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

The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family
form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and
ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy, the champions
of the Roman church obtained a favorable occasion, a specious
title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and intrigues of the
clergy. But the most essential gifts of the popes to the
Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of France, 55 and of
patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter,
the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks
of the Tyber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their
fate. The Franks were perplexed between the name and substance of
their government. All the powers of royalty were exercised by
Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title,
was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his
valor; his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father
had been the savior of Christendom; and the claims of personal
merit were repeated and ennobled in a descent of four
generations. The name and image of royalty was still preserved in
the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble Childeric; but his
obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition:
the nation was desirous of restoring the simplicity of the
constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a prince, was ambitious to
ascertain his own rank and the fortune of his family. The mayor
and the nobles were bound, by an oath of fidelity, to the royal
phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in their eyes;
and their common ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to
dispel their scruples, or to absolve their promise. The interest
of Pope Zachary, the successor of the two Gregories, prompted him
to decide, and to decide in their favor: he pronounced that the
nation might lawfully unite in the same person the title and
authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a victim
of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined in
a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so agreeable
to their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a
casuist, the sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet: the
Merovingian race disappeared from the earth; and Pepin was
exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of a free people, accustomed
to obey his laws and to march under his standard. His coronation
was twice performed, with the sanction of the popes, by their
most faithful servant St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and
by the grateful hands of Stephen the Third, who, in the monastery
of St. Denys placed the diadem on the head of his benefactor. The
royal unction of the kings of Israel was dexterously applied: 56
the successor of St. Peter assumed the character of a divine
ambassador: a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord’s
anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused and maintained
by the superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The Franks were
absolved from their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was
thundered against them and their posterity, if they should dare
to renew the same freedom of choice, or to elect a king, except
in the holy and meritorious race of the Carlovingian princes.
Without apprehending the future danger, these princes gloried in
their present security: the secretary of Charlemagne affirms,
that the French sceptre was transferred by the authority of the
popes; 57 and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with
confidence, on this signal and successful act of temporal
jurisdiction.

55 (return) [ Besides the common historians, three French
critics, Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p.
477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,)
and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p.
96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of Childeric
with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to save the
independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the texts
which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old annals,
Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]

56 (return) [ Not absolutely for the first time. On a less
conspicuous theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith
centuries, by the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The
royal unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in
the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions that of
Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony. See
Selden’s Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p.
234-249.]

57 (return) [ See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9,
&c., c. iii. p. 24. Childeric was deposed—jussu, the
Carlovingians were established—auctoritate, Pontificis Romani.
Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words are susceptible of a
very soft interpretation. Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the
world, the court, and the Latin language.]

II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome
58 were far removed from the senate of Romulus, or the palace of
Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or the
fictitious parents of the emperor. After the recovery of Italy
and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the importance and danger of
those remote provinces required the presence of a supreme
magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the
patrician; and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place
in the chronology of princes, extended their jurisdiction over
the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss of the
Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some sacrifice
of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised the
right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate
and people successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity
with the honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful
nation would have disdained a servile title and subordinate
office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was suspended; and,
in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more glorious
commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman ambassadors
presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St.
Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner
which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the
church and city. 59 In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin,
the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the freedom,
while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate
represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these
distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne
annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit to
the capital, he was received with all the honors which had
formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the
emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the
joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. 60 No sooner was he
informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet him, with
the banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of
one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or
national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman
youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender age,
with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the praises
of their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses, and
ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the
procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the
stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the
apostles. In the portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his
clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in their march
to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right hand of the
pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain and empty
demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed
between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation,
Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his
own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance
to his person and family: in his name money was coined, and
justice was administered; and the election of the popes was
examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and
self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative
remaining, which the title of emperor could add to the patrician
of Rome. 61

58 (return) [ For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D.
740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 308-329,)
and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d’Italie, tom. i. p.
379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to
make the patrician a lieutenant of the church, rather than of the
empire.]

59 (return) [ The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning
of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus,
or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p.
76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the
Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or
request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is
subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his
Critical Prefaces, Annali d’Italia, tom. xvii. p. 95-99.)]

60 (return) [ In the authentic narrative of this reception, the
Liber Pontificalis observes—obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens
venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum, aut
patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi fecit,
(tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]

61 (return) [ Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city—vestrae civitates
(ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de Metensis
Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals, struck at Rome,
have engaged Le Blanc to write an elaborate, though partial,
dissertation on their authority at Rome, both as patricians and
emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in 4to.)]

The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these
obligations, and their names are consecrated, as the saviors and
benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms
and houses was transformed by their bounty into the temporal
dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the
Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin. 62
Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and the
hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French
ambassador; and, in his master’s name, he presented them before
the tomb of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Exarchate 63
might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the
emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were
included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its
inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along
the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the
midland-country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this
transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes have been
severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy
for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his
profession. Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy,
would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the
Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to solicit in
his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the
pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without
injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice. The
Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the
Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double
expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks
he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him
to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff
for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his soul. The
splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute dominion,
and the world beheld for the first time a Christian bishop
invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the choice
of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes,
and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of
the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto 64
sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads after the
Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and subjects of
St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary surrender, the
present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That mysterious
circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the verbal or
written donation of Charlemagne, 65 who, in the first transports
of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek emperor of the
cities and islands which had formerly been annexed to the
Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and reflection,
he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness
of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of his own and his
father’s promises was respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks
and Lombards asserted the inalienable rights of the empire; and,
in his life and death, Ravenna, 66 as well as Rome, was numbered
in the list of his metropolitan cities. The sovereignty of the
Exarchate melted away in the hands of the popes; they found in
the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic rival: 67 the
nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and in the
disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an
ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived
and realized.

62 (return) [ Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs
this donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act
has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis represents,
(p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes, this ample gift. Both
are contemporary records and the latter is the more authentic,
since it has been preserved, not in the Papal, but the Imperial,
library.]

63 (return) [ Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow
concessions, of interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori
(Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided,
in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio
Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p. 160-180.]

64 (return) [ Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B.
Petri receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius,
p. 185.) Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own
persons or their country.]

65 (return) [ The policy and donations of Charlemagne are
carefully examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who
has well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
they were only verbal. The most ancient act of donation that
pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
(Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p. 267-270.)
Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much questioned,
(Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p. 432,
&c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no reasonable
objection to these princes so freely disposing of what was not
their own.]

66 (return) [ Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the
proprietor, Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for
the decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p.
223.)]

67 (return) [ The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo
of Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir
corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset,
nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent, (Agnellus,
Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii. pars. i.
p. 107.)]

Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong,
though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of
sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and
manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have produced or
concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or
suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the
Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the
decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the
liberality, and revive the name, of the great Constantine. 68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was
healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by
St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more
gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the
seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes;
the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the
provinces of the West. 69 This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt
of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his
lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt of
gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no
more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty
portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the ignorance
and credulity of the times, that the most absurd of fables was
received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in France, and is
still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law. 70 The
emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a forgery,
that subverted their rights and freedom; and the only opposition
proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the
twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity of the donation
of Constantine. 71 In the revival of letters and liberty, this
fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla,
the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot. 72 His
contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his
sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent and irresistible
progress of reason, that, before the end of the next age, the
fable was rejected by the contempt of historians 73 and poets, 74
and the tacit or modest censure of the advocates of the Roman
church. 75 The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the
credulity of the vulgar; 76 but a false and obsolete title still
sanctifies their reign; and, by the same fortune which has
attended the decretals and the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has
subsisted after the foundations have been undermined.

68 (return) [ Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est.... Quia ecce novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in
tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed
the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his merchandise was
indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much
wealth and power.]

69 (return) [ Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has
enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin.
The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to
be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from
Gratian’s Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has
been surreptitiously tacked.]

70 (return) [ In the year 1059, it was believed (was it
believed?) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori
places (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious
donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione
Constantini. See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv.
diss. 25, p. 335-350.]

71 (return) [ See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105)
which arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a
copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey. They
were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le Blanc and
Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first volume of the
Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are now
imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 269)
by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future cardinal
yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition,
(Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]

72 (return) [ I have read in the collection of Schardius (de
Potestate Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated
discourse, which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years
after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement party
pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the Romans,
and would even approve the use of a dagger against their
sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the persecution of
the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the Lateran,
(Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis
Latinis, p. 580.)]

73 (return) [ See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that
long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the
last edition, correctly published from the author’s Ms. and
printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo,
1775, (Istoria d’Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]

74 (return) [ The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among
the things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv.
80.) Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa, Ch’ebbe gia buono
odore, or puzza forte: Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che
Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Yet this incomparable poem
has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]

75 (return) [ See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No.
51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by
Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he
considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]

76 (return) [ Baronius n’en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t’il
trop dit, et l’on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui
l’empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J’en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose “che
volete? i Canonici la tengono,” il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]

While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion,
the images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the
Eastern empire. 77 Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the
union of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree,
without extirpating the root, of superstition. The idols (for
such they were now held) were secretly cherished by the order and
the sex most prone to devotion; and the fond alliance of the
monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason and
authority of man. Leo the Fourth maintained with less rigor the
religion of his father and grandfather; but his wife, the fair
and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the
heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of their
ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments were
inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor to
protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their
caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But
as soon as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene
more seriously undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the
first step of her future persecution was a general edict for
liberty of conscience.

In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed
to the public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of
their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled; the most
eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor anticipated and
flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the promotion of
her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of
Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church. But the
decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a similar
assembly: 78 the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the
bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of
a year, the separation of the disaffected troops, and the choice
of Nice for a second orthodox synod, removed these obstacles; and
the episcopal conscience was again, after the Greek fashion, in
the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen days were allowed
for the consummation of this important work: the Iconoclasts
appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the scene
was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarchs, 79 the decrees were framed by the president Taracius,
and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three
hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced, that the
worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the
fathers and councils of the church: but they hesitate whether
that worship be relative or direct; whether the Godhead, and the
figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of adoration. Of
this second Nicene council the acts are still extant; a curious
monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. I
shall only notice the judgment of the bishops on the comparative
merit of image-worship and morality. A monk had concluded a truce
with the daemon of fornication, on condition of interrupting his
daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples
prompted him to consult the abbot. “Rather than abstain from
adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it would be
better for you,” replied the casuist, “to enter every brothel,
and visit every prostitute, in the city.” 80 For the honor of
orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy of the Roman church, it is
somewhat unfortunate, that the two princes who convened the two
councils of Nice are both stained with the blood of their sons.
The second of these assemblies was approved and rigorously
executed by the despotism of Irene, and she refused her
adversaries the toleration which at first she had granted to her
friends. During the five succeeding reigns, a period of
thirty-eight years, the contest was maintained, with unabated
rage and various success, between the worshippers and the
breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to pursue with
minute diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus
allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the only
virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause of his
temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed
the character of Michael the First, but the saints and images
were incapable of supporting their votary on the throne. In the
purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of an
Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents, were
condemned to a second exile. Their applause would have sanctified
the murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin and successor,
the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the Phrygian
heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending parties;
and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him
into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity;
but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the
last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the
times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the
torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After
the death of Theophilus, the final victory of the images was
achieved by a second female, his widow Theodora, whom he left the
guardian of the empire. Her measures were bold and decisive. The
fiction of a tardy repentance absolved the fame and the soul of
her deceased husband; the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch
was commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two
hundred lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the
festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph
of the images. A single question yet remained, whether they are
endowed with any proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by
the Greeks of the eleventh century; 81 and as this opinion has
the strongest recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it
was not more explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West,
Pope Adrian the First accepted and announced the decrees of the
Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the
seventh in rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were
docile to the voice of their father; but the greatest part of the
Latin Christians were far behind in the race of superstition. The
churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle
course between the adoration and the destruction of images, which
they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship, but
as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry
book of controversy was composed and published in the name of
Charlemagne: 82 under his authority a synod of three hundred
bishops was assembled at Frankfort: 83 they blamed the fury of
the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure
against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their
pretended council, which was long despised by the Barbarians of
the West. 84 Among them the worship of images advanced with a
silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for
their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages
which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in
Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of
superstition.

77 (return) [ The remaining history of images, from Irene to
Theodora, is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi,
(A.D. 780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii.
Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim,
(Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The Protestants, except Mosheim, are
soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin, are
inflamed by the fury and superstition of the monks; and even Le
Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar, is
infected by the odious contagion.]

78 (return) [ See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second
Council of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith
volume of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with
some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a sigh
or a smile.]

79 (return) [ The pope’s legates were casual messengers, two
priests without any special commission, and who were disavowed on
their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics
to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is
revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp.
tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]

80 (return) [ These visits could not be innocent since the daemon
of fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]

81 (return) [ See an account of this controversy in the Alexius
of Anna Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. p. 371, 372.)]

82 (return) [ The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,)
composed in the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at
Worms, A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who
answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom.
vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections against the
Nicene synod and such words as these are the flowers of their
rhetoric—Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum errorem
.... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima.... derisione dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]

83 (return) [ The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as
well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort,
must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even the
principal laymen.]

84 (return) [ Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et
sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom.
ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be
hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius,
Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this unlucky sentence.]