Chapter II: “the Night of the Papacy”--Charlemagne to Otto the Great (1)

[Sidenote: [740-985 A.D.]]

From the East, powerless to render help, from an empire crumbling away beneath the weight of its own greatness, Gregory III therefore turned away, and fixed his gaze on the youthful greatness of a transalpine nation--the Franks--brave, adventurous, full of promise, successful in warfare, and destined to rise to future power. With Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and virtual ruler of the Frankish realm, Gregory II had already opened communications. To Charles Martel, his successor Gregory III again appealed, when, after eight years of doubtful peace, he suddenly found himself involved in an open war with the Lombards. His appeal is truly touching: “His tears are falling night and day for the destitute state of the church; the Lombard king and his son are ravaging the last remains of the property of the church, which no longer suffices for the sustenance of the poor, or to provide lights for the daily service; they have invaded the territory of Rome and seized all his farms; his only hope is in the timely succour of the Frankish king.” The appeal was rendered still stronger by the presents that accompanied it--the mystic keys of the sepulchre of St. Peter, and filings of his chains, which no Christian could resist. The title of patrician and consul of Rome was offered; and Gregory, as might be expected after such presents, received a courteous answer and an embassy was despatched to the imperial city.

[Sidenote: [741-754 A.D.]]

It is impossible to say what might have been the result of the negotiations between the pope and the ambassadors had they been continued. They were, however, interrupted by the death of both the potentates; of Charles Martel in October, of Gregory III in November of the very same year. Nevertheless these negotiations were the prelude to subsequent negotiations which Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles Martel, carried on with Pope Zacharias (Zachary), the successor of Gregory III; and this time the negotiations led to most important results.

INDEPENDENCE OF THE ROMAN BISHOPS

At the election of Zacharias, the customary form of obtaining the consent of the exarch was discarded, and discarded to be never afterwards revived. Henceforth the popes may be considered as independent of the Eastern Empire; henceforth begins their connection with the West; henceforth they hold no longer an exclusive ecclesiastical position, but the papacy has become a political dukedom. After the Sixth General Council, they had claimed the title of “universal priest,” and vindicated that claim by soon afterwards reducing to submission the last of the great archbishops of the West. After the appeal to Charles Martel and the independent election of Zacharias, they aspired to political sovereignty.[b]

THE APPEAL TO THE FRANKS

Zacharias, convinced of the advantage which Rome might derive from intimate union with the rising power of the Franks, watched with careful attention over the interests of the mayors of the palace; and it was at his suggestion that the nation at length conferred on those powerful functionaries the titles as well as the privileges of royalty. The Lombard princes regarded him with corresponding reverence. Liutprand, whose reign lasted above thirty years, was distinguished for his devout observance of the maxims of the church. The charity of the pontiff was equal to his talents, and the slaves which Venice offered to the Moors were purchased by his agents and set free.

Stephen II,[91] who next occupied the pontifical chair, had to endure, from the very commencement of his career, the troubles and dangers of domestic wars. Aistulf, the new king of the Lombards, inherited the spirit of his earliest predecessors, and it only required the appearance of a leader like Aistulf to put an end forever to the rule of the Greeks in Italy. But the Lombard monarch was not contented with the acquisition of Ravenna. He assailed the duchy of Rome and the lands of the church, nor could Stephen, either by the most solemn expostulations, or the offers which he made of money, induce the conqueror to withdraw his troops. In this situation, and when the Lombards had demanded as the price of their safety a tribute which the citizens of Rome felt it would be impossible to pay, the pontiff sent messengers to Constantinople requesting aid of the emperor; but his entreaties were disregarded. He turned his eyes towards France, where Pepin, the father of the heroic Charlemagne, was now at the head of a nation as warlike as the Lombards, and as disposed to ally itself with Rome as the invaders were to effect its ruin.

[Sidenote: [754-755 A.D.]]

Ambassadors were sent to Rome to treat with the Lombards for Stephen’s safe passage into France, a negotiation which could scarcely fail in the hands of the powerful sovereign by whom it was undertaken. The pontiff was speedily on his way to the new protector of the church. He appeared with all his attendants before the monarch, clad in sackcloth and ashes, and falling at his knees he implored him, by the mercy of God and the merits of St. Peter and St. Paul, to deliver Rome from the devastation of the Lombards. Pepin in reply promised to grant the pontiff’s request, and speedily fulfilled his promise by compelling the enemy to retreat and shut himself up in the single town of Pavia. Aistulf, thus pressed, agreed to the terms proposed by his conqueror, and the French army was withdrawn. But scarcely had they left the district when he returned to the attack with renewed vigour, laid waste the country round Rome with fire and sword, and at length encamped before the gates of the city itself. The pontiff again sent a strong appeal to his protector. He dictated his letter in the name of the apostle Peter, closely imitating his epistles, and speaking in a language which implied that he was possessed of an authority to anoint or dethrone kings, and to perform the offices, not of a messenger, of a teacher sent from God, which is the highest characteristic of an apostle, but of a delegated minister of his power and justice.

The French monarch was moved to render the pontiff immediate succour, and Aistulf was quickly deprived of the fruits of his numerous campaigns. It now became a question to whom the district from which the Lombard was driven ought of right to belong; and, before this point could be decided, the envoy of the Greek emperor appeared, to claim for his master the restoration of the territory which he had so completely abandoned to its fate. But Pepin was both too politic and too conscious of his power to listen to such demands; and sending his chief counsellor, the abbot Fulrade (Folrad), to perform the investiture, he granted to Stephen, and to his successors forever, the undivided sovereignty of the conquered territory.

Thus commenced the temporal dominion of the bishops of Rome--an event which marks a distinct period in the history of the papacy, but the importance of which we cannot but think has been somewhat overrated. The power by which the pontiffs acquired their vast empire in the minds of men, owed little or none of its vigour to the influence they possessed as princes; it went on increasing till it reached the very boundaries of civilisation, while their little seigniory remained confined within the narrowest limits; and it declined, and became almost nominal, while their rights as sovereigns continued to be acknowledged by all the states of Europe. In point of wealth it plainly admits of being questioned whether they could gain any advantage from an acquisition which obliged them to keep an army in their pay; to support a countless train of emissaries and envoys; and to engage in all the expensive arts of diplomacy with the monarchs of countries whose treasures were perpetually supplied by the labours and the commerce of their people.

As little was their new dominion advantageous to their dignity. The pontiff was the first among the spiritual rulers of mankind, the lowest almost of temporal princes. As the head of the church, he was rendered venerable by all the associations and by many of the highest sanctions of religion; as the successor of the exarchs of Ravenna, he was the dependent of every prince who had an army at his command, and was but an item in the catalogue of petty rulers, who were counted as make-weights in the balance of power. In whatever designs he undertook as the supremely endowed minister of God, he could appeal to the hearts and consciences of men; could shake the confidence of the mightiest, and bring into alliance the most contrary elements of society to effect his purpose; whatever attempts he had to make in his temporal capacity required to be supported by the pettiest inventions of secret policy, by contrivances and deceits which, in time, rendered the proceedings of the court of Rome proverbial as examples of cunning and duplicity.

[Sidenote: [755-775 A.D.]]

Stephen died, after a short but eventful pontificate of five years, and was succeeded by his brother Paul (756 A.D.). The Greeks still continued to proclaim their pretensions to the sovereignty of Italy; nor dared the Roman pontiff, vain as were their claims, at once throw off the appearance of allegiance. The Lombards, on the other hand, showed themselves little inclined to preserve the treaty which had been formed with the church. A tumult, equally dangerous to the state and to the respectability of the pontificate, followed the death of Paul. Totona, a nobleman of wealth and influence, formed the design of elevating his brother Constantine to the vacant chair, and Constantine kept possession of his usurped authority nearly a year. A strong effort was then made by the great body of the clergy and the people to recover their invaded right of election. The pontiff was seized, and deprived of his eyes. A new pope ascended the throne.

Stephen III enjoyed his honours about four years, and then left them to be possessed by Adrian I. The Lombards still pressed close upon the boundaries of Rome. It was at this period, moreover, that the controversy with the iconoclasts approached its highest degree of virulence; and Adrian had to employ all the prudence of which he was master to meet the dangers in which it involved him. The measures pursued by the empress Irene were as unfavourable to his views as they were in themselves violent and unjust. The iconoclasts were as odious to him as to her; they were as opposed to the system which it was his object to establish, as they were to her usurpations and tyranny. While he expressed his doubts, therefore, as to the propriety of the new patriarch’s consecration, and showed considerable backwardness in recognising the Second Council of Nicæa, he attempted no vigorous resistance to the invasion of those rules which were violated in her proceedings. The establishment of image-worship promised effects more favourable to his general interests than the assumption of authority by Tiresias, and his patroness was offensive to his immediate feelings. But the church was now to receive the support of a prince whose character and circumstances were equally calculated to mark him for her champion.[c]

CHARLEMAGNE AND THE POPE

[Sidenote: [775-776 A.D.]]

Einhard[l] (Eginhard), the biographer of Charlemagne, informs us that the strictest friendship subsisted between that monarch and Pope Adrian I. In the still extant correspondence between them, we find the freest communication of opinion and feeling both upon political and ecclesiastical affairs. In exact conformity with the policy of his predecessors, Adrian regarded the Frankish monarch as the covenanted protector of the holy see and its possessions, and in that capacity bound to recover for her every debt the pope might see fit to claim as her “righteous due.” Thus when Leo, archbishop of Ravenna, refused to relinquish his metropolitan rights over certain districts alleged to form part of the donation of Charlemagne, the pope expressed his anxiety for the presence and support of his friend and protector. Adrian, moreover, suspected the royal _missi_, or commissioners, of collusion with the vassal dukes of Benevento and Spoleto, to the injury of the holy see; and, whether from authentic information or with a view to alarm his correspondent for the safety of his Italian conquests, he magnified the transactions complained of into a criminal conspiracy against the crown. He told the king that the outbreak was actually fixed to take place in the month of March then next following (776 A.D.); that Adelchis (Adalgis), the son of Desiderius, the captive king of the Lombards, was to appear on the coast with a Greek fleet; that Rome was to be assailed both by sea and land, the churches were to be plundered, the pope was to be carried into captivity, and the Lombard dynasty to be reinstated.

Other motives were not wanting to induce Charlemagne to pay a second military visit to his newly acquired dominions in Italy. It had become necessary to take immediate steps for the dissolution of a long-suspected plot between his disaffected subject, Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, and the partisans of the late dynasty. In the winter, therefore, of the year 776, he crossed the Alps at the head of a numerous army; the duke of Friuli, who appears to have taken a principal part in the conspiracy, was expelled from his duchy; and in a short time the presence of the conqueror appears to have dispelled all apprehensions of further danger either to church or state. The pope professed himself satisfied with the result, and returned thanks for the protection afforded with great apparent warmth and cordiality.

THE DONATION FROM CONSTANTINE

[Sidenote: [776-780 A.D.]]

Yet all had not, it seems, been done for the satisfaction of the papal claims. Another and a different title to an almost imperial power is brought to light. Now, for the first time after the lapse of four centuries and a half, it is discovered that all which Pepin or Charlemagne had conferred on the church of Rome was an insignificant instalment of that more extensive dominion originally granted to the chair of Peter by “the pious emperor Constantine.”

The expressions used by the pope to denote the extent of this supposed donation are not free from uncertainty and ambiguity. The endowment of “supreme power over all the region of the West,” alleged to have been granted by Constantine the Great, must have comprehended much more than the territories conveyed by the deeds of Pepin and Charlemagne. It is therefore insinuated that, though those princes had dealt liberally by the church, they would, notwithstanding, not have done their whole duty until they should have given possession of all that had been comprised in the original deed of gift. Charlemagne, it seems, was to consider himself as the mere executor of his predecessor Constantine the Great; and in that character it is obvious he must stand in a position of far less observance than as the spontaneous patron and benefactor.

The fictitious donation was presented to him as absolute in its terms; therefore as at once discharging the estate conveyed in the execution of its provisions from all dues, duties, and conditions whatsoever, claimable by the hand through which it passed to the rightful owner. It was significantly hinted that his past services were held by the pope to merge in his obligations for the future; that he should think less of the benefits he had conferred than of the duties he might rightfully be called upon to perform; and that, as long as a single item of the infinite debt entailed upon him by his great testator remained unpaid, he must consider himself as debtor to God and St. Peter for the whole.

It would be hardly fair to presume that the impudent forgery, afterwards known by the title of the _Donation of Constantine_, had as yet found its appropriate niche in the archives of the Lateran, or that it was included among the documents which the pope instructed his envoys to produce to Charlemagne. But among the multitude of eager searchers, the thing wanted is generally near enough at hand for the purposes of the less scrupulous among the number. In the reign of Pope Adrian I the desire for territorial acquisition had been stimulated by success to a degree of intensity scarcely paralleled in the history of secular ambition. In such a disposition, a feather-light tradition might stand as good ground for the most extravagant claims; and the fabrication of the outward proof of what was already registered in men’s minds as accredited fact, might appear as a mere venial condescension to the natural adhesion of mankind to the usual and customary modes of proof.

The transient visit of Charlemagne to Italy in the year 776 appears for the moment to have dissipated the apprehensions of the pope. Four years later an interval of peace on his Saxon frontier and the temporary submission of his turbulent vassal Tassilo of Bavaria left Charlemagne at leisure to disentangle by his presence the ravelled state of Italian affairs. He was probably anxious to acquaint himself personally with the causes of the existing disorders, as well as to obtain an explanation of the interruption in the harmony of his correspondence with the pope, whom he sincerely honoured and was well disposed to support. The critical state, however, of the coasts and frontiers, as depicted to him by Adrian, appears to have made no serious impression. No military preparations were thought necessary; and in the winter of the year 780, Charlemagne, accompanied by his consort Hildegard, his two infant sons Carloman and Louis, and escorted by no other force than his ordinary household troops and followers, crossed the Alps into Italy. The annalists of the age describe the expedition as a visit of devotion.

CHARLEMAGNE’S THIRD AND FOURTH ENTRANCES INTO ITALY

[Sidenote: [780-786 A.D.]]

In the spring of the year 781 Charlemagne arrived for the third time in Rome, where he celebrated the great festival of Easter. Pope Adrian upon this occasion conferred the right of baptism on the two young princes, changing the name of the elder from that of Carloman to Pepin, in honour of his grandfather; and at the same moment he crowned the elder “king of the Lombards,” and the younger (Louis) king of Aquitaine. The honour was accepted, probably solicited, by the king without any misgiving as to the inferences that might thereafter be drawn from this or past condescendencies of the like character. Charlemagne never scrupled to make use of church or pontiff for the accomplishment of his political purposes; and he now called upon Adrian to support the remonstrances he thought it necessary to address to his nephew Tassilo by the aid of his spiritual authority.

Charlemagne could not but acknowledge that he had been greatly indebted to the exertions of the churchmen for the pacification of his Saxon acquisitions; and in requital of this co-operation he was not inclined to deny to his spiritual allies an important share in the profits of victory. But the consciousness of present power shut out any sinister view to the future. The church was, after all, in his hands no more than an instrument for the accomplishment of his purposes; that she should ever become his mistress was remote from his contemplation; and it is not to be wondered at that he should have identified her interests with those of his government in that spirit of gratitude which might in the sequel be made to wear an aspect of homage very conducive to the progress of hierarchical pretension.

Both parties were in the main inclined to regard each other as the means and instruments for the promotion of their separate interests. But the absence of any real reciprocity in the terms of compact could not but very soon become apparent. No temporal benefit could be conferred by the pope commensurate with the sacrifices the monarch was incessantly called upon to make to the insatiate craving of the holy see for those substantial augmentations, that costly support, that burdensome protection, to which he was held to have pledged himself. Such an understanding could last no longer than while either or both parties were actuated rather by religious than by merely selfish motives. The views of Pope Adrian had nothing of a properly religious character in them; his correspondence is but an echo of the one shrill cry for “more.” “Give, grant, endow, restore, and the blessed Peter shall surely send you victory and prosperity.” This is the burden of the papal addresses from the birth to the consummation of the alliance. A certain coincidence of interests, supported upon the religious and loyal character of Charlemagne, had hitherto cemented the union; but, though the result might be overlooked, it is clear that as soon as those interests should diverge or cease to exist, there remained nothing behind to prevent them from falling into irreconcilable opposition. Even within this period of apparent concord and cordiality some symptoms of such a divergency may be detected.

[Sidenote: [786-795 A.D.]]

In the year 786 Charlemagne paid a fourth visit to Rome; and after performing the customary devotional exercises at the principal shrines and churches, he applied himself to the task of reducing the refractory duke of Benevento to obedience. An accommodation was easily accomplished; Charlemagne accepted the renewed oaths of allegiance of the duke and his vassals, and carried away with him Grimwald (Grimoald), the second son of Arichis (Arighis), as a pledge for the future obedience of the duke and his subjects. No notice was taken of the papal claim upon the territory of Benevento; and Pope Adrian once more saw his royal patron depart without obtaining the object nearest to his heart. During the remainder of his pontificate we trace no further attempt on the part of the pope to realise his favourite project of aggrandisement. The momentary coolness which had followed the defeat of the Calabrian Greeks produced no real estrangement between him and his great patron; and Adrian died (795) in the full enjoyment of the confidence and esteem of Charlemagne.

THE REALM OF THE POPES

At the close of the reign of Charlemagne the possessions of the church of Rome may thus be identified with existing geographical divisions: (1) In virtue of right, or pretension of right, originating prior to the donation of Pepin, the pontiffs exercised temporal jurisdiction over the city and duchy of Rome as it had existed under the Byzantine supremacy, comprehending, as nearly as may now be ascertained, the modern district emphatically known by the name of the “Patrimony Proper,” together with the greatest portion if not the whole of the Campagna di Roma as far south as Terracina. (2) By the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne the church of Rome had reduced into possession the city and exarchate of Ravenna, comprising the modern legations of Bologna, Romagna, Urbino, and Ferrara, with the duchies of Parma and Modena and a portion of the Venetian terra-firma on the mouths of the Po.

But these extensive tracts of country were regarded by the popes as but a portion of their claim under the treaties of Pontyon and Quierzy and the donation of Charlemagne. That claim extended over the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, the entire duchies of Benevento and Spoleto, and all the remaining dependencies of the Byzantines in southern Italy, including both Calabrias and the adjacent island of Sicily; thus constituting in the aggregate nearly the whole of Italy south of the river Po, ranging thence along the eastern declivity of the Apennines as far as the southernmost confine of the modern grand duchy of Tuscany, and thence expanding over the breadth of the peninsula to the extreme coasts, embracing all the greater adjoining islands and the territory of Istria on the northeastern shores of the Adriatic Sea. Pope Adrian I died on the 26th of December in the year 795, after the unusually long pontificate of twenty-three years and upwards. When Charlemagne heard of his demise, we are told that he wept for him as for a brother.

[Sidenote: [795-800 A.D.]]

On the occasion of Charlemagne’s first visit to Rome (774), Pope Adrian conferred upon him the title and dignity of patrician, or official advocate and protector of the holy see. When shortly after the death of that pontiff in the year 795, Leo, archpriest of the church of St. Susanna, was elected to the vacant chair by the title of Leo III, the new pope hastened to renew the patent of the patriciate, as if it were an office expiring with the life of the grantor. As matters stood at this moment between him and the king, it is safest to conclude that the pope desired that the royal patrician should regard himself as captain-general of the church, and that he should in that capacity be entitled to the military services of its subjects, when called on by the church to interfere for the protection of her temporal rights. But the act of Pope Leo III, which placed his subjects under military obligation to a stranger, was calculated to engender grave misunderstandings. The feudal principle, now rapidly unfolding itself in the European polity, drew no distinction between civil and military subjection; and the oath of the Romans to the protector might be easily confounded with that of subject to sovereign.

The constitutional or political powers exercised at this period by the pontiffs within the city and territory of the church are very obscurely indicated in the documents of the age. From what we discern on the surface of history, no very well-defined relation subsisted between the so-called “republic of Rome” and the spiritual ruler. The bond which connected them, as far as, at this distance of time and with such defective information, we can discern, was the recognised participation of the richer and more powerful families in all the offices of government and the dignities and emoluments of ecclesiastical promotion. But by such an arrangement it is obvious that every just limit between spiritual and temporal interests must be speedily obliterated; the result was verified in the unutterable corruptions of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Even at this point of time, and for a long series of years past, many symptoms of a vicious and demoralising relation between the constituents of the Roman state are apparent.

In the fifth year of the pontificate of Leo III two relatives of Pope Adrian I, Paschal the primicerius and Campulus the sacellarius of the holy see, conspired to depose the reigning pontiff. After suffering some personal injuries at the hands of his rebellious subjects, Leo was expelled from the city; and he resolved to solicit redress in person at the court of Charlemagne, who was at that moment sojourning at Paderborn, within the confines of the vanquished Saxons. The king received the suppliant pontiff with the highest honours, and listened to his complaints with the profoundest attention. Of the special subjects of the conference we are not informed; but in the autumn of the year 799 Leo returned to Rome under an escort sufficiently strong to insure his personal safety. In the interim, the faction opposed to him had lost ground, and he was received by the citizens with unusual tokens of joy and affection.

Pope Leo was, as it appears, accompanied to Rome by two German prelates, Hildebrand archbishop of Cologne, and Arno archbishop of Salzburg, as _missi dominici_, or royal commissioners, charged to make due inquisition into the offences imputed to the pope by his adversaries. The prelates are said to have examined the evidence on both sides with great care and minuteness, and at the close of it to have come to the conclusion that nothing criminal had been established against the pope; upon which decision his rebellious accusers were taken into custody and carried away to France.

THE TRIAL OF THE POPE AND THE CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE

[Sidenote: [800 A.D.]]

Within the twelvemonth of the reinstatement of the pope, Charlemagne held a great diet of the realm at Mainz. “There,” says the annalist,[m] “he assembled his great nobles, his bishops, and his abbots all; and having reported to them that there was now peace in all his borders, he called to their minds the evils which the Romans had done to the apostolic Leo; and he set his face to go into the parts of Rome, and thither he accordingly proceeded.” This simple notice of the annalist of Moissac is the only passage in any original chronicle in which a motive for this fifth expedition of Charlemagne to Rome is assigned. The king arrived at the gates of the city on the 24th of November, 800, and was received by the pontiff under the porch of St. Peter’s church, outside the walls, with all due devotion and honour. Seven days afterwards a solemn assembly of the citizens was convoked, at which the king acquainted them with the cause of his visit.

His next proceeding is not very intelligible. He assembled, we are told, a solemn synod, still in the basilica of St. Peter, to inquire into the crimes imputed to the pope; but whether the old or fresh inculpations is not said. On this occasion the king and the pope sat beside each other, surrounded by the nobility, the bishops, and the abbots of France and Italy. The spiritual lords alone were seated; the inferior priests and the laity of all ranks remained standing. Proclamation was then made for the accusers to come forward and make their complaint; but no one answered to the call. It is not apparent why this formality should have been observed at all, inasmuch as the clergy had unanimously declared themselves incompetent to sit in judgment upon a pontiff of the holy see. The pope, however, intimated his intention to purge himself of all the offences laid to his charge in the form established in like cases by his predecessors. On the following day, therefore, he in full synod took the books of the Gospels in his hands, and upon them he solemnly protested his innocence; whereupon “the prelates and all the clergy burst simultaneously into a hymn of thanksgiving, devoutly praising God, the holy Virgin, St. Peter, and all the saints.”

Within the first month of the residence of Charlemagne in Rome nothing took place indicative of any ulterior purpose. During all that time the king had appeared to be absorbed in regulating the political affairs of the church and city. But on Christmas Day of the year 800, while he and the pope devoutly knelt together at the altar of St. Peter’s church, engaged in the preliminary prayer before mass, the pontiff, as if moved by a sudden impulse of inspiration, placed upon his head an elaborately wrought and very costly imperial crown. At the same time the people, as if prepared for the incident, simultaneously and as with one voice exclaimed, “Long life to Charles, augustus, the great and peace-giving emperor of the Romans, whom the hand of God hath crowned!” The salutation was twice repeated; after which, according to imperial custom, he was enthroned and anointed with holy oil, and worshipped by the pope. “Whereby,” says the annalist,[m] “he was unanimously constituted emperor; and dropping the title of patrician, he was thenceforth called ‘imperator augustus.’”

Whether the crown was placed on his head with or without his consent, the mode of conferring it was intended to imply that the king was a passive party, that he accepted it as a boon or gift at the hands of the pope without claim or pretence of right on his own part. The material crown itself was of papal procurement and fabrication; the act of coronation was that of the pontiff; he gave the crown, the Roman people ratified the act and proclaimed the emperor. The transaction bears the character of a joint act, in which Leo and the Romans performed the part of spontaneous electors and sovereign depositaries of imperial power. The adoration was a simple ceremony of recognition; it was unaccompanied with any new oath of allegiance; the rights of the new emperor still resting upon the oath of obedience to him as patrician. Ultimately the participation of the people was no doubt considered as wholly accessory to the papal decision; and the pope might well hold himself out to the world as the sole depositary and dispenser of imperial authority. Upon this ground, indeed, the papacy cast anchor, and for all future ages held on with amazing pertinacity and success.

[Sidenote: [800-824 A.D.]]

On the other hand, Charlemagne and his subjects did not concern themselves with any curious inquiry into the origin of the powers which the imperial crown brought along with it. Yet, in conformity with their general notion of government, they believed that Rome and her pontiff had taken upon them the relation of subjects to the emperor whom they had crowned and anointed. It is certain that Charlemagne regarded himself as the sovereign of Rome, if not of the pope; he was emperor in his own right as fully as if he had placed the crown upon his own head. In conformity with the opinion and practice of his age, he grounded that right upon possession. In the mind of the warrior there was no place for any other derivation of title; and Charlemagne and his successors took as little distinction between the possession and the sovereignty of Rome and its appurtenant territories as they did in the case of his newly acquired dominions in Germany, Lombardy, or Spain.

A few days after the coronation of Charlemagne, he directed the persons implicated in the plot of the preceding year against the life and government of the pope to be brought before him for judgment; and, as supreme judge, he condemned them to the death of traitors. This exercise of supreme criminal judicature indicates at least the assumption of a power understood in that age to be a distinguishing attribute of sovereign authority. The condemned criminals were indeed respited at the intercession of the pope, and their punishment was commuted for exile; but nothing occurred to indicate any jealous feeling on the part of the pontiff; and throughout the winter of the year 801 Charlemagne continued to exercise every prerogative of imperial power in Rome with as free a hand as when he set up his migratory throne upon the banks of the Seine, the Rhine, or the Elbe.

In the year 806 he executed a provisional settlement of the succession to his vast dominions among his then surviving sons. During the whole course of his life Charlemagne was anxious to invest his more important acts with the sanction of religion. The settlement of 806, though provisional only, was solemnly enacted and sworn to by his sons and the estates of the realm assembled in diet at Thionville; and was soon afterwards sent by the hand of the emperor’s secretary to Rome for the approval and signature of the pope--a step which lay open to a construction probably far beyond the intent of Charlemagne.[d]

PAPAL AMBITION AFTER CHARLEMAGNE

Almost immediately after Charlemagne’s death, Leo assumed to himself a degree of authority which could not be exercised without equal injury to the state and to the sacerdotal character. Stephen IV, his successor, took the oath of allegiance, together with the whole of the people, as soon as he ascended the pontifical throne; and announced to the monarch, Louis the Pious, that he would attend him at whatever place he should appoint. But the Christian meekness of the pontiff was exceeded by that of the sovereign, who, on receiving his visit at Rheims, prostrated himself three times at his feet. There is evidence, however, to prove that it still required a man of equally powerful and ambitious mind to take full advantage of the means of aggrandisement afforded by the present position of the church. During the short reigns of several successive popes, we see the power of the emperor distinctly at work, and his right acknowledged, in the management of ecclesiastical affairs.

[Sidenote: [824-847 A.D.]]

In the year 824, and under the pontificate of Eugenius I, Louis sent his son Lothair to Rome, to inquire into the truth of the complaints made by the citizens against their sacerdotal chiefs; and when Gregory IV visited France, for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation between Louis and his son, the bishops of France, whom he appears to have threatened with his censures, proudly dared him to a trial of his power, by informing him that if he did aught against the canons, he should himself be excommunicated or deposed. The pernicious counsel of one of his advisers taught him to answer this intimation by fresh assertions of authority, and he dared to commence the practice, which subsequently proved such a fruitful source of disorder and scandal in Christendom, of declaring the sovereign deposed because of his quarrel with the ruler of the Roman church. The emperor Lothair was sufficiently tenacious of his authority to issue especial orders, on the election of Sergius II without his being consulted, that for the future no candidate for the papal throne should be consecrated till he had given his assent to the election.

In the midst of these events, the victorious Saracens were pursuing their conquests over the most fertile provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa. While Calabria was overrun by one division of the Saracens, Rome itself was threatened by another. In vain did the terrified Romans look to the descendants of Charlemagne for help; in vain did they proffer again their broken allegiance to the emperor of the East. Neither the one nor the other was in a condition to render the required assistance, and the city appeared doomed to destruction. The venerable churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, which inspired a feeling of devotion by their antiquity, and of wonder by the magnificence of their shrines, were situated a short distance from the walls; and the unfortunate citizens witnessed from the ramparts the spoliation of these, the most sacred of their temples, without the means of making a single effort for their defence. But the rage produced by this spectacle, combined with the terror with which the entrance of the enemy into the city was contemplated, roused them to attempt some measure of resistance. The death of Sergius just at this juncture greatly contributed to promote their success. In electing Leo IV to the vacant office, they provided themselves with a skilful counsellor and an energetic leader. The invader, after various assaults, was obliged to retreat, in order to make the conquest of places less skilfully defended.

The death of Leo was succeeded by much confusion, and in this period of excitement and difficulty, the vacant chair was said to have been ascended by a woman, the celebrated papess Joan.[c]

THE MYTH OF THE WOMAN POPE

[Sidenote: [847-855 A.D.]]

Joan was the name given to a female pope, now regarded as a fictitious personage, who under the title of John VII or VIII was said, according to the most general accounts, to have occupied the papal chair between the pontificate of Leo IV and Benedict III, although various other dates are given. Tradition represents her as of English descent, but born in Ingelheim or Mainz. By some her original name is given as Gilberta, by others as Agnes. She was credited with having fallen in love with a young Benedictine monk, and with having on that account assumed the male monastic habit and lived for some time in the monastery of Fulda. Her lover, it is affirmed, died while they were pursuing their studies together at Athens, and after his death she went to Rome, where, according to the most approved version of the story, she became a very successful professor. So high indeed became her reputation for piety and learning that the cardinals with one consent elected the supposed young monk the successor of Pope Leo IV. In this position she comported herself so as to entirely justify their choice, until the catastrophe of giving birth to a male child during a procession to the Lateran palace suddenly and irrevocably blasted her reputation. She is said to have died in childbirth or to have been stoned to death.

The story of the pontificate of Joan was received as fact from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, but it has been discredited by later researches. The circumstantial evidence around which it clung, and which may have aided in suggesting it, was the observance of a circuit by the papal processions so as to avoid passing through a certain street (a statue at one time standing in that street, said to represent a woman and child, with a monumental stone near it having a peculiar inscription), and the use of a pierced seat at the enthronement of the popes. Of these facts other and more credible explanations have, however, been given, although there is no sufficient evidence to demonstrate beyond dispute the manner in which the story originated. According to Dr. Döllinger,[e] the tradition finds no support in the original text either of Marianus Scotus,[n] Sigebert of Gemblours,[o] or Otto of Freysing.[p] She is first mentioned by Stephen de Bourbon,[q] who died in 1261, and who took his information probably from the chronicle of the Dominican Jean de Mailly, no copy of which is now known to be in existence. The story is not found in any of the original manuscripts of Martinus Polus,[r] and according to Döllinger was interpolated in that chronicle some time between 1278 and 1312. He attributes the propagation of the myth chiefly to its insertion in Martinus Polus, from which it was copied into the _Flores Temporum_, a chronicle founded on Martinus, and its real originators he supposes to have been the Dominicans and Minorites, who had a grudge against the papacy on account of the persecutions they were experiencing at the hands of Benedict VIII. So rapidly did the tradition spread that in 1400 a bust of the papess was placed in the cathedral of Siena along with other popes, having the inscription, “John VIII, a woman from England.” The statue occupied this position till the beginning of the seventeenth century.[f]

[Sidenote: [847-867 A.D.]]

The eight years of Leo’s papacy were chiefly occupied in strengthening, in restoring the plundered and desecrated churches of the two apostles, and adorning Rome. The succession to Leo IV was contested between Benedict III, who commanded the suffrages of the clergy and people, and Anastasius, who, at the head of an armed faction, seized the Lateran, stripped Benedict of his pontifical robes, and awaited the confirmation of his violent usurpation by the imperial legates, whose influence he thought that he had secured. But these commissioners, after strict investigation, decided in favour of Benedict. Anastasius was expelled with disgrace from the Lateran, his rival consecrated in the presence of the emperor’s representatives. Anastasius, with unwonted mercy, was only degraded to lay communion. The pontificate of Benedict III is memorable chiefly for the commencement of the long strife between Ignatius and Photius for the see of Constantinople. This strife ended in the permanent schism between the Eastern and Western churches.

Nicholas I, the successor of Benedict, was chosen rather by the favour of the emperor Louis and his nobles than that of the clergy (858). He has been thought worthy to share the appellation of the Great with Leo I, with Gregory I, with Hildebrand, and with Innocent III. At least three great events signalised the pontificate of Nicholas I--the strife of Photius with Ignatius for the archiepiscopal throne of Constantinople; the prohibition of the divorce of King Lothair from his queen Theutberga; and the humiliation of the great prelates on the Rhine, the successful assertion of the papal supremacy even over Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims. In the first two of these momentous questions, the contest about the see of Constantinople, and that of Lothair, king of Lorraine, with his wife Theutberga, Nicholas took his stand on the great eternal principles of justice, humanity, and sound morals. These were no questions of abstruse and subtle theology nor the assertion of dubious rights. In both cases the pope was the protector of the feeble and the oppressed, the victims of calumny and of cruelty. The bishop of Constantinople, unjustly deposed, persecuted, exiled, treated with the worst inhumanity, implored the judgment of the head of western Christendom. A queen, not only deserted by a weak and cruel husband, but wickedly and falsely criminated by a council of bishops, obtained a hearing at the court of Rome; her innocence was vindicated, her accusers punished, the king himself compelled to bow before the majesty of justice, made more venerable by religion. If in both cases the language of Nicholas was haughty and imperious, it was justified to the ears of men by the goodness of his cause. The lofty supremacy which he asserted over the see of Byzantium awoke no jealousy, being exerted in behalf of a blameless and injured prelate. If he treated the royal dignity of France with contempt, it had already become contemptible in the eyes of mankind; if he annulled by his own authority the decree of a national council, composed of the most distinguished prelates of Gaul, that council had already been condemned by all who had natural sympathies with justice and with innocence. Yet, though in both cases Nicholas displayed equal ability and resolution in the cause of right, the event of the two affairs was very different. The dispute concerning the patriarchate of Constantinople ended in the estrangement, the alienation, the final schism between the East and West. It was the last time that the pope was permitted authoritatively to interfere in the ecclesiastical affairs of the East. The excommunication of the Greek by the Latin church was the final act of separation. In the West Nicholas established a precedent for control even over the private morals of princes. The vices of kings, especially those of France, became the stronghold of papal influence; injured queens and subjects knew to what quarter they might recur for justice or for revenge. And on this occasion the pope brought not only the impotent king, but the powerful clergy of Lorraine, beneath his feet. The great bishops of Cologne and of Trèves were reduced to abject humiliation.

RIVALRY OF NICHOLAS AND PHOTIUS

[Sidenote: [860-867 A.D.]]

The contention for the patriarchate of Constantinople was, strictly speaking, no religious controversy--it was the result of political intrigue and personal animosity. Ignatius, who became the patriarch, was of imperial descent. In the revolution which dethroned his father, Michael Rhangabé, he had taken refuge, under the cowl of a monk, from the jealousy of Leo the Armenian. Photius was chosen as his successor. Rival councils met, and the two patriarchs were alternately excommunicated by the adverse spiritual factions.

Photius was the first to determine on an appeal to Rome. The pope, he thought, would hardly resist the acknowledgment of his superiority, with the tempting promise of the total extirpation of the hated iconoclasts. Not merely did the pope address two lofty and condemnatory letters to the emperor and to Photius, but a third also to “the faithful in the East,” at the close of which he made known to the three Eastern patriarchs his steadfast resolution to maintain the cause of Ignatius, to refuse the recognition of the usurper Photius. The restoration of Ignatius was commanded even in more imperious language, and under more awful sanctions. “We, by the power committed to us by our Lord through St. Peter, restore our brother Ignatius to his former station, to his see, to his dignity as patriarch, and to all the honours of his office. Whoever, after the promulgation of this decree, shall presume to disturb him in the exercise of his office, separate from his communion, or dare to judge him anew, without the consent of the apostolic see, if a clerk, shall share the eternal punishment of the traitor Judas; if a layman, he has incurred the malediction of Canaan; he is excommunicate, and will suffer the same fearful sentence from the eternal Judge.”

Never had the power of the clergy or the supremacy of Rome been asserted so distinctly, so inflexibly. The privileges of Rome were eternal, immutable, anterior to, derived from no synod or council, but granted directly by God himself; they might be assailed, but not transferred; torn off for a time, but not plucked up by the roots. An appeal was open to Rome from all the world, from her authority lay no appeal. The emperor and Constantinople paid no regard to these terrible anathemas of the pope.

SYNOD AT CONSTANTINOPLE

[Sidenote: [867 A.D.]]

In the year 867 Photius had summoned a council at Constantinople; the obsequious prelates listened to the arraignment, and joined in the counter excommunication of Pope Nicholas. Photius drew up eight articles inculpating in one the faith, in the rest the departure, of the see of Rome from ancient and canonical discipline. Among the dreadful acts of heresy and schism which were to divide forever the churches of the East and West were: (1) the observance of Saturday as a fast; (2) the permission to eat milk or cheese during Lent; (4) the restriction of the chrism to the bishops; (6) the promotion of deacons at once to the episcopal dignity; (7) the consecration of a lamb, according to the hated Jewish usage; (8) the shaving of their beards by the clergy. The fifth only of the articles objected to by Photius, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, was an error so awful as to deserve a thousand anathemas. The third, condemning the enforced celibacy of the clergy, was alone of high moral or religious importance. “From this usage we see in the West,” says Photius, “so many children who know not their fathers.” These, however, were but the pretexts for division. The cause lay deeper, in the total denial of the papal supremacy by the Greeks; their unequivocal assertion that with the empire that supremacy had passed to Constantinople.

The decree of the council boasted the signature of the emperor (obtained, it was said, in an hour of drunkenness); of Basil the Macedonian, averred (most improbably) to have been forged; of the three eastern patriarchs; of the senate and the great officers; of abbots and bishops to the number of nearly one thousand. But the episcopal messenger who was to bear to Rome this defiance of the church of Constantinople and the counter-excommunication of the pope, had proceeded but a short way on his journey when he was stopped by the orders of the new emperor. A revolution in the palace was a revolution in the church of Constantinople. The first act of Basil the Macedonian was to depose Photius. Photius is said to have refused the communion to the murderer Basil. From this time a succession of changes agitated the empire; Photius rose or fell at each successive change.

Leo the Philosopher, the son of Basil, once more ignominiously expelled him from his throne. Yet, though accused of treason, Photius was acquitted and withdrew into honoured retirement. He did not live to witness or profit by another revolution. Though the schism of thirty years, properly speaking, expired in his person, and again a kind of approximation to Rome took place, yet the links were broken which united the two churches. The articles of difference, from which neither would depart, had been defined and hardened into rigid dogmas. During the dark times of the papacy which followed the disruption, even the intercourse became more and more precarious. The popes of the next century were too busy in defending their territories or their lives to regard the affairs of the East. The darkness which gathered round both churches shrouded them from each other’s sight.

[Sidenote: [860-867 A.D.]]

Nicholas the Great had not lived to triumph even in the first fall of Photius. In the West his success was more complete; he had the full enjoyment of conscious power exercised in a righteous cause. Not merely did he behold one of Charlemagne’s successors prostrate at his feet, obliged to abandon to papal censure and to degradation even his high ecclesiastical partisans, but in succession the greatest prelates of the West, the archbishop of Ravenna, the archbishops of Cologne and Trèves, and even Hincmar, the archbishop of Rheims, who seemed to rule despotically over the church and kingdom of France, were forced to bow before his vigorous supremacy.

The matrimonial cause which for many years distracted part of France, on which council after council met, and on which the great prelates of Lorraine came into direct collision with the pope, and were reduced to complete and unpitied humiliation under his authority, was that of King Lothair and his queen Theutberga, as elsewhere described. He threatened the king with immediate excommunication if he did not dismiss the concubine Waldrada, and receive his repudiated queen. He then betook himself to Attigny, the residence of Charles the Bald. He peremptorily commanded the restoration of the bishop Rothrad, who had been canonically, as it was asserted, deposed by Hincmar his metropolitan, and was now irregularly, without inquiry or examination, replaced by the arbitrary mandate of the pope. Hincmar murmured and obeyed; the trembling king acquiesced in the papal decree.