HADRIAN I. AND THE TEMPORAL POWER
Two centuries after the death of Gregory the Great we still find an
occasional prelate of rare piety, such as Alcuin, scanning the horizon
for signs of the approaching dissolution. Vice and violence had so far
triumphed that it seemed as if God must soon lower the curtain on the
human tragedy. But the successors of Gregory in the chair of Peter were
far from entertaining such feelings. From the heart of the threatening
north, another Constantine had come to espouse their cause, to confound
their enemies, and to invest the Papacy with a power that it had never
known before. The story of the Popes as temporal sovereigns had begun.
Once more we must say that the development was an almost inevitable
issue of the circumstances. The Byzantine rule in Italy had never been
strong enough to restrain the Lombards, and the rise of the Mohammedans
in the farther East now made Constantinople less competent than ever
to administer and to defend its trans-Adriatic province. First the
city, then the duchy, of Rome fell under the care of the Popes, from
sheer lack of other administrators and defenders. We saw this in the
Pontificate of Gregory. Beyond the Roman duchy were the scattered
patrimonies, the estates given or bequeathed to the Papacy, and these
were often towns, or included towns. Here again the lack of secular
authority put all government in the hands of the Pope's agents. Then
the Eastern court successively adopted two heresies, Monothelitism and
Iconoclasm, and the dwindling respect of Rome for the Greeks passed
into bitter hostility. Imperial troops sacked the Lateran, dragged a
Pope (Martin I.) ignominiously to the East, and induced another Pope
(Honorius I.) to "subvert the immaculate faith" or, at least, to "allow
the immaculate to be stained."[113] On the whole, however, the Pontiffs
who succeeded Gregory were firm and worthy men. Rome began to shudder
between the fierce Lombard and the heretical Greek, and there slowly
grew in the Lateran Palace the design of winning independence of the
erratic counsels of kings.
At this juncture, the name of Charles Martel blazed through the
Christian world, and Gregory III. and the people of Rome implored
him to take them under his protection. The Lombards were, however,
auxiliaries of Charles, and, as Duchesne suggests, Charles probably
resented Gregory's interference in secular affairs; the Pope had
recently encouraged the Lombard dukes who were in rebellion against
their king, and Liutprand had, in revenge, seized four frontier towns
of the Roman duchy. Gregory failed, but his amiable and diplomatic
successor, Pope Zachary, changed the Roman policy and made progress. He
lent Liutprand the use of the little Papal army to aid in suppressing
his dukes, and received the four towns and other "patrimonies." A
little later, the Exarch and the Archbishop of Ravenna asked Zachary
to intercede for them, and the genial Pope again saw and disarmed
the Lombard. The language of the _Liber Pontificalis_ is, at this
important stage, so barbarous--a sad reflection of Roman culture, for
it must have been written in the Lateran--that one often despairs of
catching its exact meaning, but it seems to me clear that it represents
Liutprand as giving the district of Cesena to the Papacy, and restoring
the exarchate of Ravenna to the city of Ravenna. Presently, however, we
shall find the Popes claiming the exarchate.
The next step was the famous intervention of Rome in the affairs of
the Franks. Pippin, Mayor of the Palace, aspired to the throne of
Childeric III., and consulted the Papacy as to the moral aspect of his
design. The astute Pontiff went far beyond the terms of the request,
and "ordered" the Franks to make Pippin their monarch: an act which
founded the lucrative claim of Rome that she had conferred the kingdom
on the father of Charlemagne. Zachary's successor, Stephen II.,[114]
completed the work. He was hard pressed by the Lombard King Aistulph,
and, after a fruitless appeal to Constantinople, he went to France in
753 and implored Pippin to "take up the cause of the Blessed Peter
and the Republic of the Romans." This broke the last link with the
East, and Stephen secured the gratitude of Pippin and his dynasty by
anointing the King and his sons and pronouncing a dire anathema--which
he had assuredly no right to pronounce--on any who should ever dare to
displace the family of Pippin from the throne. And so Pippin swore a
mighty oath that he would take up the cause of the Blessed Peter, but
what he precisely engaged to do is one of the great controversies of
history.
It is clear that Pippin was made "Patrician" of Rome. This had long
been the official title of the Byzantine Exarch in Italy, and it has
no definite meaning when it is transferred to Pippin and Charlemagne.
Probably this vagueness was part of the Roman plan. The Pope wanted
Pippin's army without his suzerainty. Moreover, in conferring on Pippin
the title which had belonged to the Exarch, it was probably implied
that the exarchate became part of "the cause of the Blessed Peter."
In point of fact, the _Liber Pontificalis_ goes on to say that Pippin
swore to win for Rome "the exarchate of Ravenna" as well as other
"rights and territories of the Republic." Later, in recording the life
of Hadrian I., the _Liber Pontificalis_ says that Stephen asked for
"divers cities and territories of the province of Italy, and the grant
of them to the Blessed Peter and his Vicars for ever." This part of
the work is, it is true, under grave suspicion of interpolation, but
the sentence I have quoted may pass. Pippin swore to secure for the
Popes, not only the Roman duchy, and "divers cities and territories"
which they claimed as "patrimonies," but also the exarchate of Ravenna,
to which they had no right whatever. As Hadrian I. repeatedly refers,
in his letters to Charlemagne, to this "Donation of Pippin," and in
one letter (xcviii.) says that it was put into writing, it is idle to
contest it.[115]
Pippin crossed the Alps and forced Aistulph to yield, but as soon as
the Franks returned to their country the Lombard refused to fulfil
his obligations and again devastated Italy. No answer to the Pope's
desperate appeals for aid came from France and, in 756, when Rome was
gravely threatened, Stephen sent a very curious letter to Pippin.[116]
It is written in the name of St. Peter, and historians are divided
in opinion as to whether or no the Pope wished to impose on the
superstition of the French monarch and to induce him to think that it
was a miraculous appeal from the apostle himself. There is grave reason
to think that this was Stephen's design. The letter does not identify
the Pope with Peter, as apologists suggest; it speaks of Stephen as
a personality distinct from the apostolic writer, insists that it is
the disembodied spirit of Peter in heaven that addresses the King, and
threatens him with eternal damnation unless he comes to Rome and saves
"my body" and "my church" and "its bishop." As Pippin, who had ignored
the Pope's appeals so long, at once hurried to Italy on receiving this
letter, we may assume that he regarded it as miraculous. However that
may be, he crushed Aistulph and forced him to sign a deed abandoning
twenty-three cities--the exarchate, the adjacent Pentapolis, Comacchio,
and Narni--to the Roman See.[117] The representatives of the Eastern
court had hurried to Italy and had claimed this territory, but Pippin
bluntly told them that he had taken the trouble to crush Aistulph
only "on behalf of the Blessed Peter." Byzantine rule in Italy was
henceforth confined to Calabria in the south and Venetia and Istria in
the north. The Pope succeeded the Eastern Emperor by right of gift from
Pippin; and Pippin would, no doubt, claim that the provinces were his
to give by right of the sword. In point of fact, however, the Papacy
had claimed the exarchate on some previous title, and that title is
unsound.
We may now pass speedily to the Pontificate of Hadrian. Aistulph
died in 756; Stephen III. in 757. The ten years' Pontificate of Paul
I. was absorbed in a tiresome effort to wring the new rights of
Rome from the new Lombard King, Didier, and the struggle led to the
severance of the Romans into Frank and Lombard factions: one of the
gravest and most enduring results of the secular policy of the Papacy.
When Paul died, the Lombard faction, under two high Papal officials
named Christopher and Sergius, led Lombard troops upon the opposing
faction (who had elected a Pope), crushed them in a brutal and bloody
struggle, and elected Stephen IV. Stephen was, however, not the Lombard
King's candidate, and Didier intrigued at Rome against the power of
Christopher and Sergius. He bribed the Papal chamberlain, Paul Afiarta,
and it is enough to say that before long Christopher and Sergius were
put in prison and deprived of their eyes. This was done at the Pope's
command; it was the price of the restoration by Didier of the cities he
still withheld.[118]
Rome was still under the shadow of this brutal quarrel when, in the
year 772, Hadrian became Pope. He came of a noble Roman family, and,
having been left an orphan in tender years, he had been reared by a
pious uncle. Culture at Rome in the eighth century had sunk to its
lowest depth, and the letters of Hadrian, like all documents of the
time, are full of the grossest grammatical errors. In the school of
virtue and asceticism, however, he was a willing pupil. His fasts
and his hair-shirt attracted attention in his youth, and he was so
favourably known to all at the time of Stephen's death that he was at
once and unanimously elected.
Didier pressed for the new Pope's friendship. Charlemagne had already
tired of his daughter, or no longer needed her dowry (the Lombard
alliance), and had ignominiously restored her to her father's court and
ventured upon a third matrimonial experiment. We do not find Hadrian
rebuking the Frank King, but he sent his chamberlain Afiarta to the
Lombard court, to arrange for the restoration of the cities ceded to
Rome and, presumably form an alliance with Didier. While Afiarta was
away, however, two things occurred which caused him to change his
policy. Carlomann died in France, and his share of the kingdom was
annexed by Charlemagne. Carlomann's widow then fled to the Lombard
court, and Didier pressed Hadrian to anoint her sons in defiance of
Charlemagne. When Hadrian hesitated, Didier invaded the Papal territory
and took several towns; while Afiarta, the Pope heard, was boasting
that he would bring Hadrian to Pavia with a rope round his neck.
Meantime, however, Afiarta's rivals at Rome informed the Pope that
Afiarta had had the blind prisoner Sergius murdered, and Hadrian was
shocked. He ordered the arrest of his chamberlain, and, in defiance of
his more lenient instructions, Afiarta was delivered to the secular
authorities at Ravenna and executed.
Didier now set his forces in motion. Hadrian, hurriedly gathering
his troops for the defence of the duchy, appealed to Charlemagne and
threatened Didier with excommunication. It seems also that he made
efforts to secure other parts of Italy for the Papacy. Some professed
representatives of Spoleto, which was subject to Didier, came to Rome
to ask that their duchy might be incorporated in the Papal territory,
and their long Lombard hair was solemnly cropped in Roman fashion. We
shall find grave reason to doubt whether these men had an authentic
right to represent Spoleto, but from that moment the Popes claimed it
as part of their temporal dominion, Didier seems to have underrated
the power of the young French monarch. Both Hadrian and Charlemagne
(who offered Didier 14,000 gold _solidi_ if he would yield the disputed
cities) endeavoured to negotiate peacefully with him, but he refused
all overtures, and the Franks crossed the Alps and besieged him in
Pavia.
Charlemagne remained before Pavia throughout the winter of 773-774,
and, when Holy Week came round, he went to Rome for the celebration
of Easter. Hadrian hurriedly arranged to meet his guest with honour,
though the account of his ceremonies makes us smile when we recall how
imperial Rome would have received such a monarch. Thirty miles from
Rome the civic and military officials, with the standards of the Roman
militia, met the conqueror; a mile from the city the various "schools"
of the militia, and groups of children with branches of palm and olive,
streamed out to meet the Franks, and accompanied them to St. Peter's.
The awe with which Charlemagne approached the old capital of the
world, and the feeling of the Romans when they gazed on the gigantic
young Frank, in his short silver-bordered tunic and blue cloak, with
a shower of golden curls falling over his broad shoulders, are left
to our imagination by the chronicler.[119] His one aim is to show how
the famous donation of temporal power was the natural culmination of
the piety of the Frankish monarch. He tells us how Charlemagne walked
on foot the last mile to St. Peter's: how, when he reached the great
church on Holy Saturday, he went on his knees and kissed each step
before he embraced the delighted Pope: how Frank bishops and warriors
mingled with the Romans, and how the vast crowd was thrilled by the
emotions of that historic occasion. He describes how Charlemagne
humbly asked permission to enter Rome, and spent three days in paying
reverence at its many shrines; and how, on the Wednesday, Pope and King
met in the presence of the body of Peter to discuss the question of the
Papal territory.
In a famous passage, which has inspired a small library of
controversial writing, this writer of the life of Hadrian in the _Liber
Pontificalis_ affirms that Charlemagne assigned to St. Peter and his
successors for ever the greater part of Italy: in modern terms, the
whole of Italy except Lombardy in the north, which was left to the
Lombards, and Naples and Calabria in the south, where the Greeks
still lingered. The duchies of Beneventum and Spoleto, the provinces
of Venetia and Istria, and the island of Corsica, which were not at
the disposal of Charlemagne, are expressly included; and it is said
that one copy of the deed, signed by Charlemagne and his nobles and
bishops, was put into the tomb of St. Peter, and another copy was taken
to France. This is the basis of the claim of later Popes to the greater
part of Italy.
But the suspicions of historians are naturally awakened when they
learn that both copies of this priceless document have disappeared:
that the only description of its terms is this passage of the _Liber
Pontificalis_, which was presumably written in the Papal chancellery:
and that the art of forging documents was extensively cultivated in
the eighth century. The famous "Donation of Constantine," a document
which makes the first Christian Emperor, when he leaves Rome, entrust
the whole Western Empire to Pope Silvester, is a flagrant forgery of
the time; indeed, most historians now conclude that it was fabricated
at Rome during the Pontificate of Hadrian. Certainly the Pope seems
to refer to it when, in 777, he writes to Charlemagne: "Just as in
the time of the Blessed Silvester, Bishop of Rome, the Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Roman Church was elevated and exalted by the most pious
Emperor Constantine the Great, of holy memory, and _he deigned to
bestow on it power in these western regions_."[120]
The equally mendacious _Acta S. Silvestri_ was certainly known to
Hadrian, and we do not trace it earlier; and it is probable enough
that one or both of these documents were shown to Charlemagne. Some
historians believe that the "Fantuzzian Fragment" (a similarly false
account of the Donation of Pippin) belongs to the same inventive
period, and this is not unlikely.
It cannot be questioned that Charlemagne renewed and enlarged his
father's donation, since Hadrian's letters to him repeatedly affirm
this. Immediately after his return to France, Hadrian reminds him that
he has confirmed Pippin's gift of the exarchate,[121] and, a little
later, he recalls that, when he was in Rome, he granted the duchy of
Spoleto to the Blessed Peter.[122] Spoleto did not, in point of fact,
pass under Papal rule, but we must conclude from the Pope's words that
Charlemagne in some way approved the action of Hadrian in annexing the
duchy, and in this sense enlarged the donation made by his father.
Beyond this single instance of Spoleto, however, the letters of Hadrian
do not confirm the writer of his life in the _Liber Pontificalis_ in
his description of the extent of Charlemagne's gift,[123] and their
silence supports the critical view. While he complains of outrages
in Istria and Venetia, while he occupies himself in a long series of
letters with the affairs of Beneventum, he makes no claim that these
provinces were given to him by Charlemagne. The whole story of the
Papacy during the life of Charlemagne is inconsistent with any but the
more modest estimate of the donation: that it was a vague sanction of
the Spoletan proceeding, in addition to confirming the Donation of
Pippin.
The learned editor of the _Liber Pontificalis_, Duchesne, is convinced
that the first part of the life of Hadrian, which culminates in this
donation, was written by a contemporary cleric and must be regarded as
genuine. He suggests that, when Hadrian perceived the impracticability
of Charlemagne winning two thirds of Italy for the Roman See, he
released the monarch from his oath. This is inconsistent alike with
the character of Hadrian and the terms of his correspondence, and
recent historians generally regard the range ascribed to Charlemagne's
donation in the _Liber Pontificalis_ as either fictitious or enlarged
by later interpolations. The first part of Duchesne's study--the proof
that the early chapters of the life of Hadrian were written by a
contemporary--is convincing: the second part--that the Pope sacrificed
five or six great provinces because it was difficult at the time to get
them--has not even the most feeble documentary basis and is unlikely in
the last degree, to judge by the known facts. Either some later writer
during the Pontificate of Leo III. (or later) rounded the narrative of
the early years of Hadrian with this grandiose forgery, or the passage
which specifies the extent of the donation was interpolated in the
narrative. For either supposition we have ample analogy in the life of
the eighth century: for a Papal surrender of whole provinces we have
no analogy whatever, and there is not the faintest allusion to it in
Hadrian's forty-five extant letters to Charlemagne.[124]
The life of Hadrian in the _Liber Pontificalis_ consists, as will
already have been realized, of two very distinct parts. The first is a
consecutive and circumstantial narrative of events up to the departure
of Charlemagne from Rome in the spring of 774. This seems to have been
written by an eye-witness, possibly a clerk in the Papal service; and
it seems equally probable that this contemporary narrative was rounded
by a later hand with a fictitious account of Charlemagne's conduct
on the Wednesday. Immediately afterwards, Charlemagne returned to
Pavia, conquered Didier, and carried him off to a French monastery.
This occurred in the second year of Hadrian's Pontificate, yet in the
_Liber Pontificalis_, the remaining twenty years are crushed into a few
chaotic paragraphs, and these are chiefly concerned with his lavish
decoration of the Roman churches. We turn to his letters, and from
these we can construct a satisfactory narrative and can obtain a good
idea of the writer's personality.
Of the fifty-five extant letters of Hadrian no less than forty-five are
addressed to Charlemagne, and they are overwhelmingly concerned with
his temporal possessions. He is rather a King-Pope than a Pope-King.
For twenty years he assails Charlemagne with querulous, petulant, or
violent petitions to protect the rights of the Blessed Peter, and it
is not illiberally suspected that the lost replies of Charlemagne
contained expressions of impatience. The Pope's letters, with their
unceasing references to the Blessed Peter and all that he has done
for Charlemagne, are not pleasant reading, and the Frank King, whose
Italian policy seems to baffle his biographers, must have realized
that his position as suzerain of the Blessed Peter was delicate and
difficult. Hadrian on the other hand, found that the temporal rights
of his See left comparatively little time for spiritual duties and
laid a strain on his piety. Once in a few years he smites a heretic
or arraigns some delinquent prelate, but the almost unvarying theme
of his letters is a complaint that the Blessed Peter is defrauded of
his rights, and he is at times drawn into political intrigues which
do not adorn his character. We may recognize that his ambition was
as impersonal as that of Gregory the Great, yet the spectacle of his
plaints and manoeuvres is not one on which we can dwell with admiration.
Charlemagne had scarcely returned to France when he received from
Hadrian a bitter complaint that Leo, Archbishop of Ravenna, had seized
the cities of the exarchate and was endeavouring to win those of the
Pentapolis.[125] Charlemagne did not respond; indeed Leo went in person
to the Frank court, and it is significant that after his return he was,
Hadrian says, more insolent and ambitious than ever. He cast out the
officials sent from Rome and, by the aid of his troops, took over the
rule of the exarchate. Charlemagne was busy with his Saxon war, and he
paid no attention to the Pope's piteous appeals.[126] Leo died in 777,
however, and his successor seems to have submitted to Rome. Charlemagne
had meantime visited Italy and may have intervened.
The business which brought Charlemagne to Italy in 776 was more
serious. Arichis, Duke of Beneventum, one of the ablest and most
cultivated of the Lombards, who was married to a daughter of Didier,
was an independent sovereign. Hildeprand, Duke of Spoleto, who
had--in spite of the supposed annexation of Spoleto--chosen to regard
Charlemagne rather than Hadrian as his suzerain, was on good terms with
Arichis, and the Pope looked on their friendship with gloomy suspicion.
He reported to Charlemagne that they were conspiring against his
authority. Charlemagne's envoys were due at Rome, and Hadrian bitterly
complained to him that they had gone first to Spoleto and had "greatly
increased the insolence of the Spoletans," and had then, in spite of
all the Pope's protests, proceeded to Beneventum.[127] It is clear that
there was in Italy a strong feeling against the Papal expansion, and
that the occasional appeals for incorporation in the Roman territory
came from clerics. Spoleto remained independent, in spite of Hadrian's
claim that it had been promised to him; in fact, it was clearly the
policy of Charlemagne to leave these matters to local option, and he
can scarcely have made a definite promise to include Spoleto in his
"donation."
In the following year, Hadrian sent more alarming news. Adelchis, a
son of Didier, had fled to the Greeks and was pressing them to assist
in overthrowing the Frank-Roman system. Hadrian said that Arichis and
Hildeprand, as well as Hrodgaud of Friuli and Reginald of Clusium, had
conspired with the Greeks, and he implored the King "by the living God"
to come at once. Charlemagne came, and chastised Hrodgaud, but he does
not seem to have found serious ground for the charges against the Dukes
of Spoleto and Beneventum. Presently, however, Hadrian was able to
announce more definitely a conspiracy against his rule; the Beneventans
and Greeks had captured some of his Campanian towns, and Tassilo, Duke
of Bavaria (son-in-law of Didier), had joined them. It is true that
Charlemagne was, at the time, busy in Saxony, but it is equally clear
that he was angry with the Pope and resented his efforts to secure
the two duchies. In 777, Hadrian wrote that he rejoiced to hear that
Charlemagne was at length coming; he sent him a long list, from the
Roman archives, of all the territories to which Rome laid claim, and
invited the Frank to be a second Constantine.[128] But Charlemagne came
not, and in his next letter Hadrian has to lament that the Frank has
committed the "unprecedented act" of arresting the Papal Legate for
insolence, and the Lombards are openly exulting in his humiliation.[129]
There seems then to have been a long period without correspondence
between the two courts, or else it has not been thought judicious
to preserve the letters. In 781, however, Charlemagne came to Rome.
Tassilo was disarmed, and, as Charlemagne's daughter was betrothed
to the son of the Eastern Empress Irene, the Greeks must have been
pacified. The six years of peace which followed were, no doubt, used
by Hadrian in that princely decoration of the Roman churches of which
I will speak later and in some attention to ecclesiastical affairs. We
find him writing, in 785, to the bishops of Spain; though he seems to
have had little influence on the Spanish heresy which he denounced,
and it was left to the more vigorous attacks of Charlemagne.[130] In
786 he extended his pastoral care to England, which had not seen a
Roman envoy since the days of Gregory. His Legates were received with
honour, but they reported that the English Church was in a deplorable
condition.[131] King Offa made a princely gift for the maintenance
of lamps in St. Peter's (a euphemism of the Roman court) and for the
poor, and it is curious to read that Hadrian consented, at the King's
request, to make Lichfield a metropolitan see.
The peace was broken in 787 by an active alliance of Arichis, Tassilo,
and the Greeks, and Charlemagne again set out for Italy. Arichis was
forced to pay the Franks a heavy annual tribute and give his sons as
hostages. The elder son and Arichis himself died soon afterwards,
and Hadrian again made lamentable efforts to secure the duchy. The
accomplished widow of Arichis, Adelperga, besought Charlemagne to
bestow it on her younger son, Romwald, and Hadrian begged him not to
comply. He trusted Charlemagne would not suspect him of coveting the
duchy himself[132]; but he refrained from suggesting an alternative
to the son of Arichis, and at length he boldly warned Charlemagne not
to "prefer Romwald to the Blessed Peter."[133] Other indications of
the building of the temporal power are not more edifying. We read that
representative inhabitants of Capua and other Beneventan cities have
sought incorporation in the Roman "republic"; and then we read that
the cities have been handed over to the Papacy without inhabitants--a
clear sign of the wishes of the majority--and that Romwald is assuring
his subjects, on the authority of Charlemagne, that they need not pass
under the authority of Rome unless they will.
Charlemagne again ignored the Pope's efforts, and soon had the Spoletan
and Beneventan troops co-operating with his own against the Greeks.
Hadrian obtained no control over Spoleto and Beneventum, and the fact
that he does not charge Charlemagne with failing to keep faith with
the Blessed Peter casts further discredit on the supposed donation. In
Venetia and Istria he had no influence whatever, and his agents were
barbarously treated.[134] Corsica never enters his correspondence.
His power was confined to the Roman duchy, the exarchate, and the
Pentapolis; and even there it was much assailed. It is true that
in an hour of resolution he forbade Charlemagne to interfere in an
ecclesiastical election at Ravenna, and it was as master of Ravenna
that he gave Charlemagne the marbles and mosaics of the old palace.
But he complained bitterly that Charlemagne listened to his critics
in Ravenna,[135] and he had repeatedly to appeal to Frank authority
to enforce his sentences. To the end his letters to Charlemagne were
querulous and exacting. A few years before his death he heard that
Offa of England was proposing to Charlemagne to depose him, and he
protested, with more petulance than dignity, that he had been elected,
not by men, but by Jesus Christ.[136]
This demoralizing concern for his temporal rights seems to have warped
Hadrian's religious temperament and to have left him little time
for purely spiritual duties. A single lengthy letter to Spain and a
legation to England are all that we have as yet related, and there is
little to add. His third exercise of jurisdiction was unfortunate.
Irene had restored the worship of images in the East and was eager
for a reconciliation with Western Christendom. She invited Hadrian
to preside at an Ecumenical Council. His reply was admirable in
doctrinal respects, but he annoyed the Greeks by at once claiming all
his patrimonies in the East and protesting against the title used by
Archbishop Tarasius. They retorted by suppressing part of his letter to
the Council of Nicæa (787), at which his Legates presided, and ignored
both his requests.
This, however, was only the beginning of fresh and grave trouble with
Charlemagne. The Greeks had annoyed him by cancelling the betrothal of
Constantine with his daughter Rotrud, and there is reason to suspect
that he already contemplated assuming the title of Emperor. There was,
at all events, a sore feeling in France, and when the findings of the
Council of Nicæa reached that country, they were treated with disdain
and insult. Hadrian had, in his annoyance with the Greeks, refused to
give a formal sanction to their findings, but he had so far accepted
them as to issue from the Papal chancellery a Latin translation of the
_acta_ of the Council. We can readily believe that the translation
would be crude and inaccurate, but the quarrel was not based on these
fine shades of meaning. The French conception of the use of images
differed not only from that of the Greeks, but from that of Hadrian.
The northern prelates held that images were to be regarded only as
ornaments and as reminders of the saints they represented. In this
sense Charlemagne issued, in his own name (though we justly suspect
the authorship of Alcuin), the large work which is commonly known as
_The Caroline Books_. It scathingly attacked the Greek canons which had
been accepted by the Pope; it took no notice of Hadrian's doctrinal
letter to the Council; and, in defiance of the familiar Roman custom,
it denounced as sinful the practice of burning lights before statues
or paying them any kind or degree of worship. It contained assurances
of its loyalty to the Apostolic See, but Hadrian must have felt, when
at length some version or other of the work was sent to him (three
or four years after its publication), that it was an outrage on his
spiritual authority. But the book bore the name of Charlemagne, and in
his lengthy reply Hadrian prudently concealed his annoyance.[137] In
the same year (794) the Frank bishops held a synod at Frankfort and
resolutely maintained their position. Whether this synod followed or
preceded Hadrian's letter we cannot say, but the Franks continued for
years to reject the Roman doctrine.[138]
Hadrian's biographer discreetly ignores these failures of his attempts
to assert his authority, and almost confines himself to the record of
his work in Rome itself. He restored and extended the walls, and added
no less than four hundred towers to their defences. He repaired four
aqueducts, and rebuilt, on a grander scale, the colonnade which ran
from the Tiber to St. Peter's. The interior of St. Peter's he decorated
with a splendour that must have seemed to the degenerate Romans
imperial. The choir was adorned with silver-plated doors, and, in part,
a silver pavement; while a great silver chandelier, of 1345 lights,
was suspended from its ceiling. Large statues of gold and silver were
placed on the altars, and the walls were enriched with purple hangings
and mosaics. Vestments of the finest silk, shining with gold and
precious stones, were provided for the clergy. To other churches, also,
Hadrian made liberal gifts of gold and silver statues, Tyrian curtains,
gorgeous vestments, and mosaics. The long hostility to images and
image-makers in the East had driven large numbers of Greek artists to
Italy, and the vast sums which the new temporal dominions sent to Rome
enabled Hadrian to employ them. After a long and profound degeneration
"the fine arts began slowly to revive."[139] For literary culture,
however, Hadrian did nothing; the attempt of some writers to associate
him with Charlemagne's efforts to relieve the gross illiteracy of
Europe is without foundation.
In charity, too, the Pope was distinguished. He founded new deaconries
for the care of the poor, and at times of flood and fire he was one
of the first to visit and relieve the sufferers. But both his artistic
and his philanthropic work was almost restricted to Rome. He added a
few farms to those which his predecessors had planted on the desolate
Campagna, but the great and increasing resources of the Papacy were
chiefly used in laying the foundations of the material splendour
which would one day daze the eyes of Europe, and in paying soldiers
to protect it against his political rivals. It must be added that he
was one of the early founders of the Roman tradition of nepotism. He
appointed his nephew Paschalis to one of the chief Papal offices, and
the brutality of the man, which will appear presently, shows that the
promotion was not made on the ground of merit.
His long Pontificate came to an end on December 25th (or 26th) in the
year 795, and it is an indication of the new position of the Papacy
that his successor at once sent to Charlemagne the keys of Rome and
of the tomb of St. Peter. We have the assurance of Eginhard that the
Frank monarch wept as one weeps who has lost a dear son or brother,
and he afterwards sent to Rome a most honouring epitaph of Hadrian,
cut in gold letters on black marble. The character of Charlemagne
and his inmost attitude toward the new Papacy he had created do not
seem to me to be sufficiently elucidated by any of his biographers,
but with that we are not concerned. He had deep regard for Hadrian,
in spite of the Pope's failings. The new royal state was too heavy
a burden for Hadrian I. to bear with dignity. One cannot doubt the
sincerity of his religion, his humanity, and his impersonal devotion to
what he conceived to be his duty. But it is equally plain that in the
first Pope-King the cares of earthly dominion enfeebled the sense of
spiritual duty and at times warped his character. It needed a great man
to pass without scathe through such a transformation. Hadrian I. was
not a great man.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 113: So the successor of Honorius, Leo II., wrote to the
Emperor. _Ep._, iii.]
[Footnote 114: Stephen I., who was chosen at the death of Zachary, died
before consecration, and some historians decline to insert him in the
series.]
[Footnote 115: Pippin repeated his oath at Quiercey, and the bargain
is sometimes described as the "Quiercey Donation." The "Fantuzzian
Fragment," an ancient document which professes to give the precise
extent of the donation, is full of errors and anachronisms, and is not
now trusted by any serious historian.]
[Footnote 116: _Ep._, v.]
[Footnote 117: This is sometimes called the "Donation of Aistulph," but
is really the completed Donation of Pippin. On this point the _Liber
Pontificalis_ is confirmed by the _Annals_ of Eginhard, in which we
read that Pippin gave the Roman See "Ravenna and the Pentapolis and
the whole exarchate belonging to Ravenna" (year 756), and by the later
letters of Hadrian I.]
[Footnote 118: Writers who say merely that Stephen was "suspected of
complicity" must have overlooked the testimony of Hadrian himself in
the _Liber Pontificalis_. He tells the Lombard envoys that Stephen
assured him that, on Didier promising to return the cities, the Pope
"caused the eyes of Christopher and Sergius to be put out." Stephen's
character is further illustrated by his letter to the sons of Pippin
(_Ep._, iv.), when it was proposed that one of them should marry
Didier's daughter Hermingard. They were both married, but the Pope says
very little about the sin of divorce; it is the infamy of alliance with
the Lombards which he chiefly denounces. In point of fact, Charlemagne
divorced his wife and married Hermingard, and not a word further was
heard from Rome about this or any other of his peculiar domestic
arrangements.]
[Footnote 119: The visit is described very fully in the _Liber
Pontificalis_.]
[Footnote 120: _Ep._, lx. Some writers hold that this is merely an
allusion to the _Acta S. Silvestri_, another forgery of the time, but
the words which I have italicized point more clearly to the "Donation
of Constantine." For the literature of the controversy see Dr. A.
Solmi's _Stato e Chiesa_ (1901), pp. 12-13. It is now the general
belief that the "Donation" was fabricated at Rome, and probably in the
Lateran, between 750 and 781. Dr. Hodgkin (_Italy and her Invaders_,
vi.) has charitably suggested that perhaps the document was playfully
composed by some Papal clerk in his leisure hours and taken seriously
by a later generation, but apologists do not seem to grasp at this
straw.]
[Footnote 121: _Ep._, lii.]
[Footnote 122: _Ep._, lvii.]
[Footnote 123: Dr. Mann (vol. i., part ii., p. 423) finds some
confirmation in "a passage of Hadrian's letter to Constantine and
Irene, read in the second session of the Seventh General Council."
This part of Hadrian's letter was not read in the Council. It is not
included in the letter in the Migne edition (vol. xcvi.), and in
Mansi (xii., 1072) it is explained that the latter part of Hadrian's
letter, in which the passage occurs, was not read to the Greeks. In
any case, the passage merely affirms that Charlemagne gave the Roman
See "provinces and cities and other territories," and this is quite
consistent with the more modest estimate of his donation. A letter
written by Leo III. to Charlemagne thirty years afterwards (when the
Papal description of the donation certainly existed), speaking of his
gift of the island of Corsica, is not conclusive.]
[Footnote 124: See the dissertation appended to vol. vi. of Dr.
Hodgkin's _Italy and her Invaders_, where the author contends that a
late writer used the contemporary account of Hadrian's early years to
lead up to this fictitious donation. The hypothesis of interpolation
in a genuine narrative is urged by Dr. W. Martens in his _Die Römische
Frage_ (1881) and _Beleuchtung der neuesten Controversen über die R.
Frage_ (1898). Professor Th. Lindner (_Die sogenannten Schenkungen
Pippins, Karls des Grossen, und Otto's I. an die Päpste_, 1896)
suggests that Charlemagne intended only to secure the patrimonies in
the provinces named in the donation, but this is not consistent with
the language of the _Liber Pontificalis_, though it may very well
represent the actual intention of Charlemagne.]
[Footnote 125: _Ep._, lii.]
[Footnote 126: _Ep._, liii., liv., lv.]
[Footnote 127: _Ep._, lvii.]
[Footnote 128: _Ep._, lx.]
[Footnote 129: _Ep._, lxii.]
[Footnote 130: _Ep._, lxxxiii.]
[Footnote 131: See the interesting letter of Bishop George, one of
Hadrian's Legates, in Jaffe's _Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum_, vi.,
155, and compare _The Saxon Chronicle_.]
[Footnote 132: _Ep._, xc.]
[Footnote 133: _Ep._, xciii.]
[Footnote 134: _Ep._, lxxxii.]
[Footnote 135: _Ep._, xcviii.]
[Footnote 136: _Ep._, xcvi.]
[Footnote 137: Migne, vol. xcviii., col. 1247.]
[Footnote 138: Alcuin afterwards wrote a very abject letter to the Pope
(_Ep._, xviii.), and this is sometimes represented as an expression of
regret, but he does not mention the image-question and plainly refers
to his general unworthiness. The Franks were convinced that the Pope
was wrong. See the _Acta_ of the Frankfort Council in Mansi, xiii.,
864.]
[Footnote 139: R. Cattaneo, _Architecture in Italy from the Sixth to
the Eleventh Century_ (1896).]