Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 5
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
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, 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.
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. 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; 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 Êra. 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 if 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. 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. 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.
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 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 CÊsarea records the epistle, but
he most strangely forgets the picture of Christ; 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, ) were propagated in the camps
and cities of the Eastern empire: 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
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.
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, 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. 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.
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. 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.
Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the Third,
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; 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, 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.
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. 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,
the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant's head, both in this
world and the next. 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. 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_, his visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence of the
_black_ nation: the religious communities were dissolved, the buildings
were converted into magazines, or bar racks; 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.
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. 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; 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. 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. They are defended only by the moderate
Catholics, for the most part, of the Gallican church, 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, and
the lives and epistles of the popes themselves.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.--Part II.
Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor Leo, are
still extant; 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 dÊmons, 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. 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.
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. 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!"
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. 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. 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, 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, 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.
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 CÊsars, 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. 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. 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." 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,
but the spirit was fled; and their new independence was disgraced by the
tumultuous conflict of licentiousness 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. 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.
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. 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, 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. 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, 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.
In his distress, the first 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. 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. 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, 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.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.--Part III.