The Historians' History of the World 08

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.

Very Early Greek Manuscript of the Book of Genesis, given by Queen Elizabeth to Sir John Fortescue

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

[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.