Emperors of the East.                                                          Emperors of the West.

Constantine VI. (Porphyrogenitus),  780-797.                  Charlemagne (King of the Franks), 771-800.

Irene, 797-802.                                                                      (Emperor), 800-814.

Nicephorus, 802-811.                                                           Louis, the Pious or Debonnaire, 814-840.

Michael I, 811-813.

Leo V, 813-820.

 

Stephen, a Roman and the son of Marinus, was a member Early of that noble family which, in the course of the ninth Stephen century, gave no fewer than three popes to the Church, viz., Stephen himself, Sergius II, and Hadrian II. From his earliest youth he had been brought up in the Lateran palace under Pope Hadrian. To all the care lavished upon him the youthful Stephen faithfully corresponded, and, as a reward for his virtue and learning, Leo III ordained him sub-deacon. As his advance in the way of virtue continued, the same Pope ordained him deacon. From that time forth Stephen devoted all his energies to promote the practice of the precepts of the Gospel both by word and work. His holiness was the common talk of the people. Hence they scarcely waited for the death of Leo to elect their beloved Stephen as his successor. Amidst general rejoicings he was escorted to St. Peter’s, and consecrated (June 22) ten days after the date of Leo’s burial.

Though there is not evidence enough to compel such an inference, it is conceivable that, in their prompt election and consecration of Stephen, the Roman clergy had in view the anticipating of any imperial interference with their rights. At any rate, his election was as absolutely free as that of his predecessors from the time of Pope Zachary.

Still, of course, the emperor had his rights, and these the new Pope was anxious to acknowledge, and so his first act was to cause the Romans to take an oath of fidelity to Louis. This he no doubt did, not only as an act of recognition on his own part of the position of Louis in Rome as emperor and protector of the Roman Church, but also to remind the turbulent party among the Romans that there was a powerful suzerain over them who wielded a sharper sword than did the Pope. But it is certain that he did not make the people take this oath, because he wished to proclaim that he was not himself their ruler. For we shall see later that the Roman people swore to be faithful to the emperor, “saving the obedience they owed to the Pope”.

Stephen’s next step was to send envoys to inform Louis of his consecration. Though his election had been perfectly free, it was only just that the emperor, as his temporal overlord, should be duly informed of his canonical installation. Besides, his views could be more easily stated by word of mouth if Louis were to express any dissatisfaction at not having been allowed any voice in the matter. The envoys were also commissioned  to notify the emperor that an interview with him, wherever might be convenient to him, would be acceptable to their master. It is difficult to tell with certainty whether the wish for the meeting proceeded in the first instance from the emperor, anxious to be crowned by the Pope, or from the latter, desirous of obtaining certain privileges from his powerful protector. According to Stephen’s biographer, he undertook the journey “for the sake of confirming the peace and unity of the Church”.

However all this may be, certain it is that the Pope set out for France in the month of August, in company with Bernard, the king of Italy, who was acting under the emperor’s orders. It is to be supposed that, like his namesake who had made the journey before him, he would cross the Alps by the pass of the great St. Bernard, and would rest his weary limbs after the long and dangerous climb at the abbey of St. Maurice on the Rhone. The reception he met with from the emperor was so honorable that “the tongue is scarce able to recount it”. Louis, who had been filled with joy when he heard of the Pope’s intention to come to him, sent forward his archchaplain, Hildebald, Theodulf, bishop of Orleans, and John, bishop of Arles, to meet him; whilst he himself, says Ermoldus, drew up in order to meet the Pope, the clergy, “people, and Senate”.

It was about a mile from the city of Rheims that Louis and the Pope met. Both at once dismounted from their horses. “In honour of God and St. Peter”, the emperor thrice prostrated himself before the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, and saluted him with the words, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! the Lord our God has shone down upon us!”. “Blessed be the Lord our God”, replied the Pope, “ who has given me to see with my eyes a second King David!”.

When they had embraced each other, the emperor led the Pope to the Church of St. Remy, which was outside the city, where the Te Deum was chanted in thanksgiving. On the following Sunday, after a day or two had been Crowns spent in feastings, “before Mass, in presence of the clergy and all the people, Stephen consecrated and anointed Louis emperor and placed upon his head a golden crown of wondrous beauty and adorned with most precious stones, which he had brought with him, and which Nigellus says had belonged to Constantine the Great! He also placed a golden crown on the head of Queen Irmengard and saluted her as Augusta”.

There are today not wanting authors who, regarding the popes with other eyes than those with which they were regarded by Charlemagne, Louis, and their contemporaries, contend that this act of Stephen was simply a gratuitous interference. Louis, it is urged, had been crowned emperor by his father; but Stephen, fearing that, if he were not to have a share in his imperial coronation, crowning by the Pope would not in future be thought necessary to constitute an emperor, took upon himself to tell Louis that he would come and crown him, and actually did so, regardless of his likes or dislikes. Plastic as Louis was, it is too much to suppose that he was such a puppet as to allow himself to be treated in so high-handed a fashion. What Stephen did, he must have accomplished with the full and hearty concurrence of the emperor and the Frankish nobility.

No contemporary evidence is available to show that at this time there was any received opinion anywhere as to what was or was not necessary to constitute the chief of the “revived empire” of the West. It may, however, be regarded as certain that the Franks looked to Rome as the natural source of empire, and that to them Rome meant the Pope. From the view taken by them of the position of the sovereign pontiff at this period, there can be no doubt that just as they considered him competent to decide who should be their king, so they regarded it as equally within his power to make an emperor. While Louis and the Franks would be satisfied with such coronation as he had received as long as the Pope-crowned Charlemagne lived, they would not be content that the Roman, i.e. the papal, sanction should be wanting when Charlemagne was no more. And so, whether or not Stephen used the words, or anything like them, which Ermoldus puts into his mouth when crowning Louis, the poet voices in them the general feeling as to the source of empire : “Rome, O Caesar, presents you with the gift of Peter!”. Though most of the sources imply at least that Stephen set out for France on his own initiative, and though even Ermoldus once seems to imply the same thing, it is more than likely that what the poet states twice elsewhere is the fact; viz., that Stephen left Rome to comply with the expressed wishes of Louis. And, no doubt, while he sent for the Pope with a view of confirming the privileges of his See, he wanted him in turn to be his powerful support by confirming him in the empire. So that it may be said that Louis was simply emperor, “elect or designate”, till he had been formally crowned by the Pope. “The right to this crowning was indeed hereditary, and the heir to the throne could assume the title of emperor; but the crowning was necessary to invest him legally with this high dignity. Thus was it understood throughout the middle ages. So necessary was the crowning thought to be, that, even after the sixteenth century, the emperors of Germany, when they no longer caused themselves to be crowned, simply took the title of Roman emperor elect, which marked them off from the emperors by divine right”.

As a return for the favor of his coronation, Louis, to use  the phrase of a contemporary annalist,  “remunerated” the Pope with many presents. Chief among them was an estate (curtis) which the emperor bestowed on the Roman Church from his own private property. This curtis was most lively identical with the “villa Vendopera”, or Vandeuvre (between Troyes and Bar-sur-Aube). Hincmar (Ann., 865) assures us that it had been given by the emperor Louis to St Peter, and Charles the Bald, helped Nicholas I to wrest it from a certain Count Wigo who had for some years been reaping on the Pope’s land what he certainly had not sown.

Renewal of the pact between the Franks and the Holy See

Before Louis and Stephen parted, they had long conferences together, and the treaty of friendship which had already been struck more than once between the popes and the rulers of the Franks was again renewed. And such favor did Stephen find in the emperor’s eyes that he gave him whatever he asked. More definitely, we are informed by the poet Nigellus that Louis confirmed the privileges of the Roman Church, and caused the chancellor Helisachar to draw up documentary evidence of the fact, as he was anxious for the property of St. Peter ever to remain intact.

It is supposed that, whilst Stephen was at Rheims, he gave the pallium to Theodulf, bishop of Orleans. The pallium was indeed sometimes given to bishops, who were thereby authorized to take the title of archbishop, a title that is found given to Theodulf in some of the diplomas of the emperor Louis. On the strength of this gift, Theodulf maintained that he had the same right as a metropolitan of not being judged without an order from the Pope.

Loaded with presents many times greater than those he Stephen had himself given to the emperor, and accompanied envoys of Louis, the Pope set out for Rome (October 816). He was also attended by a number of liberated political prisoners. “In imitation of Our Saviour, who redeemed us from the captivity of the devil, the Pope brought back with him, as a sign of the goodness of the Church (propietate Ecclesiae), all the exiles who, for their crimes against the Roman Church and Pope Leo, were there detained in captivity”.

On his way home the Pope visited Ravenna. The archbishop Martin, who had shown himself somewhat  restive under Pope Leo, was all submission. Stephen said Mass in the Basilica Ursiana, or cathedral founded by St. Ursus, archbishop of Ravenna in the fourth century, and exhibited for the veneration of the people “the sandals of Our Saviour”, a relic of which mention is again made in the life of Pope Nicholas by Anastasius.

Stephen reached Rome before the close of the month of November. After holding the usual ordinations of bishops and priests in the month of December, and confirming the famous monastery of St. Mary of Farfa its possessions, on condition of the daily recitation by the monks of “one hundred  Kyrie Eleisons for our sins”, and of a yearly payment to the Roman Church of ten golden solidi, he died on January 24, 817. He was buried, according to the usual custom, in St. Peter’s.

Among the decrees of Gratian there is one of Pope Stephen, which by different authors is either pronounced spurious, or is variously attributed to Stephen V, Eugenius II, Stephen (VI) VII, or John IX. One thing seems certain, and that is, that the decree was not the work of Stephen V. The decree ascribes the tumults that take place on the death of a Pope to the absence of the imperial legates at the Pope’s consecration; sets forth that the presence of the legates was in accordance with canon law and custom, and decrees that the one who has been elected by the clergy, “in presence of the senate and people”, should be consecrated “in the presence of the imperial legates”. Now it is certain that Stephen’s successor was consecrated without the presence of the imperial envoys; that no appeal to “custom” could have been put forth by Stephen V (as Charlemagne had never had an opportunity as emperor of sending envoys to the consecration of a Pope), and that, from 741-817, there was no waiting for the arrival of imperial legates before the consecration was performed. Moreover, we have the express declaration of Florus, the deacon of Lyons, who, about the year 829, wrote  a leaflet on the election of bishops, to the effect that “in the Roman Church we see that the pontiffs are lawfully consecrated without any (previous) consulting with the royal authority, but solely in accordance with the disposition of Divine Providence and the votes of the faithful”.

No doubt, then, the decree in question is the work not of Stephen V, but of John IX; for it is the same as the one issued by the Council of Rome (can 10), held in 898 under his presidency. It was evidently assigned to a Pope of the name of Stephen, through a mistake which originated in the fact that acts of the council of John IX, where it is found, begin with the words, “Synodum tempore .... sexti Stephani”.

It seems very doubtful whether any specimens of the Coins (?) of coinage of Stephen V have survived to modern times. Cinagli,  indeed, assigns two silver denarii to this Pope on MS. authority. Promis, however, while pointing out that they are not, as supposed, in the Chigi collection, believes that they really are the production of Pope Valentine.