Russians.—Part III.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part I.
The Saracens, Franks, And Greeks, In Italy.—First Adventures And
Settlement Of The Normans.—Character And Conquest Of Robert
Guiscard, Duke Of Apulia—Deliverance Of Sicily By His Brother
Roger.—Victories Of Robert Over The Emperors Of The East And
West.—Roger, King Of Sicily, Invades Africa And Greece.—The
Emperor Manuel Comnenus.— Wars Of The Greeks And
Normans.—Extinction Of The Normans.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part
II.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part
III.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part
IV.
Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.—Part V.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part I.
The Turks Of The House Of Seljuk.—Their Revolt Against Mahmud
Conqueror Of Hindostan.—Togrul Subdues Persia, And Protects The
Caliphs.—Defeat And Captivity Of The Emperor Romanus Diogenes By
Alp Arslan.—Power And Magnificence Of Malek Shah.—Conquest Of Asia
Minor And Syria.—State And Oppression Of Jerusalem.—Pilgrimages To
The Holy Sepulchre.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part II.
Chapter LVII: The Turks.—Part III.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part I.
Origin And Numbers Of The First Crusade.—Characters Of The Latin
Princes.—Their March To Constantinople.—Policy Of The Greek
Emperor Alexius.—Conquest Of Nice, Antioch, And Jerusalem, By The
Franks.—Deliverance Of The Holy Sepulchre.— Godfrey Of Bouillon,
First King Of Jerusalem.—Institutions Of The French Or Latin
Kingdom.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part II.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part III.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part IV.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.—Part V.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I.
Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of Italy
And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest Of Italy By The
Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character And Coronation Of
Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The Roman Empire In The
West.—Independence Of Italy.— Constitution Of The Germanic Body.
In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the
former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a
salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever
been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the
dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of
Christ’s body, 1 I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of
speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and
pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the
decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected,
the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic
church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the
mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation.
At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of
images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries;
since a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of
Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of
the Roman empire in the West.
1 (return) [ The learned Selden has given the history of
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: “This
opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic,” (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]
The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable
repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may
be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to
the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all
representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly
established in the principles and practice of the chosen people.
The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the
foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own
hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been
endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from
the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. 2
Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe
might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane
honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; 3
but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and
spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the
censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after
the Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in the
peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent
bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the
benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they
were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious
parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the
veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs,
whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right hand of
God; but the gracious and often supernatural favors, which, in
the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an
unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and
touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of
their merits and sufferings. 4 But a memorial, more interesting
than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the
faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts
of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial
to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private
friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors
were adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a reverence
less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues
of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues, these splendid
sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who had died
for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the
experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable
pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to
awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen
proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors
of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout
Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites
of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the
Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced
by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures
which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine
energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious
adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash
attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit,
the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. 5 But
the superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and to
worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the
human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to assume.
The second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real and
mortal body; but that body had ascended into heaven: and, had not
some similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the
spiritual worship of Christ might have been obliterated by the
visible relics and representations of the saints. A similar
indulgence was requisite and propitious for the Virgin Mary: the
place of her burial was unknown; and the assumption of her soul
and body into heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks
and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly
established before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly
cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the
Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new
superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly
entertained by the rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the
West. The bolder forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which
peopled the temples of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or
conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface of
colors has ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of
imitation. 6
2 (return) [ Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo
sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the
last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form
and matter.]
3 (return) [ See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage,
Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic
practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of
Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]
4 (return) [ See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434;
vol. iii. p. 158-163.]
5 (return) [ (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii.
p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point
souffrir d’images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs
les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile
de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et des
Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]
6 (return) [ This general history of images is drawn from the
xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom.
ii. p. 1310-1337. He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and
on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the right,
that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of poor
Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]
The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with
the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the
genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles:
the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine 7 was more probably
that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane
monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists
could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen
model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention assured
at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the
worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular
basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ and
Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea 8
records the epistle, 9 but he most strangely forgets the picture
of Christ; 10 the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with
which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had
invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa
to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of
the primitive church is explained by the long imprisonment of the
image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of
five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and
seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the
arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge
of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a
foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius
ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valor
of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the
assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane
historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in
the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was
exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been
sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel
to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if
the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks
adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal
pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original. The
style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far
their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. “How can we
with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor
the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in
heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image;
He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a
picture, which the Father has delineated with his immaculate
hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and which we
sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.” Before the end of the
sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in Greek it is
a single word, 11 were propagated in the camps and cities of the
Eastern empire: 12 they were the objects of worship, and the
instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult,
their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the
courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of these
pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a human
pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper
title: but there were some of higher descent, who derived their
resemblance from an immediate contact with the original, endowed,
for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The most
ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the
image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain, or
Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to
his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent
was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and
martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features
of the Mother of God 13 were deeply inscribed in a marble column;
the East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke;
and the Evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced
to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in
the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created
by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a
philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic
images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in
the last degeneracy of taste and genius. 14
7 (return) [ After removing some rubbish of miracle and
inconsistency, it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300,
Paneas in Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue,
representing a grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a
grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him, and that an
inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their founder
and the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb.
vii. 18, Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more reasonably
conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian:
in the latter supposition, the female is a city, a province, or
perhaps the queen Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii.
p. 1-92.)]
8 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned
Assemannus has brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians,
St. Ephrem, Josua Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do
not find any notice of the Syriac original or the archives of
Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 318, 420, 554;) their vague
belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]
9 (return) [ The evidence for these epistles is stated and
rejected by the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p.
297-309.) Among the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from
this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the
Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c., to discover Mr. Addison, an
English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528, Baskerville’s
edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian religion
owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
applause of our clergy.]
10 (return) [ From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius,
(Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was
invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the
siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i. p. 416. Procopius, de
Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and buckler of, Gregory
II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom. viii. p. 656,
657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit. Lequien,)
and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The most
perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178.)]
11 (return) [ See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject
is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser,
(Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de
Officiis, p. 289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of
Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by
the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy which he
has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique,
(tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p. 1-36, xxvii. p.
85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p. 75-107,
xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]
12 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii.
c. 1, p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since
he adds (of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]
13 (return) [ See, in the genuine or supposed works of John
Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have
not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre,
(Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)]
14 (return) [ “Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the
canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that
the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the
pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.]
The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible
degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious
mind, as productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the
beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the
abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension,
that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the
religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief and impatience,
the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and
Mahometans, 15 who derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal
hatred to graven images and all relative worship. The servitude
of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their
authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at
Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of
reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities
of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with the images
of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city presumed on
the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of
ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and,
in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive
judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and
inanimate idols. 1511 For a while Edessa had braved the Persian
assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved
in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave
and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred
years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of
Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver,
the redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce
for the territory of Edessa. 16 In this season of distress and
dismay, the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence
of images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and schism
of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the favor,
and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols. But they
were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and
of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of
the church. As the worship of images had never been established
by any general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern
empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of
men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the
personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was
fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive
genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians
maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which had
preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike
subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to
the sight of images. 17 These various denominations of men
afforded a fund of prejudice and aversion, of small account in
the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which, in the fortune of
a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often connected with
the powers of the church and state.
15 (return) [ By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the
origin of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and
two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of
these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for
restoring the purity of the Christian worship, (see Spanheim,
Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]
1511 (return) [ Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae,
caused all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year
719; hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following
the example of the Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon. Johan.
Jerosylym. Script. Byzant. vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub.
Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126.—G.]
16 (return) [ See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p.
264,), and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The
prudent Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image of
Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa; but its repose is
inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no longer
famous or fashionable.]
17 (return) [ (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are
still content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p.
148;) but surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the
superstition of the Germans of the xiith century.]
Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the
Third, 18 who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne
of the East. He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but
his education, his reason, perhaps his intercourse with the Jews
and Arabs, had inspired the martial peasant with a hatred of
images; and it was held to be the duty of a prince to impose on
his subjects the dictates of his own conscience. But in the
outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of toil and
danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before
the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman pontiff with
the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and
cautious: he assembled a great council of senators and bishops,
and enacted, with their consent, that all the images should be
removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper height in the
churches where they might be visible to the eyes, and
inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it was
impossible on either side to check the rapid through adverse
impulse of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position,
the sacred images still edified their votaries, and reproached
the tyrant. He was himself provoked by resistance and invective;
and his own party accused him of an imperfect discharge of his
duty, and urged for his imitation the example of the Jewish king,
who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the temple.
By a second edict, he proscribed the existence as well as the use
of religious pictures; the churches of Constantinople and the
provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, the
Virgin, and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth surface of
plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. The sect of the
Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism of six
emperors, and the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict
of one hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the
Isaurian to pronounce the condemnation of images as an article of
faith, and by the authority of a general council: but the
convocation of such an assembly was reserved for his son
Constantine; 19 and though it is stigmatized by triumphant
bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own partial and
mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety. The
debates and decrees of many provincial synods introduced the
summons of the general council which met in the suburbs of
Constantinople, and was composed of the respectable number of
three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of Europe and Anatolia;
for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were the slaves of
the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the churches of
Italy and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This
Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the seventh
general council; yet even this title was a recognition of the six
preceding assemblies, which had laboriously built the structure
of the Catholic faith. After a serious deliberation of six
months, the three hundred and thirty-eight bishops pronounced and
subscribed a unanimous decree, that all visible symbols of
Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either blasphemous or
heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of Christianity
and a renewal of Paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry
should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse to
deliver the objects of their private superstition, were guilty of
disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor.
In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits
of their temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice they
intrusted the execution of their spiritual censures. At
Constantinople, as in the former councils, the will of the prince
was the rule of episcopal faith; but on this occasion, I am
inclined to suspect that a large majority of the prelates
sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of hope and
fear. In the long night of superstition, the Christians had
wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel: nor was it
easy for them to discern the clew, and tread back the mazes, of
the labyrinth. The worship of images was inseparably blended, at
least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the Saints
and their relics; the holy ground was involved in a cloud of
miracles and visions; and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and
scepticism, were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief.
Constantine himself is accused of indulging a royal license to
doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics, 20 but
they were deeply inscribed in the public and private creed of his
bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a secret
horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were consecrated
to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the
faculties of man: the thirst of innovation superseded the
reverence of antiquity; and the vigor of Europe could disdain
those phantoms which terrified the sickly and servile weakness of
the Greeks.
18 (return) [ Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the
Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils, tom.
viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the historical
writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus, Zonoras,
&c. Of the modern Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander,
(Hist. Eccles. Seculum viii. and ix.,) and Maimbourg, (Hist. des
Iconoclasts,) have treated the subject with learning, passion,
and credulity. The Protestant labors of Frederick Spanheim
(Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage (Hist. des
Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast
into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic
indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der
Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of
research and impartiality—M.]
19 (return) [ Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled
(Opera, tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim’s Apology for the Synod of
Constantinople (p. 171, &c.) is worked up with truth and
ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in the Nicene
Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus converts it into
slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p. 806]
20 (return) [ He is accused of proscribing the title of saint;
styling the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her
delivery to an empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his
defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed between
the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox divine.]
The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the
people by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most
ignorant can perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation
and downfall of their visible deities. The first hostilities of
Leo were directed against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and
above the gate, of the palace. A ladder had been planted for the
assault, but it was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots and
women: they beheld, with pious transport, the ministers of
sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed against the pavement:
and the honors of the ancient martyrs were prostituted to these
criminals, who justly suffered for murder and rebellion. 21 The
execution of the Imperial edicts was resisted by frequent tumults
in Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo was
endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular
enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and
military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous
islands were filled with images and monks: their votaries
abjured, without scruple, the enemy of Christ, his mother, and
the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and galleys, displayed
their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the harbor of
Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God and
the people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their
miracles were inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the
defeat and conflagration of the fleet, the naked islands were
abandoned to the clemency or justice of the conqueror. The son of
Leo, in the first year of his reign, had undertaken an expedition
against the Saracens: during his absence, the capital, the
palace, and the purple, were occupied by his kinsman Artavasdes,
the ambitious champion of the orthodox faith. The worship of
images was triumphantly restored: the patriarch renounced his
dissimulation, or dissembled his sentiments and the righteous
claims of the usurper was acknowledged, both in the new, and in
ancient, Rome. Constantine flew for refuge to his paternal
mountains; but he descended at the head of the bold and
affectionate Isaurians; and his final victory confounded the arms
and predictions of the fanatics. His long reign was distracted
with clamor, sedition, conspiracy, and mutual hatred, and
sanguinary revenge; the persecution of images was the motive or
pretence, of his adversaries; and, if they missed a temporal
diadem, they were rewarded by the Greeks with the crown of
martyrdom. In every act of open and clandestine treason, the
emperor felt the unforgiving enmity of the monks, the faithful
slaves of the superstition to which they owed their riches and
influence. They prayed, they preached, they absolved, they
inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of Palestine poured forth
a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John Damascenus, 22
the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant’s head, both in
this world and the next. 23 2311 I am not at leisure to examine
how far the monks provoked, nor how much they have exaggerated,
their real and pretended sufferings, nor how many lost their
lives or limbs, their eyes or their beards, by the cruelty of the
emperor. 2312 From the chastisement of individuals, he proceeded
to the abolition of the order; and, as it was wealthy and
useless, his resentment might be stimulated by avarice, and
justified by patriotism. The formidable name and mission of the
Dragon, 24 his visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence
of the black nation: the religious communities were dissolved,
the buildings were converted into magazines, or barracks; the
lands, movables, and cattle were confiscated; and our modern
precedents will support the charge, that much wanton or malicious
havoc was exercised against the relics, and even the books of the
monasteries. With the habit and profession of monks, the public
and private worship of images was rigorously proscribed; and it
should seem, that a solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted
from the subjects, or at least from the clergy, of the Eastern
empire. 25
21 (return) [ The holy confessor Theophanes approves the
principle of their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in Epist. i.
ad Imp. Leon. Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds the zeal
of the Byzantine women who killed the Imperial officers.]
22 (return) [ John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus,
who held a considerable office in the service of the caliph. His
zeal in the cause of images exposed him to the resentment and
treachery of the Greek emperor; and on the suspicion of a
treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right hand,
which was miraculously restored by the Virgin. After this
deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed his wealth, and
buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, between Jerusalem
and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous; but his learned editor,
Father Lequien, has a unluckily proved that St. John Damascenus
was already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera, tom. i.
Vit. St. Joan. Damascen. p. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.)]
23 (return) [ After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his
heir, (Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of
this piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no
longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the titles.
(tom. i. p. 306.)]
2311 (return) [ The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under
Leo, an image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led
through the streets on an ass, with his face to the tail; and,
reinvested in his dignity, became again the obsequious minister
of Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See Schlosser p.
211.—M.]
2312 (return) [ Compare Schlosser, p. 228-234.—M.]
24 (return) [ In the narrative of this persecution from
Theophanes and Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235-238) is happy to
compare the Draco of Leo with the dragoons (Dracones) of Louis
XIV.; and highly solaces himself with the controversial pun.]
25 (return) [ (Damascen. Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and
subscription I do not remember to have seen in any modern
compilation]
The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images;
they were fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the
independent zeal of the Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and
jurisdiction, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope of
Rome were nearly equal. But the Greek prelate was a domestic
slave under the eye of his master, at whose nod he alternately
passed from the convent to the throne, and from the throne to the
convent. A distant and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians
of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin bishops.
Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public
and private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and
the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to
consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of the city.
In the school of adversity the priest insensibly imbibed the
virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same character was
assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek,
or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and, after
the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of
the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed,
that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on
rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced, and justified, by
the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the second and
third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously
interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The
Byzantine writers unanimously declare, that, after a fruitless
admonition, they pronounced the separation of the East and West,
and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and
sovereignty of Italy. Their excommunication is still more clearly
expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the
papal triumphs; and as they are more strongly attached to their
religion than to their country, they praise, instead of blaming,
the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 26 The modern
champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise and the
precedent: this great and glorious example of the deposition of
royal heretics is celebrated by the cardinals Baronius and
Bellarmine; 27 and if they are asked, why the same thunders were
not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity, they
reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the sole
cause of her patient loyalty. 28 On this occasion the effects of
love and hatred are the same; and the zealous Protestants, who
seek to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of
princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason
of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. 29 They are
defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most part, of
the Gallican church, 30 who respect the saint, without approving
the sin. These common advocates of the crown and the mitre
circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule of equity, Scripture,
and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the Latins, 31 and
the lives 32 and epistles of the popes; themselves.
26 (return) [ Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this Gregory
is styled by Cedrenus. (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the thunder,
(tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that the
Greeks are apt to confound the times and actions of two
Gregories.]
27 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5;
dignum exemplum! Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8:
mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iii.
Opera, tom. ii. p. 169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that
Sigonius is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philipus Argelatus,
a Bolognese, and subject of the pope.]
28 (return) [ Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut
Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis,
(honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal Perron
adds a distinction more honorable to the first Christians, but
not more satisfactory to modern princes—the treason of heretics
and apostates, who break their oath, belie their coin, and
renounce their allegiance to Christ and his vicar, (Perroniana,
p. 89.)]
29 (return) [ Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist.
d’Eglise, p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum,) who, with a hundred more, tread in the footsteps of
the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]
30 (return) [ See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist. vii. 7,
p. 456-474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti, secul.
viii. dissert. i. p. 92-98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 215,
216,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p. 317-320,)
a disciple of the Gallican school In the field of controversy I
always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle
ground exposed to the fire of both sides.]
31 (return) [ They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de
Gestis Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script. Ital.
Muratori, tom. i. pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius, (de Vit.
Pont. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154.
Gregorius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.;
Paulus, p. 172. Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo III.
p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius (Hist.
Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella, (l. xxi.
p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]
32 (return) [ With some minute difference, the most learned
critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini,
Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that the
Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolic
librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and
that the last and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose
name it bears. The style is barbarous, the narrative partial, the
details are trifling—yet it must be read as a curious and
authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are
dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part II.
Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor
Leo, are still extant; 33 and if they cannot be praised as the
most perfect models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the
portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the papal
monarchy. “During ten pure and fortunate years,” says Gregory to
the emperor, “we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal
letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred
pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers.
How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now
accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you
betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are
compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the
first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion;
and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the
enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be
provoked to cast their horn-books at your head.” After this
decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction
between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The
former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons,
at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any
visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his
mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles,
the innocence and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed
have trusted to the ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the
perpetual use of images, from the apostolic age, and their
venerable presence in the six synods of the Catholic church. A
more specious argument is drawn from present possession and
recent practice the harmony of the Christian world supersedes the
demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly confesses, than
such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of an orthodox
prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a
heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to
his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of
civil and ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To
the former he appropriates the body; to the latter, the soul: the
sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate: the more
formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy;
and in the exercise of their divine commission a zealous son will
not spare his offending father: the successor of St. Peter may
lawfully chastise the kings of the earth. “You assault us, O
tyrant! with a carnal and military hand: unarmed and naked we can
only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he
will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and
the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance,
I will despatch my orders to Rome: I will break in pieces the
image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin,
shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the
Imperial throne. Would to God that I might be permitted to tread
in the footsteps of the holy Martin! but may the fate of Constans
serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church! After his
just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut
off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic servant: the
saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he
ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for
the edification and support of the faithful people; nor are we
reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as
you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation
of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation but we can
remove to the distance of four-and-twenty stadia, to the first
fortress of the Lombards, and then—you may pursue the winds. 34
Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the
mediators of peace, between the East and West? The eyes of the
nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon
earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to
destroy. 35 The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present
their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to
visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive
from our hands the sacrament of baptism. 36 The Barbarians have
submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to
the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled
into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East.
Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and
repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be
spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head!”
33 (return) [ The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved
in the Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They
are without a date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the
year 726, by Muratori (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729,
and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that some
papists have praised the good sense and moderation of these
letters.]
34 (return) [ (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards
is hard of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu
Beneventi, in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly
reckons the xxivth stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of
the Roman duchy, to the first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the
Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the pedantry of the
age, employs stadia for miles, without much inquiry into the
genuine measure.]
35 (return) [ {Greek}]
36 (return) [ (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran; and in
his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity.
May not this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of
the Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the
pontificate of Gregory the Second, visited Rome for the purpose,
not of baptism, but of pilgrimage! (Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D.
726, No. 15.)]
The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had
been witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West,
who related with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the
emperor. But on the reception of his proscriptive edict, they
trembled for their domestic deities: the images of Christ and the
Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all
the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to
the Roman pontiff, the royal favor as the price of his
compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his
disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate;
and the haughty strain in which Gregory addressed the emperor
displays his confidence in the truth of his doctrine or the
powers of resistance. Without depending on prayers or miracles,
he boldly armed against the public enemy, and his pastoral
letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty.
37 At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the
Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion; their
military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of
the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused
into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and die
in the defence of the pope and the holy images; the Roman people
was devoted to their father, and even the Lombards were ambitious
to share the merit and advantage of this holy war. The most
treasonable act, but the most obvious revenge, was the
destruction of the statues of Leo himself: the most effectual and
pleasing measure of rebellion, was the withholding the tribute of
Italy, and depriving him of a power which he had recently abused
by the imposition of a new capitation. 38 A form of
administration was preserved by the election of magistrates and
governors; and so high was the public indignation, that the
Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, and to
conduct him with a fleet and army to the palace of
Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the second and
third Gregory, were condemned as the authors of the revolt, and
every attempt was made, either by fraud or force, to seize their
persons, and to strike at their lives. The city was repeatedly
visited or assaulted by captains of the guards, and dukes and
exarchs of high dignity or secret trust; they landed with foreign
troops, they obtained some domestic aid, and the superstition of
Naples may blush that her fathers were attached to the cause of
heresy. But these clandestine or open attacks were repelled by
the courage and vigilance of the Romans; the Greeks were
overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an ignominious
death, and the popes, however inclined to mercy, refused to
intercede for these guilty victims. At Ravenna, 39 the several
quarters of the city had long exercised a bloody and hereditary
feud; in religious controversy they found a new aliment of
faction: but the votaries of images were superior in numbers or
spirit, and the exarch, who attempted to stem the torrent, lost
his life in a popular sedition. To punish this flagitious deed,
and restore his dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and
army into the Adriatic Gulf. After suffering from the winds and
waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent in the
neighborhood of Ravenna: they threatened to depopulate the guilty
capital, and to imitate, perhaps to surpass, the example of
Justinian the Second, who had chastised a former rebellion by the
choice and execution of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The
women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in
prayer: the men were in arms for the defence of their country;
the common danger had united the factions, and the event of a
battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. In a
hard-fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and
advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was
victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated
to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured forth a
multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected
with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained
from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual
feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of
the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the
Roman pontiff convened a synod of ninety-three bishops against
the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent, he pronounced
a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should
attack the tradition of the fathers and the images of the saints:
in this sentence the emperor was tacitly involved, 40 but the
vote of a last and hopeless remonstrance may seem to imply that
the anathema was yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner
had they confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and
the freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have
relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of the
Byzantine dominion. Their moderate councils delayed and prevented
the election of a new emperor, and they exhorted the Italians not
to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy. The exarch was
permitted to reside within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather
than a master; and till the Imperial coronation of Charlemagne,
the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the
successors of Constantine. 41
37 (return) [ I shall transcribe the important and decisive
passage of the Liber Pontificalis. Respiciens ergo pius vir
profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem quasi contra
hostem se armavit, renuens haeresim ejus, scribens ubique se
cavere Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur
permoti omnes Pentapolenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra
Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt; dicentes se nunquam in ejusdem
pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus magis defensione
viriliter decertare, (p. 156.)]
38 (return) [ A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156;)
a most cruel tax, unknown to the Saracens themselves, exclaims
the zealous Maimbourg, (Hist. des Iconoclastes, l. i.,) and
Theophanes, (p. 344,) who talks of Pharaoh’s numbering the male
children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the
Saracens; and, most unluckily for the historians, it was imposed
a few years afterwards in France by his patron Louis XIV.]
39 (return) [ See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus, (in the
Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i.,) whose
deeper shade of barbarism marks the difference between Rome and
Ravenna. Yet we are indebted to him for some curious and domestic
facts—the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p. 154,) the revenge
of Justinian II, (p. 160, 161,) the defeat of the Greeks, (p.
170, 171,) &c.]
40 (return) [ Yet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis
.... imaginum sacrarum.... destructor.... extiterit, sit extorris
a cor pore D. N. Jesu Christi vel totius ecclesiae unitate. The
canonists may decide whether the guilt or the name constitutes
the excommunication; and the decision is of the last importance
to their safety, since, according to the oracle (Gratian, Caus.
xxiii. q. 5, 47, apud Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p. 112) homicidas non
esse qui excommunicatos trucidant.]
41 (return) [ Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans
conversionem principis, (Anastas. p. 156.) Sed ne desisterent ab
amore et fide R. J. admonebat, (p. 157.) The popes style Leo and
Constantine Copronymus, Imperatores et Domini, with the strange
epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran (A.D. 798)
represents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the
banner to Constantine V. (Muratori, Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p.
337.)]
The liberty of Rome, which had been oppressed by the arms and
arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty
years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By
the Caesars, the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated: in
the decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sacred
boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the Rhine, the
Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her ancient
territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth
of the Tyber. 42 When the kings were banished, the republic
reposed on the firm basis which had been founded by their wisdom
and virtue. Their perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two
annual magistrates: the senate continued to exercise the powers
of administration and counsel; and the legislative authority was
distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a
well-proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of the
arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of
government and war: the will of the community was absolute: the
rights of individuals were sacred: one hundred and thirty
thousand citizens were armed for defence or conquest; and a band
of robbers and outlaws was moulded into a nation deserving of
freedom and ambitious of glory. 43 When the sovereignty of the
Greek emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the
sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was a habit, her
liberty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object
of her own amazement and terror. The last vestige of the
substance, or even the forms, of the constitution, was
obliterated from the practice and memory of the Romans; and they
were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, again to build the fabric of
a commonwealth. Their scanty remnant, the offspring of slaves and
strangers, was despicable in the eyes of the victorious
Barbarians. As often as the Franks or Lombards expressed their
most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a Roman; “and in
this name,” says the bishop Liutprand, “we include whatever is
base, whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes
of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the
dignity of human nature.” 44 441 By the necessity of their
situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough model
of a republican government: they were compelled to elect some
judges in peace, and some leaders in war: the nobles assembled to
deliberate, and their resolves could not be executed without the
union and consent of the multitude. The style of the Roman senate
and people was revived, 45 but the spirit was fled; and their new
independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of
vicentiousness and oppression. The want of laws could only be
supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and
domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the bishop.
His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and
prelates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude, and
oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first
magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the
popes was not offended by the name of Dominus, or Lord; and their
face and inscription are still apparent on the most ancient
coins. 46 Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the
reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the
free choice of a people, whom they had redeemed from slavery.
42 (return) [ I have traced the Roman duchy according to the
maps, and the maps according to the excellent dissertation of
father Beretti, (de Chorographia Italiae Medii Aevi, sect. xx. p.
216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of Lombard
foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by the
Greeks.]
43 (return) [ On the extent, population, &c., of the Roman
kingdom, the reader may peruse, with pleasure, the Discours
Preliminaire to the Republique Romaine of M. de Beaufort, (tom.
i.,) who will not be accused of too much credulity for the early
ages of Rome.]
44 (return) [ Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones,
Franci, Locharingi, Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto
dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, nil aliud contumeliarum
nisi Romane, dicamus: hoc solo, id est Romanorum nomine, quicquid
ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiae, quicquid
luxuriae, quicquid mendacii, immo quicquid vitiorum est
comprehendentes, (Liutprand, in Legat Script. Ital. tom. ii. para
i. p. 481.) For the sins of Cato or Tully Minos might have
imposed as a fit penance the daily perusal of this barbarous
passage.]
441 (return) [ Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by
Robertson (Charles V note 2) as well as Gibbon, was applied by
the angry bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, indeed, he admits
to be the genuine descendants of Romulus.—M.]
45 (return) [ Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, atque
universa populi generalitas a Deo servatae Romanae urbis. Codex
Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 160.
The names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct,
(Dissert. Chorograph. p. 216, 217;) but in the middle ages they
signified little more than nobiles, optimates, &c., (Ducange,
Gloss. Latin.)]
46 (return) [ See Muratori, Antiquit. Italiae Medii Aevi, tom.
ii. Dissertat xxvii. p. 548. On one of these coins we read
Hadrianus Papa (A.D. 772;) on the reverse, Vict. Ddnn. with the
word Conob, which the Pere Joubert (Science des Medailles, tom.
ii. p. 42) explains by Constantinopoli Officina B (secunda.)]
In the quarrels of ancient Greece, the holy people of Elis
enjoyed a perpetual peace, under the protection of Jupiter, and
in the exercise of the Olympic games. 47 Happy would it have been
for the Romans, if a similar privilege had guarded the patrimony
of St. Peter from the calamities of war; if the Christians, who
visited the holy threshold, would have sheathed their swords in
the presence of the apostle and his successor. But this mystic
circle could have been traced only by the wand of a legislator
and a sage: this pacific system was incompatible with the zeal
and ambition of the popes; the Romans were not addicted, like the
inhabitants of Elis, to the innocent and placid labors of
agriculture; and the Barbarians of Italy, though softened by the
climate, were far below the Grecian states in the institutions of
public and private life. A memorable example of repentance and
piety was exhibited by Liutprand, king of the Lombards. In arms,
at the gate of the Vatican, the conqueror listened to the voice
of Gregory the Second, 48 withdrew his troops, resigned his
conquests, respectfully visited the church of St. Peter, and
after performing his devotions, offered his sword and dagger, his
cuirass and mantle, his silver cross, and his crown of gold, on
the tomb of the apostle. But this religious fervor was the
illusion, perhaps the artifice, of the moment; the sense of
interest is strong and lasting; the love of arms and rapine was
congenial to the Lombards; and both the prince and people were
irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of
Rome, and the unwarlike profession of her new chief. On the first
edicts of the emperor, they declared themselves the champions of
the holy images: Liutprand invaded the province of Romagna, which
had already assumed that distinctive appellation; the Catholics
of the Exarchate yielded without reluctance to his civil and
military power; and a foreign enemy was introduced for the first
time into the impregnable fortress of Ravenna. That city and
fortress were speedily recovered by the active diligence and
maritime forces of the Venetians; and those faithful subjects
obeyed the exhortation of Gregory himself, in separating the
personal guilt of Leo from the general cause of the Roman empire.
49 The Greeks were less mindful of the service, than the Lombards
of the injury: the two nations, hostile in their faith, were
reconciled in a dangerous and unnatural alliance: the king and
the exarch marched to the conquest of Spoleto and Rome: the storm
evaporated without effect, but the policy of Liutprand alarmed
Italy with a vexatious alternative of hostility and truce. His
successor Astolphus declared himself the equal enemy of the
emperor and the pope: Ravenna was subdued by force or treachery,
50 and this final conquest extinguished the series of the
exarchs, who had reigned with a subordinate power since the time
of Justinian and the ruin of the Gothic kingdom. Rome was
summoned to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful
sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the
ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was
unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans
hesitated; they entreated; they complained; and the threatening
Barbarians were checked by arms and negotiations, till the popes
had engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the
Alps. 51
47 (return) [ See West’s Dissertation on the Olympic Games,
(Pindar. vol. ii. p. 32-36, edition in 12mo.,) and the judicious
reflections of Polybius (tom. i. l. iv. p. 466, edit Gronov.)]
48 (return) [ The speech of Gregory to the Lombard is finely
composed by Sigonius, (de Regno Italiae, l. iii. Opera, tom. ii.
p. 173,) who imitates the license and the spirit of Sallust or
Livy.]
49 (return) [ The Venetian historians, John Sagorninus, (Chron.
Venet. p. 13,) and the doge Andrew Dandolo, (Scriptores Rer.
Ital. tom. xii. p. 135,) have preserved this epistle of Gregory.
The loss and recovery of Ravenna are mentioned by Paulus
Diaconus, (de Gest. Langobard, l. vi. c. 42, 54, in Script. Ital.
tom. i. pars i. p. 506, 508;) but our chronologists, Pagi,
Muratori, &c., cannot ascertain the date or circumstances]
50 (return) [ The option will depend on the various readings of
the Mss. of Anastasius—deceperat, or decerpserat, (Script. Ital.
tom. iii. pars i. p. 167.)]
51 (return) [ The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles
of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus,)
Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was
formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic
Ms. (Bibliothecae Cubicularis) is now in the Imperial library of
Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori,
(Script. Rerum Ital. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 75, &c.)]
In his distress, the first 511 Gregory had implored the aid of
the hero of the age, of Charles Martel, who governed the French
monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his
signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country, and
perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the
pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the
greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life,
prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a
friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of
his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the
Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have
been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger
was on the banks of the Tyber, the succor on those of the Seine,
and our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen the Third embraced the
generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy
and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite
the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the public
despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this laborious
journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the Greek
emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats
could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the
Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the
abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his
protector; a hand which was never lifted in vain, either in war
or friendship. Stephen was entertained as the visible successor
of the apostle; at the next assembly, the field of March or of
May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike nation,
and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror,
at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in
person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an
ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to
respect the sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was
Astolphus delivered from the presence of the French arms, than he
forgot his promise and resented his disgrace. Rome was again
encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing
the zeal of his Transalpine allies enforced his complaint and
request by an eloquent letter in the name and person of St. Peter
himself. 52 The apostle assures his adopted sons, the king, the
clergy, and the nobles of France, that, dead in the flesh, he is
still alive in the spirit; that they now hear, and must obey, the
voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman church; that the
Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host
of heaven, unanimously urge the request, and will confess the
obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their
pious enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty
of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his
people, to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The
second expedition of Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than
the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and
Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice and sincerity by the
scourge of a foreign master. After this double chastisement, the
Lombards languished about twenty years in a state of languor and
decay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition;
and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they
peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims,
evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection,
and terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring
monarchy was pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope Adrian the
First, the genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne, the
son of Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united in
public and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the
prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the fairest
colors of equity and moderation. 53 The passes of the Alps, and
the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the
former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of
Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, 531 Desiderius, the
last of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his
capital.
Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of
their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren, rather
than the subjects, of the Franks; who derived their blood, and
manners, and language, from the same Germanic origin. 54
511 (return) [ Gregory I. had been dead above a century; read
Gregory III.—M]
52 (return) [ See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex
Carolinus, epist iii. p. 92. The enemies of the popes have
charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to
persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or
of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is
executed on this occasion in the rude fashion of the age.]
53 (return) [ Except in the divorce of the daughter of
Desiderius, whom Charlemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope
Stephen IV. had most furiously opposed the alliance of a noble
Frank—cum perfida, horrida nec dicenda, foetentissima natione
Longobardorum—to whom he imputes the first stain of leprosy,
(Cod. Carolin. epist. 45, p. 178, 179.) Another reason against
the marriage was the existence of a first wife, (Muratori, Annali
d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 232, 233, 236, 237.) But Charlemagne
indulged himself in the freedom of polygamy or concubinage.]
531 (return) [ Of fifteen months. James, Life of Charlemagne, p.
187.—M.]
54 (return) [ See the Annali d’Italia of Muratori, tom. vi., and
the three first Dissertations of his Antiquitates Italiae Medii
Aevi, tom. i.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part III.
The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family
form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and
ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy, the champions
of the Roman church obtained a favorable occasion, a specious
title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and intrigues of the
clergy. But the most essential gifts of the popes to the
Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of France, 55 and of
patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter,
the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks
of the Tyber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their
fate. The Franks were perplexed between the name and substance of
their government. All the powers of royalty were exercised by
Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title,
was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his
valor; his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father
had been the savior of Christendom; and the claims of personal
merit were repeated and ennobled in a descent of four
generations. The name and image of royalty was still preserved in
the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble Childeric; but his
obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition:
the nation was desirous of restoring the simplicity of the
constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a prince, was ambitious to
ascertain his own rank and the fortune of his family. The mayor
and the nobles were bound, by an oath of fidelity, to the royal
phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in their eyes;
and their common ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to
dispel their scruples, or to absolve their promise. The interest
of Pope Zachary, the successor of the two Gregories, prompted him
to decide, and to decide in their favor: he pronounced that the
nation might lawfully unite in the same person the title and
authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a victim
of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined in
a monastery for the remainder of his days. An answer so agreeable
to their wishes was accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a
casuist, the sentence of a judge, or the oracle of a prophet: the
Merovingian race disappeared from the earth; and Pepin was
exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of a free people, accustomed
to obey his laws and to march under his standard. His coronation
was twice performed, with the sanction of the popes, by their
most faithful servant St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and
by the grateful hands of Stephen the Third, who, in the monastery
of St. Denys placed the diadem on the head of his benefactor. The
royal unction of the kings of Israel was dexterously applied: 56
the successor of St. Peter assumed the character of a divine
ambassador: a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord’s
anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused and maintained
by the superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The Franks were
absolved from their ancient oath; but a dire anathema was
thundered against them and their posterity, if they should dare
to renew the same freedom of choice, or to elect a king, except
in the holy and meritorious race of the Carlovingian princes.
Without apprehending the future danger, these princes gloried in
their present security: the secretary of Charlemagne affirms,
that the French sceptre was transferred by the authority of the
popes; 57 and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with
confidence, on this signal and successful act of temporal
jurisdiction.
55 (return) [ Besides the common historians, three French
critics, Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p.
477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D. 751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,)
and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p.
96-107,) have treated this subject of the deposition of Childeric
with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to save the
independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the texts
which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old annals,
Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]
56 (return) [ Not absolutely for the first time. On a less
conspicuous theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith
centuries, by the provincial bishops of Britain and Spain. The
royal unction of Constantinople was borrowed from the Latins in
the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses mentions that of
Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony. See
Selden’s Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p.
234-249.]
57 (return) [ See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9,
&c., c. iii. p. 24. Childeric was deposed—jussu, the
Carlovingians were established—auctoritate, Pontificis Romani.
Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words are susceptible of a
very soft interpretation. Be it so; yet Eginhard understood the
world, the court, and the Latin language.]
II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome
58 were far removed from the senate of Romulus, or the palace of
Constantine, from the free nobles of the republic, or the
fictitious parents of the emperor. After the recovery of Italy
and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the importance and danger of
those remote provinces required the presence of a supreme
magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the
patrician; and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place
in the chronology of princes, extended their jurisdiction over
the Roman city. Since the revolt of Italy and the loss of the
Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted some sacrifice
of their independence. Yet, even in this act, they exercised the
right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate
and people successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity
with the honors of patrician of Rome. The leaders of a powerful
nation would have disdained a servile title and subordinate
office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was suspended; and,
in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more glorious
commission from the pope and the republic. The Roman ambassadors
presented these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St.
Peter, as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner
which it was their right and duty to unfurl in the defence of the
church and city. 59 In the time of Charles Martel and of Pepin,
the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the freedom,
while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate
represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these
distant protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne
annihilated an enemy, and imposed a master. In his first visit to
the capital, he was received with all the honors which had
formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of the
emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the
joy and gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. 60 No sooner was he
informed of the sudden approach of the monarch, than he
despatched the magistrates and nobles of Rome to meet him, with
the banner, about thirty miles from the city. At the distance of
one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or
national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman
youth were under arms; and the children of a more tender age,
with palms and olive branches in their hands, chanted the praises
of their great deliverer. At the aspect of the holy crosses, and
ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his horse, led the
procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended the
stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the
apostles. In the portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his
clergy: they embraced, as friends and equals; but in their march
to the altar, the king or patrician assumed the right hand of the
pope. Nor was the Frank content with these vain and empty
demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed
between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation,
Rome, which had been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his
own, to the sceptre of Charlemagne. The people swore allegiance
to his person and family: in his name money was coined, and
justice was administered; and the election of the popes was
examined and confirmed by his authority. Except an original and
self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative
remaining, which the title of emperor could add to the patrician
of Rome. 61
58 (return) [ For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D.
740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d’Italia, tom. vi. p. 308-329,)
and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d’Italie, tom. i. p.
379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to
make the patrician a lieutenant of the church, rather than of the
empire.]
59 (return) [ The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning
of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus,
or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p.
76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of the
Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer or
request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is
subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his
Critical Prefaces, Annali d’Italia, tom. xvii. p. 95-99.)]
60 (return) [ In the authentic narrative of this reception, the
Liber Pontificalis observes—obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens
venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum, aut
patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi fecit,
(tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]
61 (return) [ Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city—vestrae civitates
(ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de Metensis
Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals, struck at Rome,
have engaged Le Blanc to write an elaborate, though partial,
dissertation on their authority at Rome, both as patricians and
emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in 4to.)]
The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these
obligations, and their names are consecrated, as the saviors and
benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms
and houses was transformed by their bounty into the temporal
dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the
Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin. 62
Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and the
hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French
ambassador; and, in his master’s name, he presented them before
the tomb of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Exarchate 63
might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the
emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were
included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its
inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along
the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the
midland-country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this
transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes have been
severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy
for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his
profession. Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous enemy,
would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the
Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to solicit in
his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the
pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without
injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice. The
Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the
Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double
expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks
he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him
to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff
for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his soul. The
splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute dominion,
and the world beheld for the first time a Christian bishop
invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the choice
of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes,
and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the dissolution of
the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy of Spoleto 64
sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads after the
Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and subjects of
St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary surrender, the
present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That mysterious
circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the verbal or
written donation of Charlemagne, 65 who, in the first transports
of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek emperor of the
cities and islands which had formerly been annexed to the
Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and reflection,
he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness
of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of his own and his
father’s promises was respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks
and Lombards asserted the inalienable rights of the empire; and,
in his life and death, Ravenna, 66 as well as Rome, was numbered
in the list of his metropolitan cities. The sovereignty of the
Exarchate melted away in the hands of the popes; they found in
the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic rival: 67 the
nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and in the
disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an
ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived
and realized.
62 (return) [ Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs
this donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act
has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis represents,
(p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes, this ample gift. Both
are contemporary records and the latter is the more authentic,
since it has been preserved, not in the Papal, but the Imperial,
library.]
63 (return) [ Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow
concessions, of interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori
(Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided,
in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio
Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p. 160-180.]
64 (return) [ Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B.
Petri receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius,
p. 185.) Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own
persons or their country.]
65 (return) [ The policy and donations of Charlemagne are
carefully examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who
has well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
they were only verbal. The most ancient act of donation that
pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
(Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p. 267-270.)
Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much questioned,
(Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p. 432,
&c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no reasonable
objection to these princes so freely disposing of what was not
their own.]
66 (return) [ Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the
proprietor, Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for
the decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p.
223.)]
67 (return) [ The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo
of Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir
corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset,
nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent, (Agnellus,
Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii. pars. i.
p. 107.)]
Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong,
though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of
sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and
manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have produced or
concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or
suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the
Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the
decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the
liberality, and revive the name, of the great Constantine. 68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was
healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by
St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more
gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the
seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes;
the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the
provinces of the West. 69 This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt
of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his
lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt of
gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no
more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty
portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the ignorance
and credulity of the times, that the most absurd of fables was
received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in France, and is
still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law. 70 The
emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a forgery,
that subverted their rights and freedom; and the only opposition
proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the
twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity of the donation
of Constantine. 71 In the revival of letters and liberty, this
fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of Laurentius Valla,
the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman patriot. 72 His
contemporaries of the fifteenth century were astonished at his
sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent and irresistible
progress of reason, that, before the end of the next age, the
fable was rejected by the contempt of historians 73 and poets, 74
and the tacit or modest censure of the advocates of the Roman
church. 75 The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the
credulity of the vulgar; 76 but a false and obsolete title still
sanctifies their reign; and, by the same fortune which has
attended the decretals and the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has
subsisted after the foundations have been undermined.
68 (return) [ Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est.... Quia ecce novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in
tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed
the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his merchandise was
indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much
wealth and power.]
69 (return) [ Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has
enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin.
The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to
be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from
Gratian’s Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has
been surreptitiously tacked.]
70 (return) [ In the year 1059, it was believed (was it
believed?) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori
places (Annali d’Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious
donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione
Constantini. See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv.
diss. 25, p. 335-350.]
71 (return) [ See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105)
which arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a
copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey. They
were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le Blanc and
Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first volume of the
Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are now
imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 269)
by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future cardinal
yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition,
(Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]
72 (return) [ I have read in the collection of Schardius (de
Potestate Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated
discourse, which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years
after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement party
pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the Romans,
and would even approve the use of a dagger against their
sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the persecution of
the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the Lateran,
(Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis
Latinis, p. 580.)]
73 (return) [ See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that
long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the
last edition, correctly published from the author’s Ms. and
printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo,
1775, (Istoria d’Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]
74 (return) [ The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among
the things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv.
80.) Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa, Ch’ebbe gia buono
odore, or puzza forte: Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) Che
Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. Yet this incomparable poem
has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]
75 (return) [ See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No.
51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by
Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he
considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]
76 (return) [ Baronius n’en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t’il
trop dit, et l’on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui
l’empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J’en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose “che
volete? i Canonici la tengono,” il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]
While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion,
the images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the
Eastern empire. 77 Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the
union of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree,
without extirpating the root, of superstition. The idols (for
such they were now held) were secretly cherished by the order and
the sex most prone to devotion; and the fond alliance of the
monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason and
authority of man. Leo the Fourth maintained with less rigor the
religion of his father and grandfather; but his wife, the fair
and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the
heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of their
ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments were
inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor to
protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their
caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But
as soon as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene
more seriously undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the
first step of her future persecution was a general edict for
liberty of conscience.
In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed
to the public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of
their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled; the most
eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor anticipated and
flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the promotion of
her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of
Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church. But the
decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a similar
assembly: 78 the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the
bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of
a year, the separation of the disaffected troops, and the choice
of Nice for a second orthodox synod, removed these obstacles; and
the episcopal conscience was again, after the Greek fashion, in
the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen days were allowed
for the consummation of this important work: the Iconoclasts
appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the scene
was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarchs, 79 the decrees were framed by the president Taracius,
and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of three
hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced, that the
worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the
fathers and councils of the church: but they hesitate whether
that worship be relative or direct; whether the Godhead, and the
figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of adoration. Of
this second Nicene council the acts are still extant; a curious
monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. I
shall only notice the judgment of the bishops on the comparative
merit of image-worship and morality. A monk had concluded a truce
with the daemon of fornication, on condition of interrupting his
daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples
prompted him to consult the abbot. “Rather than abstain from
adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it would be
better for you,” replied the casuist, “to enter every brothel,
and visit every prostitute, in the city.” 80 For the honor of
orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy of the Roman church, it is
somewhat unfortunate, that the two princes who convened the two
councils of Nice are both stained with the blood of their sons.
The second of these assemblies was approved and rigorously
executed by the despotism of Irene, and she refused her
adversaries the toleration which at first she had granted to her
friends. During the five succeeding reigns, a period of
thirty-eight years, the contest was maintained, with unabated
rage and various success, between the worshippers and the
breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to pursue with
minute diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus
allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the only
virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause of his
temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed
the character of Michael the First, but the saints and images
were incapable of supporting their votary on the throne. In the
purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of an
Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents, were
condemned to a second exile. Their applause would have sanctified
the murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin and successor,
the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the Phrygian
heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending parties;
and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him
into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity;
but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the
last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the
times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the
torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After
the death of Theophilus, the final victory of the images was
achieved by a second female, his widow Theodora, whom he left the
guardian of the empire. Her measures were bold and decisive. The
fiction of a tardy repentance absolved the fame and the soul of
her deceased husband; the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch
was commuted from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two
hundred lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the
festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph
of the images. A single question yet remained, whether they are
endowed with any proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by
the Greeks of the eleventh century; 81 and as this opinion has
the strongest recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it
was not more explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West,
Pope Adrian the First accepted and announced the decrees of the
Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the
seventh in rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were
docile to the voice of their father; but the greatest part of the
Latin Christians were far behind in the race of superstition. The
churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle
course between the adoration and the destruction of images, which
they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship, but
as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry
book of controversy was composed and published in the name of
Charlemagne: 82 under his authority a synod of three hundred
bishops was assembled at Frankfort: 83 they blamed the fury of
the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure
against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their
pretended council, which was long despised by the Barbarians of
the West. 84 Among them the worship of images advanced with a
silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for
their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages
which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in
Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of
superstition.
77 (return) [ The remaining history of images, from Irene to
Theodora, is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi,
(A.D. 780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii.
Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim,
(Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de l’Eglise, tom. i. p.
556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The Protestants, except Mosheim, are
soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin, are
inflamed by the fury and superstition of the monks; and even Le
Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar, is
infected by the odious contagion.]
78 (return) [ See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second
Council of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith
volume of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with
some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a sigh
or a smile.]
79 (return) [ The pope’s legates were casual messengers, two
priests without any special commission, and who were disavowed on
their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics
to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is
revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp.
tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]
80 (return) [ These visits could not be innocent since the daemon
of fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]
81 (return) [ See an account of this controversy in the Alexius
of Anna Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. p. 371, 372.)]
82 (return) [ The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,)
composed in the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at
Worms, A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who
answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom.
vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections against the
Nicene synod and such words as these are the flowers of their
rhetoric—Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum errorem
.... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima.... derisione dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]
83 (return) [ The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as
well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort,
must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even the
principal laymen.]
84 (return) [ Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et
sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom.
ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be
hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius,
Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this unlucky sentence.]
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part IV.
It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the pious
Irene, that the popes consummated the separation of Rome and
Italy, by the translation of the empire to the less orthodox
Charlemagne. They were compelled to choose between the rival
nations: religion was not the sole motive of their choice; and
while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld,
with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their
foes. The difference of language and manners had perpetuated the
enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from each
other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty:
their submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a
jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the
impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The
Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored
the Calabrian estates 85 and the Illyrian diocese, 86 which the
Iconociasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter; and
Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication
unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. 87 The Greeks
were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by the
breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious;
but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion,
from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes;
but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a
statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his
four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes
in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb,
and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined,
without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman
liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift
of the Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of
Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness of
Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western empire that
they could pay their obligations or secure their establishment.
By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims
of the Greeks; from the debasement of a provincial town, the
majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be
united, under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis; and
the conquerors of the West would receive their crown from the
successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire a zealous
and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the
Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and
safety, the government of the city. 88
85 (return) [ Theophanes (p. 343) specifies those of Sicily and
Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a
half of gold, (perhaps 7000 L. sterling.) Liutprand more
pompously enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in
Greece, Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya,
which were detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor,
(Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italica rum, tom. ii.
pars i. p. 481.)]
86 (return) [ The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with
Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise,
tom. i. p. 145: ) by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch
of Constantinople had detached from Rome the metropolitans of
Thessalonica, Athens Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, (Luc.
Holsten. Geograph. Sacra, p. 22) and his spiritual conquests
extended to Naples and Amalphi (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i.
p. 517-524, Pagi, A. D 780, No. 11.)]
87 (return) [ In hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore
reversis, in aliis duobus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant
errore.... de diocessi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum
increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum
eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist.
Hadrian. Papae ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii. p. 1598;)
to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct,
that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the
goods of this transitory world.]
88 (return) [ Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than
the advocates of the church, (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See
Ducange, Gloss Lat. tom. i. p. 297.) His antagonist Muratori
reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the emperor.
In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles.
p. 264, 265,) they held Rome under the empire as the most
honorable species of fief or benefice—premuntur nocte
caliginosa!]