THE BEGINNINGS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POPES

CHAPTER III

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POPE AND THE FRANKISH INTERVENTION

Astolphus, who succeeded Ratchis in 749, did not long leave Ravenna in peace. The exact date of his seizure of the town is not known, but there is no doubt that the Exarchate carne to a miserable end, so miserable, indeed, that we have no record of its last moments. All that we know is that, from the month of July 751, the Lombard king was established in the Exarchal palace, and that thenceforward his sway extended over the whole of the ancient imperial territory between the Po, the Adriatic, and the Apennines. Even Gubbio, the other side of the mountains, had succumbed to him, but Perugia, Todi, Amelia, and the duchy of Rome were not yet captured. Astolphus was meditating a descent on the latter, when the newly elected Pope, Stephen, dispatched ambassadors, who succeeded in bringing about a peace which was to last for forty years. They were Ambrose, the chief (primicerius) of the notaries, and the Pope’s own brother, Paul. These negotiations took place in June 752, but, by the following autumn, the treaty was violated. The Pope’s biographer does not enlarge upon the fact, and the Lombard king’s reasons for perjuring himself are not given.

Hostilities, however, were not renewed, and Astolphus seems to have contented himself with levying a poll tax of a gold sou on the inhabitants of Rome. He further proposed, greatly to the consternation of the Romans, to extend his jurisdiction over Rome and its dependencies, thus creating a sort of protectorate. The Pope, not thinking it discreet to send any of his own ambassadors to the king a second time, dispatched two Lombard subjects, the abbots of Monte Cassino and St. Vincent of Vulturno. These could, of course, represent things from a religious point of view only. They had no effect on Astolphus, who sent them back to their convents, with orders not to return to Rome.

The situation was becoming serious. The Romans and the Pope, preoccupied with the dangers which threatened them at home, naturally did not give much thought to the late Exarchy. At Constantinople, on the other hand, they could not realize the changes that were taking place in Italy, and innocently imagined that a little diplomacy was all that was required in order to insure the return of the annexed provinces. An important dignitary, John the Silentiary, was sent to Rome with one imperial letter for the king of the Lombards; and another to the Pope, invoking his good offices. Stephen, therefore, deputed his brother Paul to support the Silen­tiary at his interview with Astolphus. The king was then at Ravenna, and, though his reply was somewhat vague, he gave orders that a Lombard ambassador should accompany John back to the emperor. On his way through Rome, the Byzantine envoy acquainted the Pope with the non-success of his errand, and the latter entrusted him with letters explaining the position of affairs once more, and urging the emperor to take definite steps in the matter.

With the approach of winter, the outlook became still more gloomy. The most alarming rumors sprang up and grew apace. Astolphus, it was said, meant to have all the Romans beheaded. The protection of religion was sought. The most sacred mysteries were carried in procession, in particular the great acherophite picture of the Saviour, which is still preserved in the Lateran. The Pope was prolific in prayers, litanies, and exhortations, and a copy of the treaty, broken by the terrible Lombard king, was fastened to the stational cross.

So far, however, Astolphus had confined himself to threats. The only noteworthy event of the war seems to have been the seizure of the Castle of Ceccano, part of the ecclesiastical patrimony. This castle was situated close to the southern frontier, on the side of the duchy of Beneventum, and was a somewhat important center of agricultural operations. Astolphus was, at this time, awaiting the return of his ambassador from Constantinople, and the seizure of Ceccano was probably due less to his efforts than to those of the duke.

What was to be the result of these negotiations, and what could be expected from the Pope’s representations to the emperor of the need for his intervention? Constantine had so much to do at home, that he could not effectually enter into the affairs of these distant provinces. He would probably advise them to get out of their difficulties as best they could. It would not be the first time that this attitude had been adopted towards the Romans. From the beginning of the Lombard war the Emperor Tiberius II had maintained it.

If the goodwill of the Lombard king could not be counted on, the only solution of the problem was either to resign themselves to the annexation, or to prevent it by calling in the help of the Franks.

There was, apparently, no insuperable religious objection to the annexation. There is certainly no sign of it, either in the papal correspondence, or in the other documents of the time. We must not be misled by the frequent evangelical allusions to the “lost sheep” which the Pope, like a good shepherd, wishes to wrest from the wolf, or, in other words, the Lombard king. The sheepfold in question was a political, rather than a religious one, and there was nothing to fear for the sheep from an ecclesiastical point of view. The Pope had often to deplore the Lombard depredations in the Roman territory, but these were merely the accidents of war, or psychological means, similar to the bombardments of modern times. The Lombards, to defend them­selves against the Romans, or to effect their surrender, laid waste the country by fire. They followed the universal custom and plundered, in order to live, and also to gain some advantage from the war. In more than one case the havoc made among church property savored of sacrilege, but, at that time, warriors with any respect for ecclesiastical belongings were few and far between. The followers of Astolphus are accused of having stolen some sacred corpses from the Catacombs, in order to cherish them in their monasteries. The theft of relies in the eighth century and since, has been, all over Christendom, a very common and readily condoned sin.

These unpleasant occurrences were, however, all connected with the conditions of war. The ordinary relations between the Lombards and their Roman neighbours were by this time again of a tolerably friendly nature. The Aryan and pagan element brought into Italy by the Conquest had long been absorbed. The Lombards were all Catholics, and had recently proved their faith by helping to defend Pope Gregory II against the proceedings of the Exarchs. Their princes, Liutprand, Ratchis, Aistulf, and Didier, far from being infidels, were men of piety, with a taste for founding monasteries and supporting churches, and full of the deepest respect for the sanctuaries of Rome and the apostolic See. The Romans, indeed, would not have lost much, in passing from the Byzantine to the Lombard rule. Even as part of the Lombard kingdom, Rome would have remained a holy city and a living link with the rest of Christendom. She would still have been the resort of pilgrims, and the Pope could have continued his somewhat restricted interest in the religious affairs of both the East and the West. Astolphus had his traditional capital at Pavia, and he had just conquered Ravenna, the capital of the Exarchs and of the Gothic kings. It was, therefore, improbable that the seat of government would have been moved to Rome. From the conditions which the Lombards wished to impose upon the Romans, we gather that the latter would in some measure have retained the power of self-government, under the protection of their pontiff, and that it would have been a case of ordinary annexation.

The stumbling-block in the way was that the Romans in general, and the Pope in particular, did not wish to be Lombard subjects. They considered as derogatory any alliance with a people whom they regarded as barbarians, and who were personally distasteful to them. All kinds of rumors concerning the Lombard inferiority obtained credence. It was said that leprosy flourished among them, that they were malodorous, and so on. Their laws, as well as their manners and customs, were uncongenial to the Romans; the Lombard law was strongly imbued with German tradition, while the Roman law had been religiously preserved from the tables of stone up to the time of Justinian. Then again, the Lombards and the Romans had quite a different way of dressing, and of wearing their hair and beards. Any change of nationality, such as was bound to accompany an annexation of this kind, would immediately be followed by a modification of these habits. In those days the barber followed closely in the wake of the conqueror and the diplomat.

These are but trifles, we say. Truly, but one might go far to seek the Englishman who would not object to wear the pigtail and flowing garb of the Chinese, or the Chinaman who would willingly adopt our national habits. Apart, too, from these material considerations, there was a certain subtle and sacred prestige attached to the mere fact of being a Roman. It was no mean thing, they thought, to be a member of the Holy Republic, and the subject of a man who was, after all, the heir of Augustus and Constantine.

This question of escape from the Lombards was, therefore, a vital one for the Romans of the eighth century. The Pope and the clergy were at one with their compatriots in this matter, fortunately for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical influence. They espoused the cause of the autonomy without any coercion, but from no particular religious feeling in the matter.

The main point, however, was, not that the autonomy should be established under the protection of any outside monarch, but that its interior organization should be under the supervision of none other than the Pope himself. Although at Naples and Venice the bishop was of some political importance, it was the Byzantine duke who was governor of the little republic. At Rome, too, they had a duke whose title corresponded precisely with that of his Venetian and Neapolitan colleagues. Like them he was, at one and the same time, civil chief and military governor; it was upon him that depended the whole administration and the whole staff of the Judices. The whole military body—the exercitus Romanus, as it was called—including the aristocratic cavalry, the urban foot soldiers, and the garrisons with their tribunes—all these were under his command. He was undoubtedly a most important personage. But besides the felicissimus exercitus, the venerabilis clerus was no inconsiderable figure. He, too, had his district organization, his aristocracy, his proceres Ecclesiae, his deacons, his cardinal priests, his chefs de service, and his suburban bishops. This hierarchy culminated in the apostolic Lord, the Vicar of St. Peter, the High Priest of the Roman sanctuaries, the Primate of the bishops of the whole world, and doctor of the Church Universal, i.e. a dignitary who, even apart from his religious import­ance, exercised over Italy a moral and political influence beyond compare. For the Pope to have been subject to the duke as the Venetian Patriarch was subject to the Doge would have been an incongruous and untenable position.

As a matter of fact, even at the first, affairs apparently showed not the slightest tendency towards this attitude. True, the Holy See had come into collision with the Emperor of Constantinople, during the monothelite crisis; again, at the time of the Council in Trullo, and also at the beginning of the iconoclastic struggle. These were, however, but passing attempts at tyranny, and not the result of regularly organized institutions. In ordinary practice, the Papal authority certainly tended in the direction of sovereignty, as may be seen from the documentary evidence concerning Gregory II, Gregory III, and Zachary. We have already seen the latter in his outside transactions, on behalf of the duchy of Rome. A strong light is shed upon his position at home through a significant remark made by his biographer in speaking of his journey to Ravenna and Pavia. He set out, it is said, “leaving the government of Rome to Stephen, patrician and duke”. The duke is governor, during the absence of the Pope! It is not thus that one could have spoken of either the Doge of Venice or the Duke of Naples.

The natural and traditional trend of affairs pointed, then, towards the solution required by the pontifical dignity; and, it may be added, this solution was the only acceptable and imaginable one for the Frankish princes, with whom explanations were to ensue.

It was not the first occasion upon which the Romans had thought of invoking the help of the Franks. At the instigation of the emperor and the Exarch, the Austrasian Franks had made several descents on Italy, during the reign of King Autharis. Pope Pelagius II was careful to explain to King Gontran that, as the Franks were Catholics like the Romans, they ought to look upon the Lombards as their common enemy, instead of entering into an alliance with them. St. Gregory, in his correspondence with the heirs of Gontran and Childebert, refrains from this attitude. Besides, in his day, the empire had left off inciting fresh Frankish incursions into Italy, having found them expensive and unprofitable. There was still stronger reason for discouraging them in the eighth century, when Liutprand’s victories were threatening the safety of Ravenna and the Exarchy. Charles Martel and Pepin were, on the whole, fairly well disposed towards the Lombard king, and recked little of his disputes with the Greeks. This political archeology affected them not at all.

But the interests of the Roman ex-empire and of the apostolic sanctuary were quite another matter. This was obvious to everybody in France and in Rome. As Christian princes, the Frankish monarchs felt bound to listen to the common Father of the Faithful, and to support him in time of need. To neglect what appeared to them a pressing necessity would be to incur serious personal risks. St. Peter is the chief of the apostles, and he is also the doorkeeper of Heaven. Present-day politicians are not greatly affected by this fact, but it was weighty enough to give food for reflection to a Carolingian prince, and even to influence his polities.

We get an excellent idea of this state of mind from the History written by the Venerable Bede, a renowned writer of that period.

The English King Oswy (664) had been summoned to arbitrate in a great religious discussion, which affected the organization and general progress of his people. The subject of dispute was the Easter offertory. The Irish party, on the one hand, laid stress on the patronage of their great Saint, Columba, while the Romans pinned their faith on the Apostle Peter. They had gone as far as quoting the celebrated Gospel passage: “Thou art Peter ... I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven”, when the king stopped the discussion, and asked the Irish if they admitted that these words had been addressed to St, Peter. On their replying in the affirmative, he remarked, “Well, then, he is a doorkeeper with whom I should not like to have dealings; for on my arrival at the portals of heaven, if I happened to be in bad odour with the keeper of the keys, he would very likely shut the doors upon me!”

Bede was only half English, and we may perhaps allow something for his somewhat humorous way of looking at things. The Pope’s letters to Charles Martel and Pepin, though written in a different style, breathe the same spirit: “Let us work for St. Peter, and then we shall prosper in this world, as well as the next”.

It was not to be supposed that the Franks would risk a quarrel with the Lombards, with the object of procuring for the Romans the pleasure of remaining under Byzantine rule, and of enabling the military staff of the Palatine to enjoy this advantage in peace. The conditions of the Frankish intervention would obviously be as follows : The Lombards should leave the Roman territory alone; the Romans should be under the protection of the Franks, instead of under the now enfeebled imperial power; in dealing with the Greek monarch, everything inconsistent with the new relations should be suppressed; and, finally, the Pope should be supreme at Rome and in the duchy.

But "”there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip”, and what Gregory III had proposed, Charles Martel had refused. It is true that the danger was not as imminent as the Pope imagined, and the Frankish prince had good reasons for not interfering. Nevertheless, the pontiff’s proposal had created a great sensation, and the chronicler who succeeded Fredegarius and wrote under the direction of Childebrand, brother of Charles Martel, speaks of it with visible pride and pomp. This is all the more striking because, like his patrons, he usually displayed but a mild interest in the affairs of the Church.

Though Pope Zachary was constantly brought into contact with Pepin and Carloman, either personally or through the medium of St. Boniface, it was always in connection with ecclesiastical affairs in France, the mission to Germany, and internal reform. There had never been any question of the Lombards and their quarrels with the Romans. The Pope was quite capable of managing Italian affairs, without any help from the Franks. Indeed, it was the Franks who required his advice and assistance in their political affairs; and not until the papal sanction was obtained did they take the important step of substituting the family of Austrasian parvenus for the ancient royal race.

From this fact we see the majesty of the position held by the Roman pontiff in relation to the Franks. As far as the new dynasty was particularly concerned, it was a service of no importance. It was still quite recent when the turn of events compelled Pope Stephen II to avail himself of it.