STEPHEN (III) IV.

768-772

 

Emperor. Constantine v. Copronymus, 741-775

King of the Lombards. Desiderius, 756-774  

Kings of the Franks. Pippin, the Short, 752-768. Charlemagne and Carlomann, 768-771. Charlemagne, 771-800.

 

The election of Pope Stephen IV was unfortunately, preceded by a series of disorders that had a very tragic termination. These disturbances were brought about by the ambition of a man, who was, as it seems, one of the papal governors. Very desirous that the great spiritual and now considerable temporal power also of the papacy should be wielded by one of his own family, he would not even wait for the death of Paul to begin his nefarious designs. Accordingly this aspiring noble, Toto, duke or governor of Nepi, began to plot against the life of Paul. His schemes were for a time frustrated by the watchfulness of Christopher, the primicerius of the notaries, who brought together into his house Toto and other notables, and made them swear that the new Pope should only be chosen by common consent and from the Roman clergy, and that none of the country-people should be introduced into the city. Toto, however, had no intention of allowing himself to be fettered by an oath. He retired to Nepi, and, with the aid of his brothers, Constantine, Passivus, and Paschal, collected troops from Nepi and other parts of Tuscany, as well as a crowd of armed peasants. Before Paul had breathed his last, this armed band broke into the city by the gate of St. Pancratius. On the death of Paul, Christopher, in his deposition before the Lateran Council, said that all at once assembled in the “Basilica of the Apostles”, and that before they parted he had made all swear that they would respect one another’s rights. No sooner, however, had the meeting broken up than Toto’s adherents assembled at his town residence and elected Constantine, though yet a layman, Pope. At the point of the sword, the antipope was introduced into the Lateran Palace.

Next an attempt was made to force George, Bishop of Praeneste, to give the tonsure to Constantine. This at first George refused to do, but threw himself at the feet of the usurper and adjured him by all that was sacred to give up his impious attempt and not be the cause of such a wicked novelty being introduced into the Church. But the conspirators very soon gave the poor bishop to understand that he must do their behests or take the consequences. In fear, therefore, George performed the ceremony of giving the tonsure, and Constantine was a cleric. The next day, Monday, the same bishop had to make the antipope a subdeacon and a deacon, quite, of course, against the canons, which require an interval between the giving of the major orders of at least a day. The people were then forced to take an oath of fidelity to Constantine, who, again by the persuasive action of the sword, was consecrated bishop (July 5, 767) by George, Eustratius of Albano and Citonatus of Porto, and contrived to hold the See for over a year.

One of the antipope’s first acts was to write to Pippin, with a view of securing that prince’s adhesion to his election. He boldly declared to the Frankish king that, contrary to his wishes and merits, the people of “Rome, and of the cities adjoining it”, had raised him to the high dignity of successor of the apostles, and begs for a continuation of the friendship which Pippin had shown to Stephen III and to Paul. In answer to his request, he sends Pippin such of the Lives of the Saints as he could find. The request had, of course, been made during the lifetime of Paul.

Of this letter Pippin, who had doubtless been more or less correctly apprised of the true state of affairs from other sources, took not the slightest notice. Accordingly Constantine sent him another letter, in which he again affirmed that the united action of the multitude had forced him to accept the heavy burden of taking charge of the Lord’s “rational sheep”. Then, after hypocritically introducing a considerable number of Scripture texts, he earnestly begs Pippin for his friendship, promises that “he and his people” will cherish the Franks and their king even more than his predecessors have done, and so begs Pippin not to put any faith in what may be said against him.

Of special interest in this artful document is the paragraph in which the antipope tells Pippin that he is sending him a copy in Greek and in Latin of a letter, which, on the 12th of August, he had received from the East. This letter addressed to Pope Paul, Constantine describes as a synodical letter of faith (synodica fidei) sent by Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem, and endorsed by the patriarchs of Antioch (Theodore) and Alexandria (Cosmas), and a considerable number of Oriental metropolitans. Constantine, after reading it publicly to the people, sent a copy of it to Pippin, “that he might see”, he said, “what zeal there was in the cause of the holy images throughout the whole Christian East”.

There was at this time, and there had been for some time previously, considerable activity in that part of the East not under the sway of Constantine V, in behalf of the holy images. Pope Paul had received a profession of faith on that subject from Cosmas, patriarch of Alexandria, who there restored the Catholic succession. This profession Paul had sent to Pippin, “that he might know the letters which the Pope received in connection with what was being done for the integrity of the faith by the Oriental bishops and by the other nations”. Unfortunately Charlemagne, when he caused the collection of papal letters, which bears his name, to be drawn up, did not order the letters which accompanied them to be included in the collection. Hence these letters, of such importance for showing the true faith of the Eastern Church on the image question at this time, have perished. The bishops under Moslem rule were free from the tyranny of the Byzantine emperor. Hence their letters and synods show that their faith on the subject of images was as that of the Pope and the West. Owing, however, to the obscurity which envelops the history of the Oriental patriarchate at this period, it is quite impossible to state with any certainty the occasion of the drawing up of the letters sent to Pope Paul first by Cosmas, and then by the united East.

Retribution for his violence and deceit was all this while being prepared for Constantine. Christopher, the primicerius of the notaries, and his son Sergius, treasurer of the Church, had, at the outset of the antipope’s usurpation, made some show of resistance. Finding, however, that their lives were in danger, they soon gave it up and fled for their safety to St. Peter’s. When the first violence of the outbreak had passed away, the two officials, “who preferred to die rather than witness the success of such impious presumption” on the part of the antipope, came to a secret understanding with others within the city of a like mind to themselves. They then feigned a great desire to enter a monastery, and begged Constantine, with the greatest humility, to allow them to leave the city and become monks in the monastery of Our Saviour, near Rieti, in the duchy of Spoleto. Exacting an oath from them that such was their intention in leaving the city, Constantine gave them the required permission. Once outside the city (after April 10, 768), the two thought no more of their oath, but went straight to Theodicius, Duke of Spoleto, and begged him to take them to his sovereign, Desiderius. In answer to their prayers that he would bring to a close the scandal which was afflicting the Church, Desiderius gave orders that they should receive the support of the Lombards. In conjunction with a Lombard priest, Waldipert, Sergius marched on Rome with a force of Lombards from the duchy of Spoleto. Admitted into the city by his friends at the gate of St. Pancratius (July 30, 768), Sergius and his party seized the walls, but were, or pretended to be, afraid to descend the Janiculum.

As soon as he heard of the entry of the Lombards, Toto hastened to meet them, along with Demetrius, the secundicerius, and Gratiosus, the chartular, afterwards duke, who were secretly in league with Sergius. Seeing Toto strike down one Rachipert, the most formidable of their number, the Lombards would have fled, had not Toto himself fallen, pierced through by Demetrius and Gratiosus. On the death of the daring Toto, his brother Passivus fled to warn Constantine to fly ere it was too late. The two brothers rushed from one part of the Lateran to another, and finally shut themselves up in the oratory of St. Cesarius. Here, after some hours, they were discovered. Dragged thence, they were thrown into prison by the officers of the Roman army.

Matters now took an unexpected turn. Unknown to Sergius, and doubtless with the intention of getting a Pope favorable to his master, Waldipert collected a number of Romans, went to the monastery of St Vitus on the Esquiline, took thence a priest named Philip, declared that St. Peter had chosen him Pope, and conducted him (July 31, Sunday) to the Lateran basilica. Here, after the prescribed prayers had been said by a bishop, Philip proceeded to hold the customary banquet in the Lateran palace, at which assisted a certain number of the dignitaries of the Church and State. But, like Baltazzar, Philip was condemned whilst at the feast. Chris­topher had meanwhile arrived before the city gates, and, hearing of the election of Philip (so far irregular that he was not one of the cardinal priests or deacons from whom the popes were wont at this time to be chosen), declared on oath to all the Romans who had gone out to meet him that he would not enter the city till Philip was driven from the palace. Philip did not require much driving. He quietly returned to his own monastery.

Election of Stephen, August, 768

The first care of Christopher was to bring about a lawful election. Accordingly he summoned (August 1, 768) not only the chief men among the clergy and the army, but everybody, “from the greatest to the smallest”. They met together in front of the Church of St. Adriano, a spot called, by the Book of the Popes, in tribus Fatis, from statues of the three Fates which stood near. It was that part of the Forum known as the Comitium, where of old the Comitia Curiata held their deliberations. On this historic ground the Romans unanimously resolved to elect Stephen. Going to his church of Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere, they escorted him with every demonstration of joy to the Lateran as Pope-elect. Thus closed one of the first of those struggles between the ecclesiastical and secular nobility of the new papal state, which were destined to last so long and to bring at times, through the too frequent triumph of the secular nobility, especially in the tenth century, so much disgrace on the Papacy and the Church. As the troubles caused the Papacy at this period by its external foes—Greeks and Lombards—were decreas­ing, those caused by its enemies at home were destined to increase. The latter evil was, however, the lesser. The foes at home only aimed at seizing the papal dignity; those abroad aimed not merely at the persons of the popes, but, the Greeks at least, at their principles.

The man thus elected was a Sicilian and the son of Olivus; and, according to his biographer at least, was a man of strong character, well versed in Scripture and ecclesiastical tradition, and a doer of good works. When he came to Rome from Sicily, Pope Gregory III placed him in his monastery of St. Chrysogonus, where he became a cleric and a Benedictine monk. As he was only a child under Gregory, he must have been born about the year 720. Hence when he became Pope he must have been about fifty. He was taken from the monastery by Pope Zachary, who ordained him priest, and, charmed with his modesty, kept him in his immediate service in the Lateran. For the same reason he also found favor with Zachary’s successors; and, as was noted above, he remained by the bedside of the dying Pope Paul when all others through fear had left him.

During the interval between Stephen’s election and consecration, there were perpetrated a series of revolting deeds of cruelty. The cause of this outbreak of wild revenge is hard to trace. The history of Rome in the Middle Ages has not, up to this time, as far at least as we know it from the sources at our disposal, revealed any such traces of lawlessness as would have prepared us to expect the scenes of blood we have now to portray. We may, therefore, presume that they are evidence either that the unceasing conflicts with the Lombards had caused a gradual decline of morality in the city, or that they were the results of civil strife, rendered more sanguinary than usual from some more or less accidental cause. Civil strife is ever waged more cruelly than any other. And if one side gives the slightest exhibition of extra cruelty, then such passions are set ablaze that no act of barbarity seems too diabolical for either side to think out and to put into execution. We shall give the account of these out­rages practically in the very words of Stephen’s biographer, so that the reader may judge how far he may unreservedly accept the conclusion of Gregorovius that Stephen “did not seek to prevent” these horrors, meaning, thereby, we take it, that he connived at them.

Whilst that most holy man (Stephen) was still but Pope-elect, says the papal biographer, there was gathered together a band of men who had before their eyes neither the fear of God nor His terrible judgment, in obedience to the orders of certain wicked wretches, whom God’s just retribution has overtaken. The gang began by seizing Bishop Theodore, Constantine’s vicedominus, and depriving him of his eyes and tongue. Passivus was also deprived of his eyes. The houses of both the unfortunate men were plundered, and Theodore, thrust into the monastery of Clivus Scaurus—the monastery, it would seem, that was founded by St. Gregory I on the site of his paternal house—was left to die of hunger and thirst. The antipope Constantine was driven through the city in mockery on horseback, seated on a woman’s saddle, with heavy weights attached to his feet, and then lodged in a monastery near the Church of Sta. Saba on the Aventine. This church, from the fact of its being, along with the monastery adjoining, the first asylum of the Greek (Basilian) monks in Rome, was known as ad Cellam novam.  Thence he was taken (August 6) to the Lateran basilica, and canonically degraded. His pallium was cast at his feet by a subdeacon, and his shoes, the special ones worn by a Pope, cut off!

The next day Stephen was consecrated in St. Peter’s; and by the mouth of Leontius, one of the papal secretaries, the people confessed their guilt for not resisting the antipope.

Unfortunately the consecration of Stephen did not put an end to the violence that was being perpetrated in the name of justice. One of the towns of the Campagna, which one of the MS. of the Liber Pontificalis sets down as Alatri, a mountain town not far from Anagni, and which its ancient lords, the Hernicians, boasted to have been built by Saturn, held out for the antipope Constantine. Its governor, the 'tribune Gracilis, as he is described in the Book of the Popes—a title which, like consul, was at this period a nomen sine re—relying on the natural and artificial strength of his position, considered he was safe in defying the new power, and commenced to ravage the Campagna. He was mistaken, however. His stronghold was stormed by a force of Romans, Tuscans, and troops from various parts of the Campagna, and he himself taken prisoner to Rome. From his prison he was ruth­lessly dragged by certain “wicked Campanians .... who were urged on by some most impious men more wicked than themselves”, and deprived of his eyes and tongue.

A few days after, these same strangers, with the approval of the chartular Gratiosus, and his chief officers, “by whose authority these terrible deeds were done”, dragged the unfortunate Constantine from his monastic prison, early in the morning, put out his eyes, and left him lying in the street.

Finally, on a charge of conspiring to kill the primicerius, Christopher and other nobles, and to hand over the city to the Lombards, orders were issued to arrest the Lombard priest Waldipert. The poor priest fled to the Church of Our Lady ad Martyres, or the Pantheon. Thence, still clinging to Our Lady’s image, Waldipert was drawn, and so cruelly was the usual brutal work of blinding performed that he soon died.

While gladly finishing with these deeds of blood, we would observe that the only one whom history in any way connects with them, as a responsible agent, is the chartular Gratiosus. Stephen is represented as merely passive.

The Lateran Council, 769

In the very outset of his pontificate, Stephen had sent to inform Pippin and his two sons, Charlemagne and Carlomann, of his election. He begged them to send to Rome bishops learned in the Scriptures and in canon law to assist at a synod which would take steps to prevent the repetition of such a usurpation of the Holy See as had just been perpetrated. On their arrival in France, the papal envoys found that the great king Pippin was no more. He had died September 24, 768, and Charlemagne and Carlomann were reigning in his stead. The two kings gladly complied with Stephen’s wishes, and twelve of their bishops set out for Rome.

In April (769) the Pope opened a synod in the Lateran basilica of some fifty bishops, and a considerable number of the inferior clergy and of the laity. The first work to which the council turned its attention was that of ex­amining into the doings of the antipope. The blind Constantine was introduced, and was asked how he had ventured, being a layman, to intrude himself into the Apostolic See and be guilty of such an unheard-of impiety. In reply, Constantine urged that he had acted under compulsion, inasmuch as the people hoped thus for a remedy from the evils that Pope Paul had brought upon them. Then he threw himself on the ground, confessed that he had sinned, and begged the synod to forgive him. At the second day’s examination, however, Constantine was by no means so submissive, but argued that he had done nothing new. This barefaced attempt to defend his usurpation was more than the assembly could endure. They ordered him to be beaten and cast forth from the Church. Then the acts of the antipope were publicly burnt before the whole synod, and the Pope and the bishops, along with the Roman laity, prostrated themselves, sang the Kyrie eleison and declared that they had sinned in receiving Holy Communion at the hands of Constantine. After the imposition of a suitable penance, and after a careful dis­cussion on the canons, it was decreed, under pain of interdict, that no layman could be made Pope, and that only cardinal deacons or priests, who had passed through the minor orders, were to be eligible for the honor of the papacy. The laity, moreover, were forbidden any share in the election for the future; express prohibition being urged against the presence of armed men, and of the troops from Tuscany and the Campagna. But when the election had been held by the clergy, the Roman army and people were to salute the elect before he was escorted to the Lateran Palace.

Decrees were next passed with regard to the ordinations held by the antipope. It was decided that the bishops, priests, and deacons whom he had ordained were to again rank only from the degree from which the antipope had raised them. However, if those who had been consecrated bishops were re-elected in the ordinary canonical way, they might be reconciled and restored to the episcopal grade by the Pope. In the same way he might reinstate the priests and deacons. But such laymen as had been ordained priests or deacons by Constantine had to do penance in the religious habit all their lives, and none of those whom the antipope had ordained were ever to be promoted to a higher grade. These stringent regulations were made with the very desirable object of preventing the recurrence “of such impious novelties in the Church of God”. The bishops who had been consecrated by Constantine seem to have been all reconciled by the Pope. But Stephen would never re-establish the priests or deacons in the rank to which the antipope had raised them. Furthermore, in general, the sacraments which Constantine had administered, except baptism and confirmation, were to be repeated.

Finally, after a careful examination of various testimonies of the Fathers, it was decreed that holy images had to be venerated by all Christians; and the late synod of Constantinople (754) against the sacred images was anathematized.

When the business of the council was over, a great procession of the clergy and people, all barefooted, was made to St. Peter’s. There the decrees of the council were solemnly announced to all, as well as the anathemas to which any who dared to violate them were exposed. It was the wholesale disregard of the decrees of this council in the matter of papal elections that some two centuries later reduced the Papacy to its lowest level.

The example of violent interference with canonical election offered in the case of Stephen was not long in being followed. On the death of Sergius, Archbishop of Ravenna (770), the archdeacon Leo was duly elected to succeed him. But Michael, a lay secretary of the Church, procuring the connivance of Desiderius, the Lombard king, who was, of course, not averse to promoting trouble in the Pope’s dominions, and the armed assistance of Maurice, Duke of Rimini, got himself elected by force. Leo was safely imprisoned by Maurice in his ducal city; and the two conspirators, with the, probably enforced, cooperation of the judges (judices) of Ravenna, at once sent to offer the Pope large sums of money if he would consecrate Michael. This Stephen refused to do on any account, and sent both letters and envoys to induce Michael to withdraw. For a time, a year and more, the usurper was able to set the Pope at defiance—the ornaments of the cathedral and the episcopal palace supplying him with the means of buying the support of Desiderius. But at length Stephen, taking advantage of the presence in Rome of one of Charlemagne’s envoys, Hucbald, sent him to Ravenna along with his own legates. Emboldened by the appearance of the Frankish ambassador, the party of law and order took courage, rose, sent Michael in chains to Rome, and reasserted the rights of Leo. Accompanied by a large number of his clergy, Leo at once went to Rome, where he was consecrated bishop by the Pope.

The short pontificate of Stephen IV brought him many serious troubles from first one quarter and then another. Whilst the difficulties at Ravenna were still unsettled, Stephen was filled with fear lest the mortal enemies of the popes, the Lombards, might gain a solid advantage over him from a new line of policy suddenly developed by Desiderius. This affair, which touches on Charlemagne’s wives, is involved in no little obscurity for that very reason, as well as from the ever-recurring difficulty of the want of dates to the letters in the Caroline Code. To writers with theories, of course, nothing presents a difficulty. From our ignorance of many crucial facts and dates, the reigns of many of the popes simply present to the writer a mass of facts, like so many pieces of colored marbles, out of which each man can make a mosaic for himself according to his own design. We will endeavor to give the facts of the case so that the reader may judge of their bearings for himself.

Pippin, as we have said, was succeeded by his sons, Charles (Charlemagne) and Carlomann. If we can rely upon Andrew of Bergamo, who wrote a century after this, the elder brother, Carlomann, was a man of savage temper. At any rate, whatever the cause, there was no love lost between the brothers; and the tension between them, while it brought the greatest anxiety to their mother and to the Pope, would, of course, be viewed with complacency by Desiderius. By the efforts of those, the Pope among them, who wished the brothers well, some measure of harmony was established between them, perhaps in 769. In a letter to “Charles and Carlomann, kings of the Franks and patricians of the Romans”, in which Stephen expressed his pleasure at the good news which they had sent him regarding their reconciliation, and their firm intention to stand by the promises which, with their father, they had made to the vicars of St. Peter, he begged them to fulfill their engagements, to see to the full restoration of the justitiae of St. Peter, and not to believe any story to the effect that he had already received them.

 

 

Frankish embassy to Desiderius, 770

Accordingly, in prompt compliance with Stephen’s request, an embassy was dispatched by the Frankish kings to put pressure upon the Lombard monarch Desiderius. One of the envoys was Ittherius, Charlemagne’s chancellor, and apparently with them went Bertrada (Bertha), his mother. That the missi were at least partially successful in their errand is certain, not only from contemporary chronicles, but from a letter of the Pope to Bertrada and her son, in which he commends to them the exertions of Ittherius in obtaining the restitution of the Beneventan patrimony.

But the envoys, and the queen-mother particularly, had another end in view besides furthering the cause of peace between Desiderius and the Pope. She went to Italy, indeed, “for the sake of peace”, but she went also “on account of the daughter of King Desiderius”. Her role in this matter of the daughter of King Desiderius has, we believe, been much exaggerated by some modern authors. She has been represented as its prime mover, and as acting from the highest political motives. That she was not its prime mover would seem to be proved by the letter of Pope Stephen, soon to be quoted. This letter must be regarded as the most important authority on this matter—the more so that there is nothing to oppose to its statements. However, when “she had finished the business for which she came to Italy, and paid her devotions at the shrines of the Apostles at Rome, she returned to her sons in Gaul”. Let us hear what the business of the daughter of King Desiderius was.

Perhaps in the year 769, at any rate early in 770, Desiderius proposed that his daughter should marry one or other of the Frank kings, doubtless with the view of attaching them to himself and alienating them from the Pope. Tassilo of Bavaria was already his son-in-law. He would do well if he could make one of the Frankish kings another. It appears to have been also proposed to give the little Gisela to Adelchis, the son of Desiderius.

When Stephen heard of this proposal, he was naturally alarmed and shocked, for both the young kings were already married. He at once, therefore, wrote to them. After warning them that they must be on their guard, because the devil is ever on the watch to get the better of us by assailing us on our weak side, just as he ruined Adam through the feebler nature of a woman, he proceeds to say that noble Franks ought not to dream of uniting themselves with Lombards, who are such a loathsome people, as the fact of the lepers originating from them shows. If that is the case with the nation of the Franks in general, how much less ought you two kings to unite with Lombards, “you who are already, by the will of God and the commands of your father, lawfully married to noble wives of your own nation, whom you are bound to cherish. And certainly it is not lawful for you to put away the wives you have and marry others, or ally yourselves in marriage with a foreign people, a thing never done by any of your ancestors ... It is wicked of you even to entertain the thought of marrying again when you are already married. You ought not to act thus, who profess to follow the law of God, and punish others to prevent men acting in this unlawful manner. Such things do the heathen. But they ought not to be done by you who are Christians, “a holy people and a kingly priesthood”. Stephen then uses other arguments. He reminds the two young kings that their father Pippin, at the exhortation of Pope Stephen, his predecessor, refrained from putting away their mother; that they had promised the same Pope that they would ever count his friends and enemies theirs also; and that their father, at the wish of the Pope, refused to give his daughter Gisela even to the son of the emperor Constantine, and had with them promised obedience and love to the Pope. In conclusion he exhorts them by the living God and His dreadful judgment, and by the body of St. Peter, not to wed the daughter of Desiderius, nor “to dare to put away their wives”, and not to give their sister Gisela to the son of Desiderius; but, on the contrary, mindful of what they had promised to St. Peter, to resist the Lombards and force them to fulfill the promises they had made to restore the rights of the Church. For so far from keeping their word, the Lombards never cease to oppress the Church.  “This letter, after having placed it on the Confession of St. Peter, and celebrated the holy sacrifice over it, we are sending to you with tears. But know that if anyone, which God forbid, should contravene this letter, he is excommunicated and given over to eternal flames with the devil and the wicked”.

For some cause or other the proposal of the Lombard king recommended itself to the queen-mother, Bertrada (Bertha). In the course of the year 770, as we have seen, she came to Italy to escort Desiderata to France. The young kings Charlemagne and Carlomann were, we have already noted, anything but perfectly united, and had it not been for the forbearance of Charlemagne, there would have been war between them. Bertrada may have argued that if their thoughts could be turned “to marriage and giving in marriage”, war between them would be averted. Or perhaps her object may have been to get an ally for Charlemagne (to whom she seems to have been more attached) in the event of war between the two brothers, just as it was doubtless the object of Desiderius to attach to himself one of the brothers—he did not mind which—and then foment trouble between them and weaken both of them. To say the least of it, these conjectures are perhaps as likely to be true as the many others put forward in this connection. And though she failed to induce Gisela to marry the son of Desiderius, or Carlomann to marry his daughter, she succeeded in persuading Charlemagne to marry Desiderata. When exactly the marriage took place we do not know. At any rate, in less than a year Charlemagne divorced her, for some cause unknown even to Eginhard, and to the great chagrin of his mother. If Andrew of Bergamo could be safely quoted as an authority on this point, what has been said of Bertha’s wish to secure an ally for Charlemagne would receive no little support. He avers that it was Carlomann who forced his brother to repudiate Desiderata! Withal, it is as likely as not that the remonstrances of the Pope prevailed in the end.

The downfall of Christopher and Sergius (Lent, 770 or 771)

 Probably whilst Charlemagne was still united with Desiderata, Stephen had another and more serious difficulty to face, and a difficulty that is to us now more involved in obscurities than the marriage question of Charlemagne. To begin with, we will narrate the affair as it appears in the contemporary author in the Liber Pontificalis, noting how far his story is supported by the words of the Bavarian envoy, the secretary of Tassilo III, the so-called Creontius or Crantz.

Christopher and his son Sergius, who had been the prime movers in Stephen’s elevation to the popedom, continued to be his right-hand men after his consecration. By their advice every effort was made through Charlemagne and Carlomann to force Desiderius to surrender various rights belonging to the Holy See in different parts of Italy over which the Lombard had control, and which he had repeatedly promised to restore. Christopher was certainly a masterful man. So boldly did he fulfill his mission to Constantine, that the emperor expressed his belief that the envoy must have exceeded his commission; and we have seen how, in the election of Stephen, he thwarted the designs, first of the rough noble Toto and then of the Lombard Waldipert. Convinced, then, that Sergius and his father were his ablest opponents, and inflamed with anger against them, Desiderius resolved to destroy them. He accordingly managed to buy the tongues of the Pope’s chamberlain, Paul Afiarta, and others, and directed them to be used in blackening the characters of Christopher and Sergius before the Pope. Then he gave out that he intended to go to Rome to offer up prayers to St. Peter. But Sergius and his father were not easily deceived. They straightway collected troops, closed the gates of the city, and made all the necessary preparations for resistance. When Desiderius and his army arrived before the city, he sent to the Pope to request an interview. To this Stephen agreed, and after a conference on the justitiae, returned to the city. In his absence Paul Afiarta and his party had endeavored to raise the people against Christopher and his son. But these leaders were ready and attacked their opponents, who seemed to have fled to the Lateran palace. Thither the victorious party pursued them, following them even into the Pope’s presence in the basilica of Pope Theodore. It was apparently at this juncture that, according to the Bavarian, the Pope was forced “to take an oath to be true to Christopher and Sergius, as they suspected him of having come to an understanding with the enemy”. They knew Desiderius’ hatred of them, and they feared that in his interview with the Pope he might have put pressure upon him to give them up. To resume from the biographer of Stephen. Indignant at this violation of his rights and person, Stephen soundly rated the attacking party and ordered them to withdraw, an order which they immediately obeyed. The next day the Pope again went out to St. Peter’s, which was at this time outside the walls of the city, to have another conference with the false Lombard. Creontius speaks of this as a flight and goes on to say that the Pope and the king again conspired against Christopher, endeavored by threats, money and every means to turn the people against him, and threatened to destroy the city unless he were given up.

Following the Liber Pontificalis, Stephen left the city to continue the discussion on the ‘claims’ of St. Peter; but Desiderius would not again discuss the question of the usurped ‘rights’ of the Holy See, but only what he was pleased to call the treachery of Christopher and Sergius towards the Pope. It would then appear that, failing to make any impression on the Pope with words, in violation of all the sacred rights of ambassadors, he had recourse to violence. For the papal biographer goes on to relate that Desiderius imprisoned the Pope and his suite in St. Peter’s by closing all the gates, and that then the Pope sent two bishops to parley with Christopher and Sergius, and to tell them that they must either retire to a monastery or come out to him at St. Peter’s. According to the Bavarian, the bishops cried : “Pope Stephen bids you not to fight against your brethren, but to expel Christopher from the city, and save it, yourselves, and your children”. He adds that Christopher was at once given up in chains. It may be noted, in passing, that the testimony of Creontius cannot be said to be of the same value as that of the Book of the Popes, as it is impossible to tell from the work of Aventinus precisely how much is from the pen of the sixteenth century German and how much from the eighth. This message, clearly, as it seems to us, dictated by Desiderius, naturally caused distrust to arise among the adherents of Christopher and Sergius. Their followers rapidly fell away from them, and, though at first they were loath to leave the city, first son and then father betook themselves to the Pope during the night. Next day the Pope returned, or was allowed to return, to the city, leaving, doubtless because he had no choice in the matter, Christopher and Sergius in St. Peter’s, but hoping to be able to find some means of bringing them back to Rome by night. From the Bavarian narrative we learn that during this eventful day the superiors of the monasteries near St. Peter’s, who went thither to try to obtain mercy for Christopher and his son, were not only completely unsuccessful in their mission, but were even maltreated by the Lombards. Before night arrived, Paul and his party, after arranging matters with Desiderius, seized the unfortunate pair and put out their eyes. The father died after three days in the monastery of St. Agatha in Trastevere, but Sergius lingered on in a cell of the Lateran. “All these evils”, concludes the papal biographer, “were brought about by the machinations of Desiderius, the king of the Lombards”. Such is the clear and consistent narrative of these events in the Book of the Popes; and it is, in its principal features, corroborated by what can be gathered from John Turmair of the report of Tassilo’s secretary.

Had we no further materials than the Liber Pontificalis supplies us with, we might be said to have an easily intelligible account of the downfall of Christopher and Sergius. But there exists in the Caroline Code a letter from the Pope, addressed to Queen Bertrada and Charlemagne, which gives a very different account of the part played by Desiderius. In that letter, those “most wicked men”, Christopher and Sergius, are represented as having come to an understanding with Dodo, the envoy of Carlomann, and as having attempted to kill the Pope. By good fortune, Stephen managed to escape to Desiderius, who happened to be at Rome at the time, as he had come to treat about the ‘rights’ of the Holy See. On the Pope’s flight the city was barred against him. But by degrees, as the perfidy of Christopher became clearer, his party fell away from him, and at length, much against their will, Christopher and Sergius were brought out to the Pope. Stephen was, with difficulty, able to save their lives, “which the whole people were anxious to take”, and whilst he was making arrangements to bring them back into the city during the night, “those who were ever on the watch for them seized them and put out their eyes, without our concurrence in any way”. Stephen assures Charlemagne, in conclusion, that but for the help of God, and “his most excellent son Desiderius”, he, his clergy, and his people would all have been in danger of death; that Dodo was to blame for the whole trouble, and that he had received from Desiderius full satisfaction with regard to the ‘rights’ of the Church.

So improbable seem the statements in this letter, that many authors, “with some show of reason”, have maintained that it was written by the Pope under compulsion, when he was in the hands of Desiderius. If the statements in this letter were true, it would mean that four men suddenly showed themselves false to the characters they had previously borne. Christopher and Sergius had, up to this time, proved themselves most devoted adherents of the popes. They had risked all they had in their service, had been duly appreciated by them, and had done everything for Stephen himself. Dodo also had received warm praise as a friend of the popes; whereas, on the contrary, Desiderius, who both before and after these events showed himself anything but a friend of the popes, and had given abundant evidence of being a man of no character, a liar and a knave, is in this letter represented as the savior of the Pope. If the letter were written under compulsion, its object is obvious. Dodo’s name is dragged into it to foment discord between, the two brothers, Charlemagne and Carlomann, an object we shall soon see Desiderius more openly working to bring about.

Of course it may have been that the calumnies of Afiarta and his friends did their work, and that the Pope became suspicious of his two chief and powerful ministers. And as suspicion begets suspicion, it may have been that Christopher and his son began to mistrust the goodwill of the Pope towards them. Hence it may have been that Desiderius temporarily hoodwinked the Pope, and thus wrought his end in contriving the ruin of his able opponents. But of all these things, the reader, now in possession of the facts of the case, must judge for himself.

It is quite certain that if the Pope had been deluded by Desiderius, the delusion did not last long. For when he sent to Desiderius to ask for the fulfillment of the promises he had made on oath over the body of St. Peter, he received this sarcastic answer: “Be content that I removed Christopher and Sergius, who were ruling you, out of your way, and ask not for ‘rights’. Besides, if I do not continue to help you, great trouble will befall you. For Carlomann, king of the Franks, is the friend of Christopher and Sergius, and will be wishful to come to Rome and seize you”. Well might Pope Hadrian, who is our authority for this reply of Desiderius, add, “See of what value is the good faith of Desiderius!”

Paul Afiarta seems to have retained considerable power in the city. For as soon as Stephen was struck down with his last illness, he at once exiled a number of the most influential as well of the clergy as of the laity, and imprisoned others. Moreover, as we shall see in the Life of Hadrian, eight days before Stephen died, the wretched Sergius was dragged forth from his place of confinement in the Lateran, by the orders of the same brutal chamberlain, and strangled. We shall also, with no little satisfaction, see, in the same place, that Paul, even in this life, reaped the just reward of his iniquity.

To work out his purpose of subjecting all Italy to his trouble in sway, Desiderius caused trouble not only in Rome but in other places. We have seen that it was decided that the bishop of Grado should be primate of Venetia and Istria. But Desiderius, correctly concluding that if the bishops of these provinces were subject to Aquileia instead, he would have more power over them, sometime during Stephen’s reign actively employed himself in fomenting a schism in those parts. His efforts were crowned with success, and the bishops of Istria took it upon themselves to consecrate others without the consent of the patriarch of Grado. The patriarch accordingly appealed to the Pope. Stephen at once wrote to the rebellious bishops and to John of Grado himself. The bishops he suspended, and commanded to return to their obedience under pain of excommunication, John he consoled; and assured him, that, like his predecessor Stephen III, he would always consult the patriarch’s interests; and that the subjects of Blessed Peter would strive to defend Istria against its enemies, as they did to protect “our province of Rome and the exarchate of Ravenna”. To urge the Pope to adopt strong measures in support of the patriarch of Grado, Maurice, the doge of Venice, sent an embassy to Rome. But the death of Stephen prevented the negotiation from having any practical issue.

The seven cardinal bishops

Before bringing this Pope’s biography to a close, it is worthwhile mentioning that in the Liber Pontificalis he is said to have been a diligent observer of ecclesiastical tradition in the matter of church ceremonial. In connection with which, he decreed that every Sunday one of the seven cardinales hebdomadarii, now known as cardinal or suburbicarian bishops, should in turn say Mass in the Lateran on the altar of St. Peter, and should say at it the prayer Gloria in excelsis Deo. From this weekly duty these cardinal bishops (who are here mentioned for the first time) were called hebdomadarii. The altar of St. Peter here spoken of is a table of wood, on which it is believed that St. Peter himself offered up the Holy Sacrifice; and which is enclosed at this day in the marble High Altar of the Lateran basilica. And to this day also, as in the other patriarchal basilicas, only the Pope or a specially appointed cardinal can say Mass at the High Altar. A writer of the thirteenth century, John the Deacon, enumerates these cardinal bishops as follows: “First is the bishop of Ostia, whose office it is to consecrate the Pope; then the bishops of S. Rufina or Silvia Candida, Porto, Albano, Tusculum, Sabina and Praeneste”. No doubt they were the same as were attached to the Lateran from the beginning. Now­adays there are six cardinal bishops. For in the beginning of the twelfth century, Porto and St Rufina were united.

Death of Stephen

Stephen, whom some modern historians, with no little reason perhaps, call weak, and others, with no reason, call unscrupulous, died February 1st or 3rd, 772, and was buried in St. Peter’s.

On the question as to whether or not Stephen was really a man of weak character, we may remark that he was not so indeed to his biographer, who, as we have already noticed, calls him a man of character. He was much respected by his successor Hadrian, who is, on all hands, allowed to have been an exceptionally strong-minded man. And it may be urged that it is easy to call a man weak who has to give way before overwhelming odds. King Pippin, the great support of this Pope’s predecessors, was dead. Pippin’s successors, Charlemagne and Carlomann, were young, disunited, and with formidable enemies around them, whereas Desiderius had had considerable experience in the art of ruling. And whether he bullied or hoodwinked Stephen in the matter of the murder of Christopher and Sergius, he did not attempt, under him, that violent seizure of papal territory that he began under Hadrian. Though it may be granted that the current of events in the beginning of his reign flowed too strongly to be stemmed by the most powerful, still, in the abandonment of Christopher, if the current was strong, it can scarcely be questioned that the swimmer was weak. The treatment of his primicerius by Stephen looks very like the cowardly surrendering of Wentworth by Charles I. Hence, though from his tender nursing of Pope Paul and what his biographer tells us of his pious works, it may fairly be concluded that Stephen’s heart was good, it can scarcely be questioned that his will was weak. The events of his reign may serve as another illustration of the fact that for the governed the rule of the weak is sometimes worse than that of the bad. The wicked prince is not infrequently strong enough to reserve the right of doing wrong to himself. But under the weak sovereign everyone does “what is right in his own eyes”.

Cardinal Tripepi calls  attention to the fact that various calendars, martyrologies, etc., such as the ancient a saint, calendar of the saints of Sicily, the calendars and martyrologies of Ferrarius, Menard, St. Malo, etc., number Stephen among the saints, and assign his feast to February I St; and that the inhabitants of Syracuse endeavored to induce the Holy See to extend the worship (the ‘cult’), which was there paid to him, to the whole Church.

 

HADRIAN I. AD 772-795