III. RISE OF THE EMPIRE OF CHARLES THE GREAT CHAP. II A. D. 500-800 Zacharias The death of Pope Gregory III, the Emperor Leo, and The policy Charles Martel in the year 741, opened a new period in the of Pope papal diplomacy; for the new Pope, Zacharias, was of Greek origin, a man of unusual talent as a peacemaker, and gifted with a power of persuasion whose charm melted away all opposition and subdued all wills to his own. When Zacharias became Pope, Liutprand had resolved not only to punish the Duke of Spoleto for his rebellion, but to inflict chastisement upon Rome for the conduct of Gregory III; but the new Pope promptly opened negotiations with the Lombard king, with the result that Liutprand promised to restore the four cities which he had taken, and Zacharias agreed to abandon Trasamund,— who had already broken the treaty by his selfish cowardice, — and even to lend the services of the Roman army to subdue him. The Duke of Spoleto was soon humbled, but Liutprand showed no inclination to restore the four cities. Knowing the character of the aged king, Zacharias, leaving Rome, in 742, proceeded in person to the camp of Liutprand, where he was most cordially received, and by his gentle speech and adroit appeal to the King's conscience obtained the surrender of the cities,—not, however, to the Empire, to which they belonged, but to himself. In order to impress upon this transaction the seal of sanctity, Zacharias caused the King to confirm his gift by a deed afterward deposited in the Oratory of the Saviour in St. Peter's Church; then, at a love feast in celebration of a treaty of peace for forty years between the Lombard kingdom and the Roman duchy, Zacharias induced Liutprand to restore to the Papacy several valuable properties which had been taken from the Church in former years. When the King rose from the table he wittily remarked that it was the most expensive meal of which he had ever partaken. СНАР. ІІ 500-800 The renuncia man The return of Zacharias to Rome was in every sense triumphal. Liutprand is said to have accompanied the Pope for half a mile on his journey, holding the stirrup of his palfrey, and one after another the four cities were handed over to the Pope in his homeward march. The people of Rome received him with an ecstasy of rejoicing at the city gates, and the peace was further celebrated by a discourse in St. Peter's and a procession on the following day. Having thus reconciled the Lombard monarchy to the Papacy, Zacharias continued his policy of conciliation by personally interceding with the King at Pavia in behalf of the new Emperor, Constantine V, when a year later his possessions were threatened anew by the Lombards. The aged King, moved by the skilful persuasion of the Holy Father, yielded once more to his wishes and ceased his depredations. It was, however, his last surrender; for in 744 Liutprand died, and a new dynasty ascended the throne of the Lombards. New victories, accompanied by new dangers, were in store tion of Carlo- for the Papacy; but the time had come when its entente! with the Frankish monarchy was to prove, as Boniface had always believed, the salvation of its independence. It was the Franks, however, who were to gather the first fruits of the plans of Boniface. After the death of Charles Martel, his sons, Carloman and Pippin, continued their father's policy, making war on the Bavarians, the Saxons, and the Slavs, and pushing forward the frontiers of the kingdom where the work of the missionaries had prepared the way. But Carloman, the elder of the brothers, after winning decisive victories in the field, in 747 renounced his royal office, commended his sons to Pippin, and, proceeding with costly gifts to Rome, begged and received the papal approval of his abdication, consecrating himself thenceforth to a monastic life. Thus, as it is believed, by the influence of Boniface,1 a step was taken which resulted in the complete unification of the 1 See Gregorovius, Geschichte, II, p. 747. Frankish power in the hands of Pippin; who, in return for, CHAP. II the papal alliance, was disposed to confer upon the Papacy that temporal protection of which it stood in need. A. D. 500-800 Left free to concentrate the entire kingdom in his own Pippin behands, Pippin moved boldly forward to the consummation of comes king his plans. Even in the time of Charles Martel, it was to him, the Mayor of the Palace, rather than to the nominal king, that Gregory III had sent the keys of the Apostolic tomb. Childeric III, in whose name Carloman and Pippin had held their power, was now doomed to be the last of the Merovingian kings; but the elective character of the kingship had been so long forgotten that Pippin felt the need of a high sanction for the act of usurpation he was about to perpetrate. Zacharias, content with the results of his conciliatory policy in Italy, had not repeated the appeal of Gregory III, but Boniface remained unshaken in his firm conviction that the hour was approaching when the Frankish alliance would be required. When all his plans were ripe, and only the papal sanction was wanting to appease the conscience of the Frankish nobles, in 751 Pippin sent an embassy, composed of the Bishop of Würzburg and the Abbot of St. Denis, to inquire of the Pope if a king had the right to rule when he had not the power to enforce the laws. Not indisposed to be made the arbiter of so great a question, Zacharias replied that he might with better right be called king who really possessed the royal power.1 Having thus secured the approval of the Pope, Pippin, convoked a general assembly of the nobility and of the people, and caused himself to be elected king. Childeric was shorn of his long hair, the sign of royalty among the Franks, and with his son Theodoric confined in a convent. Pippin ascended the throne as king "by election of the Franks;" but there was one significant circumstance in the ceremonies of coronation, the new king was anointed by the hand of St. Boniface. 1 See the form of the messages exchanged and comments on the authorities in Richter, Annalen, I, p. 215. CHAP. II A. D. 500-800 of Boniface By his unification of the Church under the primacy of Rome, and the alliance of the Papacy with the Frankish monarchy, Boniface had laid the corner-stone of a new emThe triumph pire. The retirement of Carloman, who would have shrunk from the bold deed of Pippin, the coronation of Pippin as the anointed of God, and the defence of the Papacy which was afterward exacted of him, are all connected links forged into one compact chain by the hand of Boniface. The scope of his plans and the cogency of his methods mark him as the most consummate diplomatist that Europe had produced for many centuries; but his work was done in a spirit of absolute devotion to an ideal which he felt to be greater than himself, the building of an earthly empire in which peace and righteousness should dwell together under the protection of consecrated force. The new peril Before his death in 752, Pope Zacharias had won another of the Papacy signal victory over the Lombards; but his triumph proved the cause of a new calamity. The Lombards, dissatisfied with the feebleness of Hildebrand, who succeeded Liutprand as king, deposed him from the throne and chose Ratchis, Duke of Friuli, in his place. In 749, Ratchis attacked Perugia, and was beginning a war of conquest upon the Eastern Empire, when Zacharias visited his camp and laid siege to his conscience. As Liutprand had bowed before the accusations of Gregory III, Ratchis, overwhelmed with penitence, renounced his royal crown and title in the presence of the Holy Father, and deeming himself no longer worthy to be called a king, retired to the seclusion of Monte Casino. His brother, Astolf, however, possessed a different temper, and having been elevated to the throne, determined. to expel the imperial power from Italy and dominate the whole peninsula. When, in 752, Stephen II succeeded Zacharias in the papal chair, and, resorting to the policy of his predecessor, endeavored to dissuade Astolf from his purpose, he found that all his arts of persuasion were wasted upon the incorrigible Lombard. Ravenna, the Exarchate, and Pentapolis A. D. 500-800 were already in the conqueror's hands; and, in June, 752, CHAP. II Stephen, only with the greatest difficulty, by means of prayers and presents, prevailed upon him to respect the freedom of Rome. After concluding a treaty of peace with the Pope for forty years, the young barbarian demanded/ heavy tribute from Rome and declared his intention of annexing its territory to the Lombard kingdom. An embassy to Astolf having failed to appease his ambition, Stephen turned toward the Emperor for aid; but his appeal was not only fruitless, it embittered Astolf the more. Deserted by men, Stephen made his appeal to heaven. Before the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, the population of Rome was summoned to behold the treaty of peace to which Astolf had subscribed attached to a cross, while the Holy Father, barefooted, led the litany, bearing the sacred image of the Saviour which, according to the legend, had been carved by the hands of the angels. Amid fasting and prayer, all Rome sent up its cry for rescue. But Stephen, in his desperate distress, did not cease his negotiations. Recalling the entente which had long existed with the Franks, and which the coronation of Pippin had fortified, he began his secret communications with the Frankish king. By the hand of a pilgrim letters were sent disclosing the great peril of the Papacy and invoking aid. Pippin, seeing his opportunity, received the message with a glad heart, and promptly despatched an envoy to Rome, soon followed by Duke Autharis and the Abbot of Görtz to conduct the Pope safely to the Frankish kingdom. While Stephen was still planning his bold journey over the Alps, an embassy arrived from the Emperor; not, as might have been expected, promising aid, but feebly demanding of the Pope to go as mediator to the court of Astolf and recover for the Empire its lost territories. If doubt had lingered in the mind of Stephen regarding the adventurous step he was about to take, this embassy must have totally dispelled it. Thenceforth, all hope for the Papacy lay in the West. The East had abdicated. The negotia tions of Stephen II |