Her deliver- 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 In his distress, the first 5la Gregory had implored the aid of the A.D. 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 Tiber, the succour 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 [at Quierzy. 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 [A.D. 753] A.D. 754] [A.D. 754] 51 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. (Bibliothecæ Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial library of Vienna [No. 449], and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori (Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ji. p. 75, &c.). [Ed. Jaffé, 1867; and Gundlach, in M.G, H., Epp. iii., 1892.] pla [Read third.] 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 [A.D. 756] 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 adoptive 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 [A.D. 756] 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 Hadrian the first, by 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 colours of equity and moderation.53 The passes of the Alps, and the walls 52 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 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 perfidâ, horridâ, nec dicendâ, fotentissimâ 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. Conquest of of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of Pepin ; Charlemagne. and after a blockade of two years, Desiderius, the last of their [ten months] 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 Pepin and Charlemagne, kings of France. A.D. 751, 753-768 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 favourable 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 Tiber, 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 valour; his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the saviour 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 54 See the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, tom. vi. and the three first dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. i. 55 Besides the common historians, three French critics, Launoy (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. 1. 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 [= Laurissenses maiores]. 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 favour; 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. II. In the change of manners and language, the patricians Patricians of 56 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 Honour, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p. 234-249. I should have noticed (as Professor Sickel has pointed out to me in his essay (p. 35) mentioned below, sub p. 283) that there is no evidence that anointing was practised at Constantinople in 8th century. 57 See Eginhard, in Vitâ 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. Rome 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 honours 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 [A.D. 739, 796] 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 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 honours which had formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the emperor; and these honours obtained some new decorations from the joy and In 58 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 (Abrégé Chronologique d'Italie, tom. i. p. 379482). Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to make the patrician a lieutenant of the church rather than of the empire. [That the patriciate of Pippin and Charles was not an empty title but had rights and duties is shown by Sickel, Gött. gel. Anz. 1897, p. 847, 848. On the term patriciatus Petri for the territorial lordship of the popes, cp. Kehr, Gött. Nachrichten, 1896, p. 144.] 59 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 (Catalini, in his Critical Prefaces, Annali d'Italia, tom. xvii. p. 95-99). [Sickel shows that the banner had no juridical significance, op. cit. p. 850-1. For the keys, cp. Appendix 16.] |