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, 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: 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; and in their boldest enterprises, they insist, with confidence,
on this signal and successful act of temporal jurisdiction.
II. In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome were
far removed from the senate of Romulus, on 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. 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. 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.
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. 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 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 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, 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,
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: 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.
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. 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.
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 CÊsars. 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. 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. 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. 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 and poets, and the
tacit or modest censure of the advocates of the Roman church. The popes
themselves have indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar; 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.
While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion, the
images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the Eastern
empire. 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: 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,
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
dÊmon 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." 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; 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: under his authority
a synod of three hundred bishops was assembled at Frankfort: 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. 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.
Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.--Part IV.