THE BEGINNINGS OF THE TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY OF THE POPES

CHAPTER VI

ROMAN INSTITUTIONS IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY

The military organization of Rome was as follows :— The population was divided, according to district, into twelve groups or scholae, and at the head of each schola was a patronus, afterwards called a decarco. The whole of the town on the left bank of the Tiber was included in this arrangement, but beyond this the inhabitants of the island (insulani), and the Trasteverians formed at that time, or later, two other sections. We must also mention the Greek section, schola Graecorum, which corre­sponded with the Byzantine quarter par excellence, the Palatine and its neighborhood. Finally there were in the unfortified suburbs of St. Peter's scholae made up of foreign colonies; there were four of these (if not just at that time, very soon after­wards) belonging to the Saxons (Anglo-Saxons), Frisians, Franks, and Lombards.

The headquarters were at the Palatine, in the old imperial palace, which was again officially repaired towards the close of the seventh century. This was the residence of the emperor on his one and only visit to Rome (663), and of the Exarch, who appeared there more often, as well as of the duke and the military staff. In connection with this palace there was an official chapel, St. Caesar in Palatio, the place of receptacle for the image of each emperor on his accession. St. Caesar, of which there is no trace left, was situated within the precincts of the palace itself; while, at the bottom of the hill, was the church bearing the old priestly title of St. Anastasia. This had become the headquarters of the Byzantine district. In these times, when politics and religion were so intimately related, the festivals in connection with these churches were of the highest importance. One of the Christmas masses was celebrated at St. Anastasia, in honor of its patron saint; and equally impressive was the festival of St. Caesar, which was celebrated on 1st November at the Palatino, and distinguished by a grand procession.

The superior degrees were those of duke, cartulary, count, and tribune, and next below these in dignity came the patroni scholarum, the primicerii, domestici, and optiones. But we know very little of the details of these offices, or, indeed, of the military organization in general.

We hear no more of a chief duke after the time of Stephen II. As was mentioned before, the title of patricius Romanorum seems to have been conferred on the Frankish princes, in order that the Pope might be relieved from the presence in his neighborhood of a superior dignitary. The Pope is the head of the government; and the army, like the rest, is subject to his command. He claims no other dignity than that which accrues to him from his ecclesiastical position, and it is as head of the ecclesia Dei that he, at the same time, assumes authority over the respublica Romanorum.

Then there were also the cardinal priests, who surrounded the Pope. They were generally about twenty-five in number, and constituted a kind of senate of the Church. At the present time they receive and manage the revenues of their churches, reside in the ecclesiastical establishments attached to them, and superintend the religious ceremonies. But, although they constitute the official council of the Pope, and are conspicuous in the pontifical ceremonial, they are really of less importance than the cardinal deacons.

These latter are always seven in number, and are the permanent assistants and ordinary servants of the Pope. Their special province is within their district limits. The archdeacon is the director of the ecclesiastical staff in general. Next below the deacons come the sub-deacons, who are divided into two groups of seven; some of them are specially attached to the district government, while others are in the more immediate service of the Pope.

The deacons lived at the Lateran, which was the chief center of the ecclesiastical administration.

But there was, also, another papal palace, that of the Palatine; it was erected about the beginning of the eighth century, at a time when the safety of the Lateran was not to be relied upon. During the pontificate of Gregory II the ramparts of Rome were repaired, and the Lateran, thus protected, became, from the time of Zachary onwards, the usual residence of the Pope. To the diaconal administration were referred all matters connected with the ecclesiastical staff, the charitable arrangements, and, generally speaking, most of the temporal affairs of the Church. The Lateran was also the headquarters of the following:—

1.                      The government of the palace itself, controlled by the vice dominus (vidame), in conjunction with, or instead of whom appears, after the end of the eighth century, the superista. Below the vidame are the cubicularii (chamberlains), the cellerarii (cellarers), the stratores (equerries), &;c. The nomenculator is the grandmaster of the ceremonies; the vestararius, or prior vestiarii, is the guardian of the stores of valuable furniture and other treasure.

2.                      The chancellor’s office, where the clerks were known as notarii or scriniarii. These included the seven district notaries, the two most important of whom (the primiceerius and the secundicerius) were numbered among the great ecclesiastical dignitaries. The primicerius of the notaries, together with the chief priest and the archdeacon, made up the triumvirate on which the government of the Roman Church devolved, in the event of the Popes death or absence. He was also trustee of the archives and manager of the library, though by this time the functions of librarian were beginning to be separated from those of the notaries.

As yet, there is no mention of the primiscrinius or protoscrinius, who, later, succeeded the primicerius as the real head of the chancellor s office.

3. The financial administration presided over by the arcarius, chief cashier, and the saccellarius, or paymaster-general. Connected with them were the advocates, who had to do with the courts of justice, and particularly with the execution of ecclesiastical sentences. They, like the notaries, possessed an aristocracy of seven district officers, with a primi­cerius at their head.

After the ninth century, some of these offices became secularized, while others remained in eccle­siastical hands. These latter soon formed a special and distinguished category, the seven Palatine judges, viz., the primicerius and the secundicerius of the notaries, the arcarius, the saccellarius, the proto­scrinius, the chief of the advocates, and the nomenculator.

There were also the functions of the consiliarius and the ordinator. That of consiliarius, sometimes entrusted to the clergy and sometimes to the laity, seems to have been of great importance. After the eighth century, however, we hear no more of either of them.

As a rule the Pope officiated at the Church of the Lateran, which was included, since the time of Constantine, in the domus ecclesiae. He and his court, however, were often present at other ceremonies, either at Sta. Maria Maggiore or in some other of the city or suburban basilicas. The daily religious service at the Lateran was presided over, in turn, by the seven bishops in the closest vicinity of Rome. It was through this system of papal assistants that the class of cardinal bishops was formed.

The Roman clergy were recruited from two sources, according to the social position of the candidates. Those belonging to the lower classes were educated in a kind of seminary, the Schola cantorum, which was situated not far from the Lateran. It was also known as the Orphanage—Orphanotrophium. The children of the nobility were received into the papal palace among the cubicularii. Both classes received the tonsure at the outset of their careers, a rite which admitted them to the ranks of the clergy, and gave them the much appreciated privilege of decorating their horses with white saddle cloths. During their novitiate they took the position of acolytes; the other lesser orders, owing to their practical disuse, had fallen into insignificance. The acolytes were distributed among the priestly offices; they constituted the whole assistant clergy of the cardinal priests. These clerics took no vows of celibacy, but, as a rule, indulged in matrimony. It was not until several years later, after promotion to the higher orders, that they bound themselves to a celibate life. Even then, they only severed their family relationships as far as was absolutely necessary. The wives of the superior orders of clergy were not sequestered in cloisters, and they even shared, to a certain extent, in the promotion of their husbands, becoming diaconae, presbyterae, or episcopae. On the day of the clerk’s preferment to the priesthood, or the diaconate, their wives were also honored with a kind of consecration ceremony, in celebration of this access of dignity.

Besides the ordained clerks, who, for the most part, had had time to found families, there was still a very large number who were not ordained, e.g. those engaged at the chancellor’s office or in the administrative service, notaries, advocates, chamberlains, cellarers. All these constituted a kind of clerical reserve, from which the Schola cantorum drew the necessary supplies. They also served to fill up ecclesiastical offices, and being strengthened in the cubiculum sacrum by the addition of an aristocratic element, they attained to the highest ranks of the sacred hierarchy, not excepting the pontificate itself. The temporal power once definitely organized, it fell to the lot of the hierarchy to manage many matters which were originally foreign to it. Its importance and prestige increased perceptibly, and at the Orphanage there was much competition for the cubiculum as the means of entry. As will be seen, this was a severe trial for the ecclesiastical spirit.

The pontifical finances were still drawn, in the main, from the landed property of the Church. Owing to the confiscations by the Byzantine govern­ment, a large portion of the immense estates mentioned in the letters of St. Gregory had vanished. The ancient patrimonies of Sicily and Calabria no longer yielded any income, and it was only with great difficulty that the Pope obtained a small profit from the domains which remained to him in Istria, and the neighborhood of Naples, and Gaeta. The chief part of the papal revenues was drawn from the Church property around Rome. But even this source had been seriously affected by the long lease system. In spite of all this, however, the constant reception of gifts and legacies had enabled not only Paul’s predecessors, but also some of his successors, to reconstitute an important department. In order to minimize the covert estrangement of property which was continually going on, and also to re- populate the sparsely inhabited country, the Popes undertook to cultivate certain extensive districts themselves without any outside help. This was called the domus cultae. The peasants who worked for them were regarded as papal employees, and formed rural militiae, which were not disarmed like the militia ecclesiastica. Thus the ecclesiastical revenues were being confirmed and strengthened, while, at the same time, a staff was being constituted capable of military organization, and having the advantage over the exercitus Romanus of representing no tradition at variance with the ecclesia Dei. If properly developed and employed, this would be a valuable aid to the Popes in confronting the internal difficulties of their temporal govern­ment.

In closing this review of the Roman institutions in the eighth century, a word must be said of the charitable establishments and monasteries. The former were abundant, comprising hospices and hospitals, asylums for foundlings, for aged men, and benevolent societies or deaconries.

These establishments were founded on endowments, and, like the presbyteral churches, had their own incomes and official staff.

The same might also be said of the monasteries which abounded at Home. A large number of them were occupied by Greek monks, while others sheltered Orientals, Syrians, Armenians... As a rule, they were established in the neighborhood of such sacred places as St, Peter’s, St. Paul’s, St. Lawrence’s, or even the city basilicas. Each foundation had an oratory of its own, though most of the services seem to have been held in the neighboring basilica, several monasteries sometimes having one common celebration in the same church. There were, for example, four or five congregations meeting in the basilica of St. Peter’s. This was the origin of the chapters. The vicissitudes of the convent system led to the formation of congregations of canons, both regular and lay, the most important of which have survived to the present day.

As we mentioned before, the monasteries of Rome were of no great importance. The Popes seemed to have been warned by the ill-effects produced on ecclesiastical discipline by large bodies of monks in other places—Constantinople, for example. Thus, while they encouraged the religious profession, they did not favor the formation of powerful congregations. Moreover, when the monks were officiating in the basilicas it was much easier to keep them under control. The large convents were elsewhere. Monte Cassino, which had been revived under Pope Zachary, was situated in the Lombard domains. So also were the Abbeys of Monte Amiata, St. Saviour of Rieti, and Santa Maria of Farfa. The latter, however, had been founded on part of the territory which the Lombards undertook to restore to the Pope. It was transferred to the papal jurisdiction during Hadrian’s pontificate, when it did not fail to become a subject of discord.