some
papists have praised the good sense and moderation of these
letters.]

34 (return) [ (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards
is hard of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu
Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly
reckons the xxivth stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of
the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the
Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the pedantry of the
age, employs stadia for miles, without much inquiry into the
genuine measure.]

35 (return) [ {Greek}]

36 (return) [ (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran; and in
his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity.
May not this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of
the Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the
pontificate of Gregory the Second, visited Rome for the purpose,
not of baptism, but of pilgrimage! (Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D.
726, No. 15.)]

The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had
been witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West,
who related with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the
emperor. But on the reception of his proscriptive edict, they
trembled for their domestic deities: the images of Christ and the
Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all
the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to
the Roman pontiff, the royal favor as the price of his
compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his
disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate;
and the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the emperor
displays his confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the
powers of resistance. Without depending on prayers or miracles,
he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral
letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty.
37 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the
Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion; their
military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of
the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused
into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and die
in the defence of the pope and the holy images; the Roman people
was devoted to their father, and even the Lombards were ambitious
to share the merit and advantage of this holy war. The most
treasonable act, but the most obvious revenge, was the
destruction of the statues of Leo himself: the most effectual and
pleasing measure of rebellion, was the withholding the tribute of
Italy, and depriving him of a power which he had recently abused
by the imposition of a new capitation. 38 A form of
administration was preserved by the election of magistrates and
governors; and so high was the public indignation, that the
Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to
conduct him with a fleet and army to the palace of
Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the second and
third Gregory, were condemned as the authors of the revolt, and
every attempt was made, either by fraud or force, to seize their
persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was repeatedly
visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and dukes and
exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they landed with foreign
troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and the superstition of
Naples may blush that her fathers were attached to the cause of
heresy. But these clandestine or open attacks were repelled by
the courage and vigilance of the Romans; the Greeks were
overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an ignominious
death, and the popes, however inclined to mercy, refused to
intercede for these guilty victims. At Ravenna, 39 the several
quarters of the city had long exercised a bloody and hereditary
feud; in religious controversy they found a new aliment of
faction: but the votaries of images were superior in numbers or
spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem the torrent, lost
his life in a popular sedition. To punish this flagitious deed,
and restore his dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and
army into the Adriatic Gulf. After suffering from the winds and
waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent in the
neighborhood of Ravenna: they threatened to depopulate the guilty
capital, and to imitate, perhaps to surpass, the example of
Justinian the Second, who had chastised a former rebellion by the
choice and execution of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The
women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in
prayer: the men were in arms for the defence of their country;
the common danger had united the factions, and the event of a
battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. In a
hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and
advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was
victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated
to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured forth a
multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected
with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained
from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual
feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of
the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the
Roman pontiff convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against
the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent, he pronounced
a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should
attack the tradition of the fathers and the images of the saints:
in this sentence the emperor was tacitly involved, 40 but the
vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance may seem to imply that
the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner
had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and
the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have
relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of the
Byzantine dominion. Their moderate councils delayed and prevented
the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not
to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was
permitted to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather
than a master; and till the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne,
the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the
successors of Constantine. 41

37 (return) [ I shall transcribe the important and decisive
passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir
profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra
hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique se
cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur
permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra
Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in ejusdem
pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis defensione
viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]

38 (return) [ A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;)
a most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims
the zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and
Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh’s numbering the male
children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the
Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was imposed
a few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis XIV.]

39 (return) [ See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the
Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose
deeper shade of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and
Ravenna. Yet we are indebted to him for some curious and domestic
facts—the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p. 154,) the revenge
of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of the Greeks, (p.
170, 171,) &c.]

40 (return) [ Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis
.... imaginum sacrarum.... destructor.... extiterit, sit extorris
a cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae unitate. The
canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name constitutes
the excommunication; and the decision is of the last importance
to their safety, since, according to the oracle (Gratian, Caus.
xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p. 112) homicidas non
esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]

41 (return) [ Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans
conversionem principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab
amore et fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and
Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the strange
epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798)
represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the
banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p.
337.)]

The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and
arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty
years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By
the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated: in
the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sacred
boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her ancient
territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth
of the Tyber. 42 When the kings were banished, the republic
reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom
and virtue. Their perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two
annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the powers
of administration and counsel; and the legislative authority was
distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the
arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of
government and war: the will of the community was absolute: the
rights of individuals were sacred: one hundred and thirty
thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest; and a band
of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation deserving of
freedom and ambitious of glory. 43 When the sovereignty of the
Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the
sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her
liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object
of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the
substance, or even the forms, of the constitution, was
obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans; and they
were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of
a commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves and
strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious
Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their
most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman; “and in
this name,” says the bishop Liutprand, “we include whatever is
base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes
of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the
dignity of human nature.” 44 441 By the necessity of their
situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model
of a republican government: they were compelled to elect some
judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the nobles assembled to
deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed without the
union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman senate
and people was revived, 45 but the spirit was fled; and their new
independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of
vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be
supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and
domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the bishop.
His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and
prelates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude, and
oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first
magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the
popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their
face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient
coins. 46 Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the
reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the
free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from slavery.

42 (return) [ I have traced the Roman duchy according to the
maps, and the maps according to the excellent dissertation of
father Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p.
216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of Lombard
foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by the
Greeks.]

43 (return) [ On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman
kingdom, the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours
Preliminaire to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom.
i.,) who will not be accused of too much credulity for the early
ages of Rome.]

44 (return) [ Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones,
Franci, Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud contumeliarum
nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid
ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae, quicquid
luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est
comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom. ii. para
i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have
imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous
passage.]

441 (return) [ Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by
Robertson (Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by
the angry bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits
to be the genuine descendants of Romulus.—M.]

45 (return) [ Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque
universa populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex
Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160.
The names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct,
(Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle ages they
signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c., (Ducange,
Gloss. Latin.)]

46 (return) [ See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
ii. Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with the
word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des Medailles, tom.
ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli Officina B (secunda.)]

In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis
enjoyed a perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and
in the exercise of the Olympic games. 47 Happy would it have been
for the Romans, if a similar privilege had guarded the patrimony
of St. Peter from the calamities of war; if the Christians, who
visited the holy threshold, would have sheathed their swords in
the presence of the apostle and his successor. But this mystic
circle could have been traced only by the wand of a legislator
and a sage: this pacific system was incompatible with the zeal
and ambition of the popes; the Romans were not addicted, like the
inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent and placid labors of
agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy, though softened by the
climate, were far below the Grecian states in the institutions of
public and private life. A memorable example of repentance and
piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of the Lombards. In arms,
at the gate of the Vatican, the conqueror listened to the voice
of Gregory the Second, 48 withdrew his troops, resigned his
conquests, respectfully visited the church of St. Peter, and
after performing his devotions, offered his sword and dagger, his
cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his crown of gold, on
the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was the
illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of
interest is strong and lasting; the love of arms and rapine was
congenial to the Lombards; and both the prince and people were
irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of
Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her new chief. On the first
edicts of the emperor, they declared themselves the champions of
the holy images: Liutprand invaded the province of Romagna, which
had already assumed that distinctive appellation; the Catholics
of the Exarchate yielded without reluctance to his civil and
military power; and a foreign enemy was introduced for the first
time into the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. That city and
fortress were speedily recovered by the active diligence and
maritime forces of the Venetians; and those faithful subjects
obeyed the exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the
personal guilt of Leo from the general cause of the Roman empire.
49 The Greeks were less mindful of the service, than the Lombards
of the injury: the two nations, hostile in their faith, were
reconciled in a dangerous and unnatural alliance: the king and
the exarch marched to the conquest of Spoleto and Rome: the storm
evaporated without effect, but the policy of Liutprand alarmed
Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His
successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the
emperor and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery,
50 and this final conquest extinguished the series of the
exarchs, who had reigned with a subordinate power since the time
of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was
summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful
sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the
ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was
unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans
hesitated; they entreated; they complained; and the threatening
Barbarians were checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes
had engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the
Alps. 51

47 (return) [ See West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games,
(Pindar. vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious
reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]

48 (return) [ The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely
composed by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii.
p. 173,) who imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or
Livy.]

49 (return) [ The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron.
Venet. p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer.
Ital. tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory.
The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in Script. Ital.
tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists, Pagi,
Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or circumstances]

50 (return) [ The option will depend on the various readings of
the Mss. of Anastasius—deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital.
tom. iii. pars i. p. 167.)]

51 (return) [ The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles
of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,)
Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was
formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic
Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial library of
Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75, &c.)]

In his distress, the first 511 Gregory had implored the aid of
the hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French
monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his
signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country, and
perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the
pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the
greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life,
prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a
friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of
his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the
Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have
been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger
was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine,
and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced the
generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy
and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite
the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the public
despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this laborious
journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the Greek
emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats
could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the
Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the
abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his
protector; a hand which was never lifted in vain, either in war
or friendship. Stephen was entertained as the visible successor
of the apostle; at the next assembly, the field of March or of
May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike nation,
and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror,
at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in
person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an
ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to
respect the sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was
Astolphus delivered from the presence of the French arms, than he
forgot his promise and resented his disgrace. Rome was again
encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing
the zeal of his Transalpine allies enforced his complaint and
request by an eloquent letter in the name and person of St. Peter
himself. 52 The apostle assures his adopted sons, the king, the
clergy, and the nobles of France, that, dead in the flesh, he is
still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must obey, the
voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman church; that the
Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host
of heaven, unanimously urge the request, and will confess the
obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their
pious enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty
of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his
people, to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The
second expedition of Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than
the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and
Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice and sincerity by the
scourge of a foreign master. After this double chastisement, the
Lombards languished about twenty years in a state of languor and
decay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition;
and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they
peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims,
evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection,
and terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring
monarchy was pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the
First, the genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the
son of Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united in
public and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the
prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the fairest
colors of equity and moderation. 53 The passes of the Alps, and
the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the
former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of
Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, 531 Desiderius, the
last of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his
capital.

Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of
their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather
than the subjects, of the Franks; who derived their blood, and
manners, and language, from the same Germanic origin. 54

511 (return) [ Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read
Gregory III.—M]

52 (return) [ See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex
Carolinus, epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have
charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to
persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or
of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is
executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the age.]

53 (return) [ Except in the divorce of the daughter of
Desiderius, whom Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope
Stephen IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance of a noble
Frank—cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda, foetentissima natione
Longobardorum—to whom he imputes the first stain of leprosy,
(Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another reason against
the marriage was the existence of a first wife, (Muratori, Annali
d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.) But Charlemagne
indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy or concubinage.]

531 (return) [ Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
187.—M.]

54 (return) [ See the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and
the three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. i.]