The Historians' History of the World 08

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.

[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

[800 A.D.]