and him whom many writers have represented as the abject slave of Rome.t The spirit of unfair disparagement, however, has now passed away;" and both the church from which Boniface went forth and the nations among which he ministered may well combine to do honour to his memory. Anon. Mogunt. ap. Pertz, ii. 356; Rettb. i. 413; Milman, ii. 60. The bishop in question was Chrodegang, as to whom see below, c. IX. iii. 21. "Even Ellendorf, a writer who, al though in communion with Rome, is very violent in his enmity to the hierarchy, vindicates Boniface. Die Karolinger und die Hierarchie ihrer Zeit,' i. 87. CHAPTER VI. PIPIN AND CHARLEMAGNE, A.D. 741-814. THE alienation which the iconoclastic controversy tended to produce between the Byzantine emperors and the bishops of Rome was increased by other circumstances. The nearest and most dreaded neighbours of the popes were the Lombards. The hatred with which the Romans had originally regarded these on account of their Arianism had survived their conversion to orthodox Christianity, and had been exasperated by political hostility. During the iconoclastic troubles, the Lombards, under Liutprand, appear by turns to have threatened the popes and to have affected to extend alliance and protection to them, with a view of using them as instruments for weakening the imperial influence in Italy." When that influence seemed to be irreparably injured by the course which events had taken, the Lombards overran the exarchate, and advanced to the walls of the pope's own city. Gregory III., after a vain attempt to obtain aid from Constantinople, resolved to call in new allies from beyond the Alps--the nation of the Franks, who had been catholic from the beginning of their Christianity, with whom he had lately formed a closer connexion by means of Boniface, and whose virtual sovereign, Charles Martel, was marked out by his triumph over the Mahometan invaders of his country as the leader and champion of Western Christendom." As, however, it was natural to suppose that the Frankish mayor would prefer the prosecution of his victories on the side of Spain to engaging himself in new quarrels elsewhere, the pope strengthened his petition for aid by the most persuasive gifts and proposals; he sent to Charles the keys of St. Peter's tomb, with some filings of the Apostle's chains; it is said that he offered to bestow on him the title of consul or patrician of Rome, and even A.D. 739. a Schröckh, xix. 532-4. See above, sel. II. i. 38). According to one readP. 94. b Milman, ii. 153. The title of Patrician, in the later days of the empire, designated the dignity next to the throne, and might be held with several high offices (De Marca, I. xii. 4; Ducange, s. v. Patricius; Gie ing of Gregory's first extant letter (which conveyed his second request for aid), the pope offered the kingdom (regnum) to Charles; but the true reading is rogun or rojam - i. e. petition. See Cenni's note on the letter, Patrol. xcviii. 67; Schröckh, xix. 538-541. d A.D. 740-1. to transfer the allegiance of the Romans from the empire to the Frankish crown. A second and a third application followed soon after. The pope's tone in these is extremely piteous; but he endeavours to excite Charles against the Lombards by motives of jealousy as well as of piety. Not only, he says, have they laid waste the estates of St. Peter, which had been devoted to the purposes of charity and religion, but they have plundered the Apostle's church of the lights bestowed on it by the Frankish viceroy's ancestors and by himself; nay, Liutprand and his son Hildebrand are continually mocking at the idea of relief from the Franks, and defying Charles with his forces. It would seem that the letters were favourably received; but they produced no result, as the deaths of both Gregory and Charles followed within the same year. In the room of Gregory, Zacharias, a Greek by birth, was chosen by the Romans, and was established in the papacy, without the confirmation either of the emperor or of the exarch—the first instance, it is said, of such an omission since the reign of Odoacer." By repeated personal applications to Liutprand, the pope obtained the forbearance of the Lombards and recovered some towns which they had seized. His relations with the empire are obscure; the state of affairs was indeed so unsettled that these relations were full of anomaly and inconsistency. But under his pontificate took place an event which produced an important change in the position of the papacy towards the Franks, and consequently in its position towards the empire. Pipin, whose accession, first, to a portion of his father's power, and afterwards to the remainder, on the resignation of his brother Carloman, has already been mentioned,' now thought that the time was come for putting an end to the pageant royalty of the Merovingians. Two confidential ecclesiastics, Burkhard, bishop of Würzburg, and Fulrad, archchaplain of the court, were sent to Rome with instructions to ask, in the name of the Frankish nation, whether the real holders of power d Fredeg. Contin. A.D. 741 (Patrol. Ixxi.); Annal. Mettens. A.D. 741 (Pertz i.) See Pagi, xii. 453-5; Muratori, Annali, IV. ii. 6; Martin, ii. 215. e Patrol. xcviii. 64-8. Muratori thinks that by Ecclesia S. Petri" the pope does not mean the building, but the Roman Church (Annali, IV. ii. 9). Some words unnoticed by Muratori, however, can, as Dean Milman remarks (ii. 155), "scarcely be explained but of the actual ornaments of the church." Yet, as St. A.D. 751-2. k or the nominal sovereigns ought rather to reign. The answer of Zacharias was favourable to the wishes of those who proposed the question; and at the national assembly of Soissons, in the year 752,m Pipin was raised aloft on a buckler, amid the acclamations of his people, and was crowned king of the Franks, while the last of the long-haired Merovingians, Childeric III., was tonsured and shut up in the monastery of Sithiu." The amount of the pope's share in this revolution, and the morality of his proceedings, have been the subjects of much controversy. Einhard, in the earlier part of the following century, speaks of the deposition as effected by the "command," and of the coronation as performed by the "authority," of the Roman pontiff;° but (besides that this writer may have misapprehended the real course of the affair) a comparison of other passages will show that the meaning of his words is less strong than might at first sight appear, and is reconcilable with the facts which are otherwise ascertained. The matter really came before Zacharias in the form of a question from the Frankish estates; his answer was an opinion, not a command; and the sovereignty was bestowed on Pipin, not by the pope, but by the choice of his own countrymen, although the pope's opinion was valuable to him, as assisting him to supplant the nominal king, and yet throwing over the change an appearance of religious sanction which might guard it from becoming a precedent for future breaches of fealty towards Pipin's own dynasty. The view afterwards maintained by Gregory VII. and his school-that the successor of St. Peter exercised on this occasion a right inherent in his office, of deposing sovereigns at will-is altogether foreign to the ideas of the time, and inconsistent with the circumstances of the case." Einhard, Annal. A.D. 750; Pagi, xii. 563. m March 1, according to Pagi, xii. 570-3; but Mansi (ibid.) thinks that it was after July 2. See Böhmer, Regesta Karolorum, 1. 0.66 n St. Bertin's, near St. Omer. 66 Jussu" (Vita Carol. 1); per auctoritatem," ib. 3. r Giesel. II. i. 35. See Neand. v. 165. Greg. VII. Epp. iv. ; viii. 21 (Hard. vi. 1345, 1471). "It is impossible," says Mr. Hallam, "to consider the reference as to the deposition of Childeric in any other light than as a point of casuistry laid before the first religious judge in the church. Certainly the Franks, who raised the king of their choice upon their shields, never dreamed that a foreign priest had conferred upon him the right of governing. Yet it was easy for succeeding advocates of Rome to construe this transaction very favourably for its usurpation over the thrones of the earth" (Middle Ages, i. 523). See Nat. Alexand. xi. 175, seqq.; Schröckh, xix. 551; Schmidt, i. 300, 378; Planck, ii. 731; Giesel. II. i. 37. Luden thinks that Pipin was urged on by Boniface or by the pope, in the expectation that the church would be the chief gainer by the change of dynasty (iv. 181). But this seems inconsistent with such facts as are known; and, as we have seen (p. 116), Boniface was, perhaps, even opposed to the change. It is evident that the pope's answer was prompted rather by a consideration for his own interest in securing the alliance of Pipin than by any regard for strict moral or religious principle. Yet we should do Zacharias injustice by visiting it with all the reprobation which modern ideas of settled and legitimate inheritance might suggest. The question proposed to him was one which must have seemed very plausible in times when might went far to constitute right, and when revolutions were familiar in every state. The Frankish monarchy had been elective at first, and had never been bound down to the rule of strictly hereditary succession. It was held that any member of the royal house might be chosen king;" thus Clotaire IV. had been set up by Charles Martel in 717, and Childeric III. himself was a Merovingian of unknown parentage, whom Pipin and Carloman had found it convenient to establish in 742, after the nominal sovereignty had been five years vacant." It was also held among the Franks that kings might be set aside on the ground of incapacity. The only principle, therefore, which was violated in the transference of the crown was that which limited the choice of a sovereign to the Merovingian family; and, in order to cover this irregularity in the eyes of the nation, it is said to have been pretended that Pipin was himself a Merovingian. Moreover, by whatever means the change of dynasty may have been vindicated or disguised, it does not appear to have shocked the general moral feeling of the age; and this, although it will not suffice to justify Zacharias, must be allowed in some measure to excuse him. Zacharias died in March, 752, a little before or after the consummation of the act which he had sanctioned. Stephen, who was chosen in his room, did not live to be consecrated, and is therefore by most writers not reckoned in the list of popes, so that his successor, another Stephen, is sometimes styled the second, and sometimes the third, of that name." Aistulf was now king of the Lombards, and renewed the aggressions of his predecessors on Rome. Stephen, by means of splendid presents, obtained from him a promise of peace for forty years; but the treaty was almost immediately broken by Aistulf, who seized Ravenna, and required Einhard, Vita Car. 1. Ellendorf, in his hatred of popes, Pagi, xii. 488-9; Sismondi, ii. 129. takes up the cause of the Lombards, Lehuërou, ii. 98-111, 326. See p. 124, note m. 2 Anastas. 165; Pagi, xii. 578; Schröckh, xix. 553. Stephen I. was the contemporary of St. Cyprian. See vol. whom he supposes to have been zealous friends of the church, although enemies to its temporal power and wealth (i. 101-2). He denies that Aistulf threatened Rome, p. 111. |