A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power
by WALTER ULLMANN
METHUEN & CO. LTD LONDON 11 NEW FETTER LANE, EC4
First published in 1955 Second edition 1962 Reprinted with minor corrections 1965
Printed in Great Britain by John Dickens & Co Ltd, Northampton
Catalogue No 02/5714/33 2.2
Contents
PREFACE
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
ABBREVIATIONS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE PAPACY FROM THE EMPIRE 44
III. CHARLEMAGNE 87
IV. THE FRANKISH ETHOS AFTER CHARLEMAGNE 119
V. SYMBOLISM IN CORONATION CEREMONIES OF THE NINTH CENTURY 143
VI. THE AGE OF PSEUDO-ISIDORE 167
VII THREE NINTH-CENTURY POPES 190
VIII. IMPERIAL HEGEMONY 229
IX. GREGORY VII 262
X. THE COURT OF THE POPE 310
EXCURSUS -- ROYAL REACTION AND EPISCOPAL RESISTANCE 344
XI JURISTIC THEOLOGY 359
XII. THE DEFENCE OF THE LAY THESIS 382
XIII. THE FINAL EXPOSITION OF THE HIEROCRATIC THEME 413
XIV. CONCLUSION 447
APPENDIX A 458
APPENDIX B 461
INDEX 479
Frontispiece RECONSTRUCTION OF MEDIEVAL ST. PETER'S ROME
( Reproduced by kind permission of Herder & Co., Freiburg )
Preface
T HERE are probably fewer topics in history which have attracted greater attention than the perennial problem of the relations between Church and State. For the medieval period, however, it is increasingly recognized that this modern dichotomy has little, if any, meaning. At the same time it is generally recognized that the medieval Papacy, certainly after the late eleventh century, exercised considerable governmental authority over empires, kingdoms, princedoms, and so forth.
What this book attempts to do is to trace the development of Papal governmental authority. Roughly speaking, the period which witnessed this evolution was that between Emperor Gratian and Master Gratian. By the time of Master Gratian the development was virtually concluded: the period from the mid-twelfth century onwards, beginning with Alexander III's Pontificate, shows the papal government at work through the agency of the law -- the canon law -- the scientific elaboration of which owed so much to the monk of Bologna. In the last chapters I have found it advisable to indicate in the notes how the one or the other point developed in the later period.
This essay is not written from the papal, or imperial, or royal or any particular point of view; nor does it try to justify or to refute any standpoint or theory or ideology, past or present. It tries, with the limited resources accessible to a mere student of history, to find an answer to the question of how this papal government grew, what factors contributed to its growth, what obstacles it had to overcome, what were its essential features, and so forth. The problem of the secular power is most intimately linked with these central questions: what functions did papal doctrine attribute to a king or an emperor, and why was he to assume a position of inferiority -- these and numerous other topics are so essential to the theory of papal government that they are part and parcel of the central theme. Therefore, this essay is not a history of the medieval Papacy or of the medieval Church, but is concerned with the development of the basic principles upon which rested the governmental authority of the Roman Church in the medieval period. A very modest attempt is here made to explain this development with the help of historical facts. I felt that one kind of modern historiography is too much concerned with the presentation of facts to the detrimental exclusion of ideas which, after all, are closely related to these facts, whilst another kind of historiography deals too much with the presentation of ideas and virtually excludes the historically relevant facts. This essay is a very humble attempt to build a bridge between these two extremes by the combination of the processes of re-thinking and therefore of re-assessing.
Considering the multitude of elements which went to make the governmental edifice of the medieval papacy, I am fully aware of the weaknesses and shortcomings of this essay. Perhaps not its least defect lies in its not taking into account St Augustine. I may perhaps be allowed to say that originally I had of course intended to give Augustinian thought its due, but I became convinced that its presentation would not only involve his "political" theories, but also his teleology of history, Platonism and Neo-Platonism no less than the other agencies which moulded the great African's mind. But this can no longer be done within a chapter or two. As it was, I had to deal with a great number of topics which -- for inscrutable reasons -- lie outside the historian's view, such as liturgy, symbolism, and so forth. I can only hope that I have not made too many blunders in these departments which I strongly feel are far too little the direct concern of medieval historians, although they are by no means the only ones which should at least be accorded the status of auxiliary sciences. 1
The long period which this book covers, necessitated some care in the selection of literary sources. I preferred to rely on the actual texts and have therefore quoted at fairly great length from them, because so much depends on the actual (and usually carefully chosen) wording of the record. I have for this reason also preferred, if possible, not to translate. The pitfalls of translating medieval Latin, particularly of official records, and the consequential blurring of their meaning, are commonplace knowledge. I am fully conscious of the inadequacy of my modern literary apparatus, but if the footnotes were not to become too unwieldy, a severe pruning had to take place: even so, they are still very long and numerous. I have cited liberally modern authorities
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1. This applies also and to a very special degree to philology -- " cette mère nourriciére de l'histoire " ( F. L. Ganshof in Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, XXX ( 1952), p. 1275) -- and the decline in the knowledge of Latin nowadays can, from the medievalist's standpoint, only be viewed with alarm. Medieval jurisprudence and a grounding in Roman law principles is one more such subject that should at least be raised to an auxiliary historical science.
in the language in which they were originally written. I believe that herewith a service to the reader is rendered who, indeed, is not helped when confronted with a string of references to authorities -- original and secondary -- which he is not usually in a position to check, unless he is permanently resident in some great library. The terminology adopted which at first sight may seem unfamiliar, is derived from the actual expressions, terms, phrases, etc., occurring in the historical documents. I am not unaware of a certain repetitiveness, but in mitigation I may plead that this is conditioned by the subject itself. Nor do I fail to see that some concepts and facts merited lengthier treatment, but again my plea is that if the study was not to become too unwieldy, it was advisable to indicate certain developments -- pointing to further literature -- rather than to try and attempt to write exhaustively. My main object was to concentrate on the fundamental principles.
A glance at the notes will show in fact better than I can do in words how much I owe to the modern pioneers of medieval historical scholarship. It is with a very deep sense of gratitude that I acknowledge my great debt to them: without them this book could never have been written. Some of those to whom I am so greatly indebted, are no longer inter vivos -- may this essay not be unworthy of their pioneering works.
Immediate and personal help I have had from many quarters: to name them all would be tedious. But it would be ungracious on my part, were I not to say how much stimulus I have derived from my pupils, undergraduates and graduate research students alike.
There remains for me only to discharge a very pleasant duty and to thank two of my colleagues in the University who have had the kindness and patience to read through the typescript of the book and to criticize it to my very great profit. To both of them, to Mr R. F. Bennett, of Magdalene College, and to Mr C. N. L. Brooke, of Gonville and Caius College, I owe far more than the cold printed word can convey. I most gratefully acknowledge their valuable help so generously given. Amicis fidelibus nulla est comparatio.
Lastly, I must thank my wife for her constant forbearance and assistance.
Trinity College, W.U.
Cambridge
21 August, 1953
Preface to the Second Edition
A GOOD deal of new material has been made available since this volume was originally finished, and the need for a second edition should have provided an opportunity for not only incorporating this new material, but also for improving and clarifying the text where this might have appeared advisable. But apart from the fact that the work has already seen a revised and somewhat enlarged German edition ( Die Machtstellung des Papsttums im Mittelalter ( GrazCologne , 1960)), this procedure would have entailed the resetting of the whole book and would thus have greatly increased the costs. The other alternative was to let the text stand and simply to reprint, but I could not bring myself to adopt this alternative.
The new material did not on the whole seem to justify the adoption of the first alternative, because none of the essential points is in need of drastic revision or modification as a result of new publications or additional material. On the other hand, this new and additional material appeared to be both in quantity and quality sufficiently weighty and meritorious to be at least mentioned without however incurring the necessity of resetting the entire book. I have therefore adopted a compromise solution and have added in a few places that literature which would seem to be of use to those readers who would like to have up-to-date information. But I have by no means added every new article or book or source and have only appended the most appropriate and relevant literature, in so far as it has appeared since August 1953 or should have been originally included. Modifications and additions to many passages in the text have been added in Appendix B (page 461 ). My publishers have asked me to apologize on their behalf for this rather cumbersome solution, but they point out that without it the price of the book would have had to be even more significantly increased than it is.
My continued occupation with the records of Papal history in the Middle Ages has further clarified a number of concepts and principles and has once again shown to me the consistency and coherency of Papal thought in the Middle Ages. Since the Papacy entered the historic scene in the fifth century, its inflexible adherence to the correctly understood monarchic principle through the centuries must indeed appear remarkable to the historian who is attuned to witness change on the plane of historical process. True enough, the Papacy in these medieval centuries often lacked the means or the opportunities to translate its doctrines of government into practice, and often enough temporary shifts and accommodations to an already existing situation or even seemingly wholesale reversals of earlier steps can easily be observed, but -- and this is the vital point -- the stubbornness and resilience with which the Papacy clung to its doctrinal programme, is indeed one of the most noteworthy features in the history of European institutions.
When dealing with the Papacy, the enquirer stands on very firm ground, because the material flows so richly from the Papal pens. For this programme was derived, as the Popes loudly, insistently and constantly proclaimed, from the Bible and was held by them and by contemporary Europe to be nothing less than the practical realization of biblical doctrine. The link with divinity was a most potent element that supplied -- in the contemporary environs -- the firmest possible base. Divinity spoke through the Papacy, so it was held, and when due recognition is given to this fact, not only the constancy but also the appealing logicality of the Papal programme becomes understandable.
It is therefore incomprehensible how some writers nowadays can maintain, amongst other things, that the programme and principles of the medieval Papacy underwent radical changes: in particular it is asserted that after Innocent III the Papacy changed its original dualist programme into an hierocratic standpoint. He who asserts a point of view such as this, stands convicted before the historic forum on a charge of ignorance of the sources or culpable lack of understanding of the papal theme. 1 For it was always one of the sources of strength
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1. These writers -- they are less numerous than their vociferously publicized views would suggest -- conveniently overlook that the very term and idea of a dualitas of government was the invention of the excommunicated and deposed King Henry IV to be used as an instrument against the Papacy; and this dualist idea became the panacea of royal and imperial governments in opposition to the Papacy from the Investiture Contest down to the Reformation. But these writers now wish to tell their unsuspecting and uninitiated readers that the dualism was the official Papal programme from which only the thirteenth-century Papacy deviated. For Henry IV see infra, pp. 345 ff., and see also my remarks in my Preface to Machtstellung, at pp. xxxiv ff. and in Hist. Z. , cxci ( 1960), pp. 620 ff.. It is particularly teasing to read that Innocent III was a "dualist" and that the deviation was especially due to Innocent IV and Boniface VIII. One has but to look at the legislative output of Innocent III and at the commentaries and glosses an the Compilationes Antiquae (notably II, III, IV) which contained overwhelmingly Innocentian material, to realize the effects of this pontificate upon the crystallization of hierocratic thought.
of the Papal government that it simply made known God's will through the vehicle of the law and continued the lines laid down by antecedent Popes. They who would like to see such radical changes in the papal programme and attribute to the thirteenth-century Papacy this deviationism, put -- admittedly, unknowingly and unwittingly -- the Papacy on a level not different from a royal or a city or a village government, revive in a different form the long-demolished thesis of Rudolf Sohm and by implication deny that very element which was the hallmark of the Papacy, that is, its being a specific organ of divinity instituted for particular purposes by Christ Himself. There is no need to dwell at any length on the logical consequences to which this falsification of history must necessarily lead.
The secret of the Papacy's success in the Middle Ages lay precisely in that it inflexibly adhered to its programme and principles and vital axioms because it held them to be of divine origin. Any other explanation or "view" comes dangerously close to asserting the changeability of divinity itself. It can, however, readily be conceded that this programme of the medieval Papacy causes some discomfort to the historically untrained or uninformed, and it can furthermore be admitted that from a practical modern point of view this medieval Papal programme appears disconcerting or even disagreeable, but historical truth as contained in the thousands of Papal communications from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries cannot take into account modern requirements -- with the inevitable result that history becomes tailored so as to fit a transient scheme.
Whilst the historic recognition of the programme itself does not constitute major difficulties, there are nevertheless a number of problems which are still in need of detailed examination. One of these concerns the extent to which the medieval Papacy has relied on the Bible. This question does not focus attention on the correctness or incorrectness of biblical interpretation by the Papacy, because this is not the business of the historian; nor does this question primarily refer to the invocation of the already well-known passages. What this question concerns is the less obvious, hidden and unacknowledged influence of the Bible upon, not only the programme, but also on the style, language and thought processes of the Papacy. My occupation with papal history has convinced me that more often than not the papal writer himself was unaware of the biblical root of his views or expressions. I have collected a good deal of material on this point, but to have incorporated it in this book would probably have doubled its size. This dependence on the Bible is not at all startling -- it equally applies to royal and imperial governments, with this difference, however, that by its very function the Papacy had far more opportunities of being influenced by the Bible than the other forms of government. It is, after all, not so very difficult to understand how the Bible became part and parcel of the papal equipment, and this without the Popes themselves becoming aware of the constant infusion of biblical terms, elements, views, allegories, etc., into their mental system. 1 It will be seen, however, that a number of preparatory studies has first to be undertaken and that the inclusion of this cluster of problems into the present volume would not only have been premature, but also inadvisable. But this is only one of the many problems still awaiting its treatment ex professo, though it is possibly the most urgent.
Only one or two of these other problems can here be mentioned. The detailed influence of the Roman law and of the Roman constitution upon the Papacy and its principles of government is one such topic that needs to be examined and analysed. This is especially important in regard to the fifth and sixth centuries, those centuries in which the legal and constitutional bases of the Papal government were laid and in which the Papacy came to assume its own institutional personality. The challenge issued by the Papacy to the imperial government would indeed show that the Papacy felt itself strong enough to enter into a conflict with its adversary in Constantinople on grounds which were the latter's own -- the law, which in its papal shape had received its characteristic Roman sustenance and complexion and had become Roman law applied and adjusted. As far as I can see at present, however, a satisfactory treatment of this problem of Roman law influence will have to distinguish between the influence of classical Roman law and that of the Justinianean codification. That a host of subsidiary questions will emerge in connexion with this basic problem, needs not specifically to be stated. Another problem is that of the concrete and provable influence of Western royal governments and other secular institutions upon the Papacy, that is, how much were, institutionally, the Popes the famuli and the kings the magistri? 2 Not far removed from this topic is the analysis of the relations between
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1. A good illustration is afforded by the very concept of " positive law" which seems foreshadowed in the Bible where the terminology is consistently legem ponere (or dare or condere ), a terminology which clearly betrays legislative omnipotence. On this cf. my remarks in Revue d'histoire du droit, xxix ( 1961), pp. 118 ff.
2. For a few remarks cf. my Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages ( London, 1961), pp. 108ff.
the Papacy and Eastern governments, such as Poland, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, and so forth; clearly, this group of problems must be seen in relation to the Byzantine empire on the one hand and to the West-Roman empire on the other hand. In what way did the capture of Constantinople affect the implementation of Papal doctrine towards the other Eastern governments? How far did German and papal aspirations towards the East coincide, how far did they overlap and how far were they antagonistic to each other? It is high time that the influence of papal legislation upon what later came to be known as international law, were investigated in detail, 1 for a number of stipulations in present-day international law have indisputably their roots in the medieval papal legislation, because the Pope as speculator omnium and universalis monarcha, thus standing above the inter-regal turmoil, claimed to regulate the relations between kingdoms. No less important a topic to be examined is the problem of the period of time which a number of Papal principles took to come to full fruition.
Why was it that some principles as soon as they were enunciated, became part and parcel of the Papal mental equipment, whilst others had to wait a very long time before they could find favour? These latter lay, so to speak, dormant and were resuscitated only after a very long time. How is one to explain this feature? An obvious instance is the development of the concept of the Pope's vicariate of Christ: Paul I in the eighth century had it pronounced as clearly as one might, and yet it took just about another four hundred years before the concept became operational. Further, how far did the dogmatic and patristic literature influence the Papacy and how far was the latter instrumental in shaping dogma and doctrine? One more and rather urgent problem that awaits its historical and structural analysis is that of the relations between the Papacy and the episcopacy. Episcopalism was a very serious -- perhaps the most serious -- obstacle to the full deployment of papal governmental principles; in fact, episcopalism constituted a far more obstinate impediment to the papal government than any royal or imperial opposition. How did the Papacy, at least temporarily, overcome episcopalism, how was the latter, so to speak, driven underground, and how did it gather force again in the late Middle Ages? These are only a few of the problems which the opulent history of the medieval Papacy poses. Much work has yet to be done, and it may perhaps not be presumptuous to express the hope that those who are so anxious to tailor medieval Papal history to modern exigencies,
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1. Cf. infra, p. 450.
might one day profitably and constructively direct their energies to the one or the other problem here mentioned.
Once again I would like to thank the many friends and colleagues who have sent me offprints of their articles and papers and copies of their books: only he who knows how easily new publications may escape notice, will appreciate this generosity.
Cambridge, W.U.
15 November, 1961
Apart from some small additions and the correction of some misprints no substantial changes have been made in this printing. But in order to assist the reader, I have put asterisks (*) in the margin of the texts and footnotes to indicate that Appendix B has additional material or adjustments to the text.
Cambridge, W.U. 21 October, 1964
Abbreviations
CSEL. Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum
D. Diploma
DA. Dictate of Avranches
DAC. Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie
DHE. Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques
DP. Dictate of the Pope ( Gregory VII)
EHR. English Historical Review
Ep. Epistola
Epp. Epistolae
hist. historical; historique; historisch
Hist. Jb. Historisches Jahrbuch der Görresgesellschaft
Hist. Z. Historische Zeitschrift
J. Ph. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 2nd ed.
LdL. Libelli de Lite
MA. Middle Ages; Moyen Age; Mittelalter
Mansi J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio
MGH. Const. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Constitutiones
MGH. Epp. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Epistolae
MGH. Leges Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Leges
MGH. SS. Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores
MIOG. Mitteilungen des Instituts für oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung
Misc. Miscellanea
OR. Ordo Romanus PG. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca PL. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina Potthast A. Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum
Reg. Register RHE. Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique RNI. Regestum Innocentii III papae super negotio. Romani imperii
Sav. Z. Kan. Abt. Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung füt Rechtsgeschichte Kanonistische Abteilung
Sav. Z. Roman. Abt. Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte Romanistische Ahteilung
Sav. Z. Germ. Abt. Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte Germanistische Abteilung
SB. Sitzungsberichte
SB. Vienna Sizungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften, phil. hist. Masse, Wien
SB. Munich Sitzungsberichte der bayrischen Akademie d. Wissenschaften
SB. Berlin Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie d. Wissenschaften
SB. Heidelberg Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie d. Wissenschaften
SS. RR. GG. Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum
Z. Zeitschrift
(Biblical references are to the Vulgate.)
CHAPTER I
Introduction
T HE manifestation of Papal governmental authority in the Middle Ages illustrates the strength of an idea and its transformation into law. The government effected by the Papacy was a potent factor in every sphere of medieval life. How did the Papacy -- and with it the priesthood -- reach this position? To be more precise, what elements assisted, and what elements retarded, the growth of Papal governmental authority in the Middle Ages? From small beginnings, from an insignificant community in the capital of the Roman empire, the Church of Rome developed into the most influential and important governmental institution in the medieval period. The whole of medieval Europe -- Western Europe -- from Iceland to the Mediterranean, from Ireland to Hungary, was in receipt of the decrees, mandates, rescripts and verdicts issuing forth in prolific quantities from the Church of Rome. Within these regions, within Latin Christendom, there was no emperor, no king, no prince; there was no bishop or abbot; no layman or cleric, however high or low, whose life in one way or another was not affected by the exercise of Papal authority.
In studying this growth the historian cannot but be struck by its steady continuity. The Papal theory of government rested upon certain principles and themes. Throughout the history of the medieval Papacy there is observable a unity of themes and a consistency of principles which were detectable in nuce even before the name "Pope" ( papa ) or the term "Papacy" ( papatus ) were coined. And of these themes and principles none was more fundamental than that of the conception of the Church and the qualification of those of its members who were to govern it. Baptism secured membership of the [Roman] Church, but membership as such did not entail the proper qualification for governing it. Another element, namely ordination, was needed to secure, according to Papal views, the right to direct the Church. The distinction between ordained and unordained members of the Church, between clerics and laymen, was the distinction which was not only to give medieval society its peculiar imprint, but also to make the problems of this society, that is, of Latin Christendom, accessible to understanding. The distinction -- not between Church and State, but between clergy and laity as parts of one and the same unit -- is a thread that runs throughout the medieval period.
I
In the realm of government the teleological principle upon which any society must needs rest, operates through the principle of functional qualification. For society and its government are two complementary concepts. The latter directs the former in accordance with its underlying purpose or aim, its "finis" or "telos". Only those who are qualified, claim to be entitled to govern; and the qualification depends upon the nature and purpose of society. The function of rulership presupposes the fulfilment of certain qualifications. He who is qualified to translate the purpose for which society exists, into concrete terms and measures, acts in the capacity of a ruler: he functions as a ruler, because he is appropriately qualified. This principle of functional qualification is operative in any society. The form of rulership or government, whether monarchic or oligarchic or aristocratic and so forth, may vary, but this does not affect the general principle.
When Pope Leo I spoke of himself as functioning on behalf of St Peter -- " cuius vice fungimur " -- he succinctly expressed the principle of functional qualification in monarchic form. 1 By virtue of succeeding to the chair of St Peter, Leo claimed that he alone was functionally qualified to rule the universal Church, that is, to rule it on the monarchic principle. 2 This designation by Leo of the Pope as "Vicar of St Peter" was new; the idea which it embodied was not. The formula chosen by Leo was the dress in which the idea of the principatus of the Roman Church was clothed.
The idea embodied in the term principatus belongs to the realm of government. And government concerned the direction and orientation of the body of Christians, that is, of the universal Church. The Church designates the corporate union of all believers in Christ, as it was so manifestly made clear in Pauline doctrine. But this doctrine also makes
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1. The term "fungimur" may be borrowed from II Cor. v. 20
2. Sermo 3, cap. 4 (we quote from the Ballerini edition in Migne, PL. liv). Cf. also Sermo 4, c. 2:
" De toto mundo unus Petrus eligitur, qui et universarum gentium vocationi et omnibus apostolis cunctisque ecclesiae patribus praeponatur; ut quamvis in populo Dei multi sacerdotes sint multique pastores, omnes tamen proprie regat Petrus, quos principaliter regit et Christus."
it clear that this body, the unum corpus, is not merely a pneumatic or sacramental or spiritual body, but also an organic, concrete and earthy society. This dual nature of the corpus Christi is of fundamental importance: 1 the element, however, which brings this concrete body into existence, which makes the union a corporate entity, is the spiritual element of the Christian faith: this element alone gives this body its complexion. As a body the corpus Christi is in need of direction and orientation: although the many constitute this unum corpus, not all have the same functions within it. There are gradations of functions within this body; and one of these functions concerns the actual government of this Christian society, called the universal Church, so as to bring its underlying purpose, its "finis" or "telos" to fruition. The presupposition for this is unity of the body, and unity will be achieved by the dovetailing of the various functions or offices so as to make the body an integrated whole.
The government of this Christian body, 2 like that of any other society, necessitates authoritative guidance and recognition of this authority by the governed. As we have said, the constitutive element of this Christian corpus was the spiritual-sacramental one; being constitutive, it is also determinative for the selection of those of its members who are particularly fitted or qualified to lead or to guide it. The authoritative element manifesting itself in the direction and orientation of the corpus is the result of what came later to be called ordination. 3 And through ordination the most important distinction is drawn be-
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1. In early philosophic theory this dualism (spiritual -- corporeal) is also applied to God Himself, cf., e.g., Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, c. vii: " Quis enim negaverit, Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie." (Quoted from Ueberweg-Geyer, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 12th ed., Basel, 1951, p. 51.)
2. The terminology which was applied to this body, varied: it was called " communio" or " koinonia " or " societas " or " unitas "; for this see L. Herding, "Communio und Primat" in Xenia Piana, 1943, pp. 3ff. But cf. also P. Batiffol, Cathedra Petri: Etudes d'histoire ancienne de l'église, Paris 1938, p. 203, who speaks of a "fellowship." This corpus could be, and was, conceived as a juristic entity and as such it was to play in later hierocratic thought a crucial role. Cf., e.g., the second-century Roman jurist Pomponius distinguishing between three kinds of corpora : " Tertium (corpus) quod ex distantibus constat, ut corpora plura non soluta, sed uni nomini subjecta, veluti populus, legio, grex, " Dig. 41.3.30 pr. On the juristic transformation of the Pauline idea of the corpus cf. M. Roberti, " Il corpus mysticum di S. Paolo nella storia della persona giuridica " in Studi in onore di Enrico Besta, Milan, 1939, iv. 37-82; here also further literature. Cf. now also A. Ehrhardt, " Das Corpus Christi und die Korporation im spät-röm. Recht " in Sav. Z. Rom. Abt. , lxx ( 1953), 299-347. The great work of O. Gierke is still fundamental
3. For this see especially L. Herding, art. cit., pp. 24-6.
tween the members constituting the unum corpus, that between the lay and sacerdotal members. 1 The members of the Church are divided into categories according to their functions: there are certain functionsand they are the important ones considering the nature of the corpus -for the fulfilment of which unordained members are not qualified; they do not possess the necessary functional qualifications. Although "we are one body in Christ", "all members have not the same office". On the model of the easily available Roman terminology, the ordained members are said to form an ordo. 2 This designation of ordo will also later be applied to the unordained members of the corpus, so that the ordo laicalis and the ordo sacerdotalis will form the ecclesia.
The form of government was monarchic. Only in the monarchic form could be found the guarantee of unity: only the leadership provided by one sole authority was considered adequate to prevent disunity and schism. Whilst there is sufficient evidence to warrant the confident assertion that the Bishop of Rome exercised an authoritative position, that is, acted within the monarchic frame of government from early times onwards, the theoretical exposition of his authoritative function followed considerably later: the theoretical exposition presupposed the realization and clarification of the primatial position of St Peter himself. 3 Since the Roman Church was held to be the "cathedra Petri", the "primatus Petri" could then be applied to the Pope as St. Peter's successor.
It may be recalled that towards the end of the second century, Irenaeus wrote that the Roman Church had principalitas over the other churches. This principalitas of the Roman Church in course of time
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1. The distinction is already referred to in the letter of (Pope) Clement to the Corinthians: the hieroi and the laikoi (cap. 40: F. X. Funk, Patres apostol. , ed. K. Bihlmayer, 1924, i. 47).
It is not without significance that the distinction was drawn on the occasion of a constitutional conflict, see E. Kohlmeyer, "Charisma oder Recht" in Sav. Z., ken. Abt. , xxxviii ( 1952), p. 31. This Clement letter is usually taken as the first clear manifestation of Roman primatial authority. Against this see Dom R. van Cauwelaert, " L'intervention de l'église de Rome á Corinthe " in RHE., xxxi ( 1935), pp. 267 ff., especially pp. 282 ff. Cf. p. 305: "Analysant le text luimême de la Ia Clementis nous n'y avons trouvé aucune affirmation explicite des droits du siège romain. L'autoritè sur laquelle elle déclare s'appuyer, et le style de sa composition n'impliquent pas davantage un appel è la primauté." Cf. also idem, ibid., pp. 765 ff. But see now G. Bardy in DHE. xii. 1092.
2. See Tertullian. De exhortatione castitatis, cap. 7 ( C. Mirbt, Quellen ?ur Geschichte des Papsttums, Tübingen, 4th ed., 1924, no. 56, p. 25): " Differentiam inter ordinem et plebem constituit ecclesiae auctoritas, et honor per ordinis concessum sanctificatus. " Cf. also L. Eisenhofer, Grundriss der Liturgik, 5th ed. by L. Freiburg Lechner, 1950, pp. 277, 278; here also further literature.
3. Matt. xvi. 18; John, xxi. 15.
gave way to the thoroughly Roman political formula of the principatus apostolicae sedis. The term "apostolica sedes" was applied to the Roman Church alone and excluded the other apostolic cities: this one Church claimed jurisdictional, that is, supreme governmental powers. Now the time and the occasion of the coining of the term "apostolica sedes" is not without significance. 1 It was used as a reply to Constantinople's pretensions expressed as they were in the third canon of Constantinople (381) according to which Constantinople, because it was New Rome, claimed to rank immediately after (Old) Rome. 2 The Roman synod held the year after (382) confronted this Eastern claim with the argument firstly, that the Roman Church was not founded by a synodal decree; secondly, that the Roman Church owed its primatial position to the commission given to St Peter by Christ; and thirdly, that, unique amongst all churches, the Roman Church was founded by two apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, whilst Constantinople had no warranty for claiming apostolic foundation. 3
The important point is therefore the "double apostolicity" of the Roman Church which therefrom derives jurisdictional and magisterial primacy. Being founded by two apostles, the Roman Church was held to be the "exordium" of all Christian religion. 4 It was not merely the
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1. It was first coined by Pope Damasus in 378, see P. Batiffol, " Papa, sedes apostolica, apostolatus " in Rivista di archeologia cristiana, ii ( 1925), pp. 99-116; idem, op cit., pp. 151-68; and H. Rahner, "Navicula Petri" in Z. f kath. Theol. , lxix ( 1947), pp., 28-9.
2. Cf. now also V. Monachino, " Genesi storica del can. 28° di Calcedonia " in Gregorianum, xxxiii ( 1952), pp. 267 ff., and T. O. Martin in Chalkedon, ii ( 1953), 435 ff.
3. The (third) canon was contained in the so-called Decretum Gelasianum : PL. xiii. 374 = Pseudo-Isidore, ed. P. Hinschius, p. 635; also edited by E. Dobschütz in Texte und Untersuchungen Tur altchristlichen Literatur, xxxviii, no. 4, 1912, pp. 29-31. It runs: " Sancta tamen Romana ecclesia nullis synodicis constitutis ceteris ecclesiis praelata est, sed evangelica voce domini nostri primatum obtinuit: Tu es Petrus . . . Cui addita est etiam societas beatissimi Pauli apostoli vasis electionis, qui non diverso, sicut haeretici garriunt, sed uno tempore, uno eodemque die gloriosa morte cum Petro in urbe Roma sub Caesare Nerone agonizans coronatus est, et pariter supradictam sanctam Romanam ecclesiam. Christo domino consecraverunt talesque omnibus urbibus in universo mundo sua praesentia atque venerando triumpho praetulerunt. Est ergo prima Petri apostoli sedes Romana ecclesia non habens maculam neque rugam nec aliquid huiusmodi." For the historical background cf. also E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, Tübingen, 1930, i. 241 ff., esp. 247 ff.For the Decretum Gelasianum idem, ibid., 598 and H. Leclercq in DAC. vi. 722-47.
4. Cf., for example, the " Oratio " in the Missale Romanum, ad 29 June: " Deus, qui hodiernam diem apostolorum tuorum Petri et Pauli martyrio consecrasti . . . per quos religionis sumpsit exordium. " In the first decretal issued by the Papacy (385 by Siricius, cf. infra p. 7, 12)this double apostolicity is skillfully blended for
centre therefore, but also the epitome 1 of all Christianity: all Christianity and hence also all ecclesiastical life was in a concentrated, epitomized form in the Roman Church. From this doubly apostolic foundation, 2 from the Roman Church, all religious and ecclesiastical life emanated: [Catholic] Christianity was diffused throughout the world from that doubly apostolic city. 3 From the point of view of the corporate nature of the Christian body, of the universal Church, the fruitfulness of this idea can hardly be exaggerated: all Christian life was to flow downwards from the head of the body. 4 The corporate union was ruled monarchically by the head: the metaphorical application of the caput-membra relationship, suggested in Pauline doctrine, was to prove
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legislative purposes. St Paul's statement (II Cor. xi. 28) that on him "the care of all the churches" rests, is applied to the Pope (" nos . . . quibus praecipue secundum Paulum instantia quotidiana et sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum indesinenter incumbit " decr. cit.) in whom St Peter carries the burden of all: " Portamus onera omnium, qui graventur: quinimo haec portat in nobis beatus apostolus Petrus, qui nos in omnibus, ut confidimus, administrationis suae protegit et tuetur haeredes ". It was for the first time that the two statements were made and they were made in the first decretal issued by the Papacy. The Pauline statement together with Matt. xvi. 18 was from now on to form the backbone of the thousands of decretals coming forth from the Roman chancery. About the "heirs" cf. infra p. 8 n. 4.
1. Due consideration should, in this context, be given to the terms used by second-century Roman jurists who operated with Ciceronian phraseology: Rome was the fatherland of all. Cf., e.g., Modestinus : " Roma communis nostra patria est " (Dig. 50.1.33; cf. idem, Dig. 27.1.6 (II)); cf. also Callistratus : " Roma omnium est patria " (Dig. 48.22.19). See Cicero, De lege agraria, ii. 86: " Contra hanc Romam, communem patriam omnium nostrum. " Cf. also De oratore, i. 196: " Patria parens omnium. nostrum. "
2. The late E. Eichmann, " Weihe und Krönung des Papstes im Mittelalter " (ed. Kl. Mörsdorf , in Münchener Theologische Studien, 1951), pp. 49-55, refers also to the designation of John VIII as " vicarius ipsorum " (i.e. Petri et Pauli ) and to the fact that the pallium was worn " ad honorem b. apostolorum Petri et Pauli. " The appeal of Gregory VII to the two apostles is too well known to need any comment. In later times this double apostolicity was, as Eichmann points out, also of great symbolic importance on the occasion of the Pope's coronation. During the coronation ceremony the Pope had to take physical possession of the two curule chairs which designated the chairs of St Peter and St Paul. According to OR. XII, the Pope took physical possession of these two chairs by half sitting (or lying) on them. See OR. XII, PL. lxxviii. 1098, no. 79: " Qui siquidem electus in illis duabus sedibus sic sedere debet, ac si videatur inter duos lectulos jacere, id est, ut accumbat inter principis apostolorum primatum Petri, et Pauli doctoris gentium praedicationem. "
3. See again canon iii of the Roman synod of 382: "Universae per orbem catholicae difusae ecclesiae" . Cf. also Boniface I infra p. 7.
4. A contemporary similar point of view can be found in the so-called "Ambrosiaster", cf. E. Caspar, op. cit., i. 243-4. On the work itself see the comprehensive study of C. Martini, Ambrosiaster, Rome, 1944. See also Leo himself, Ep. 78: " Ut ab ipso quodam capite dona sua velut in corpus omne diffunderet. "
extraordinarily valuable in later times, 1 expressing as it did the intimate, organic wholeness of the body. 2
Naturally, for governmental purposes the jurisdictional aspect of the Roman primacy deserved greater emphasis and was therefore always in the foreground. Hence it was that Boniface I in 422 joined the idea of principatus to that of the apostolica sedes :
Ideo tenet sedes apostolica principatum ut quaerelas omnium licenter acceptet. 3
The regimen of the whole Church lay in the Church of Rome, because constitutionally the universal Church was founded upon the Petrine commission. 4 This monarchic form of government was given its permanent theoretical fixation by Leo I.
Leo's vertical theory corresponded to the facts: the horizontal theory of Cyprian belonged to the realm of speculation: it neither corresponded to the facts nor to the exigencies of government. 5 The great theoretical advance made by Leo I lay in that according to him Christ gave the power of the keys and the power to bind and to loose to St Peter alone: it was a personal commission. 6 St. Peter handed this jurisdictional power on to the other apostles. Hence the Pope as the successor of St. Peter hands this same jurisdictional power on to the bishops: thereby the whole ecclesiastical organization and that of all [Catholic] Christian life was to hang on the personal commission to St Peter; moreover, and that is the really important point, whilst as regards dignity there was no difference at all between Pope and bishops -- both had the same potestas ordinis - by virtue of this Petrine commission there was now seen to have been
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1. For the late fourth century see, for instance, Siricius, the immediate successor of Damasus, Ep. 1, cap. 15 (PL. xiii. 1132): " Ad Romanam ecclesiam, utpote ad caput tui corporis . . . " The successor of Siricius, Anastasius I, to the bishop of Jerusalem, PL. xxi. 628, cap. 3: " Partes corporis mei per spatia diversa terrarum . . . " For Leo I see Ep. 10, cap. 1 and in many other places.
2. See Siricius, loc. cit., cap. 7, applying the Pauline statement ( II Cor. xi. 29): " Quis enim infirmatur, et ego non infirmor? Quis scandalizatur, et non uror? "
3. Migne, PL. xx. 778.
4. Ibid.: " Institutio universalis nascentis ecclesiae de b.Petri sumpsit honore principium, in quo regimen eius et summa consistit . . . hanc ergo (scil. sedem) ecclesiis toto orbe diffusis velut caput suorurn certum est esse membrorum. "
5. See especially L. Hertling, art. cit., pp. 24-5, 39.
6. For a most recent and trenchant exposition of Leo's theory see H. M. Klinkenberg , "Papsttum & Reichskirche" in Sav. Z., kan. Abt. , xxxviii ( 1952), pp. 37 ff., esp. 42 ff. See Sermo 4, cap. 3: " Firmitas, quae per Christum Petro tribuitur, per Petrum apostolis conferatur. " Cf. before St Leo Ambrose: " Tollit ergo Petrus aurem. Quare Petrus? Quia ipse est, qui accepit claves regni coelorum, " Expos. Ev. Lucae, x. 67 in CSEL. xxxii. 481. Innocent I :" Per quem (Petrum) apostolatus et episcopatus in Christo coepit exordium " (PL. xx. 470).
created a true hierarchical ordering: supreme jurisdictional power -the potestas regendi -- rests with the Pope as the sole successor of St. Peter -- the bishops receive jurisdictional power from the Pope. Perhaps nothing expresses the jurisdictional, that is, governmental supremacy and the intimate organic nature of the Christian body corporate better than Leo's statement that a Papal vicar was called upon to share in the Pope's government, but not in the Pope's plenitude of power. 1 Since the lower ecclesiastical officers share in the Pope's government and have to perform delegated functions, they must be suitably qualified for the office. This is the principle of suitability or idoneity 2 which is to play a major part in later hierocratic doctrine.
Only on this fertile basis could the governmental principle of functional qualification come to its fruition. The Pope alone was vicar of St. Peter -- "cuius vice fungimur " -- and thereby the clearest possible line of demarcation was drawn between him and the bishops; thereby also, in the clearest possible manner, the supremacy of the Pope was demonstrated: he alone distributes jurisdictional power to the other bishops, for there is a discretio Potestatis. Because he is bishop of the same see that was Peter's, the "apostolica sedes", he succeeds St. Peter; and since St. Peter was made "prince of the whole Church" -- "quem totius ecclesiae principem fecit " 3 -- so is he now prince of the Church. He literally continues St. Peter who speaks through the mouth of the Pope. 4 Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that St. Peter was conceived as the prince of the apostles, and it will be some time before this
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1. Leo, Ep. 14, cap. 1: " Vices enim nostras ita tuae credidimus caritati, ut in partem sis vocatus sollicitudinis, non in plenitudinem potestatis. " On the dedevelopment of this principle see J. Rivière, " In partem sollicitudinis: évolution d'une formule pontificale " in Revue des sciences refigieuses, v ( 1925), pp. 210-31.
2. Leo, Ep. 12, c. 1: " Merito b. patrum venerabiles sanctiones, cum de sacerdotum electione loquerentur, cos demum idoneos sacris administrationibus censuerunt, quorum omnis aetas . . . ne in aliquo apostolica et canonica decreta violentur, et his ecclesia Domini regenda credatur, qui legitimarum institutionurn nescii . . . cum valde iniquum sit et absurdum, ut imperiti magistris, novi antiquis et rudes praeferantur emeritis. "
3. Sermo 4, cap. 4.
4. Sermo, 3, cap. 2: " Non de nobis, sed illo praesumimus, qui operator in nobis. " Several times Leo designated himself as "heir" of St Peter, e.g., Sermo 2, cap. 2, Sermo 5, cap. 4; Sermo 3, cap. 4: " Indignus haeres. " Heirship means identity with the deceased, in so far as the heir continues the deceased person as a juristic person. On this characteristic Roman law conception see K. D. Schmidt, "Papa: Petrus ipse" in Z. f. Kirchengeschichte, liv ( 1935), pp. 271-6. Cf. e.g., Dig. 41, 3, 15 pr. (Paulus): " Nam haereditatem in quibusdam vice personae fungi receptum est "; Dig. 46, 1, 22 (Florentinus): " Haereditas vice personae fungitur "; Dig. 28, 5, 31 (1) (Gaius): the inheritance " defuncti locum obtinere "; Dig. 11, 1, 15
commission of powers will be understood to signify St Peter's vicariate of Christ. 1
The sum total of jurisdictional powers entrusted to St Peter was conceived as a principatus. 2 Consequently, the Pope too had the principatus. The Innocentian "auctoritas" appeared now in the Leonine principatus. 3 Because the Pope occupies the "apostolica sedes" he inherits St Peter principatus. The term is the political expression of the jurisdictional primacy of the Roman Church within the Christian corpus, the "mundus". 4
Nevertheless, whilst Leo I was so anxious to establish the principatus there is every indication that his contemporary emperors sensed the inherent danger that lay in the idea enshrined in the term principatus. The papal anxiety to apply the principatus to the "apostolica sedes" was paralleled by the imperial anxiety to withhold this meaningful designation from the Roman Church. 5 Indeed, the imperial and Papal points of view are wholly understandable. The Empire had become Christian in every respect: from the Papal point of view this entity could very well be considered as the corporate union of Christians, as the corpus of Christians -- who, because they were Christians, had to be ruled by the successor of St. Peter; for from the "apostolica sedes" alone [Catholic] Christianity took its visible origin. On the other hand, quite apart from the prevalence of the old conception, namely that the emperor was also the
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(Pomponius): " Haereditas domini loco habetur. " All these jurists belonged to the second century A.D. The juristic contents of Leo's statements and conceptions have also struck Klinkenberg, art. cit., pp. 58, 59 (" juristische Denkweise des Papstes "): An Stelle der Spekulation setzt Leo in juristischer Methode die wie einen Gesetzestext behandelte heilige Schrift . . . römische Jurisprudenz gegen griechische Metaphysik. "
1. In this context the sagacious observations of Herding concerning the evolution of a thesis should be heeded, art. cit., pp. 26, 39-42.
2. Ep. 9, preface: " A domino acceperit principatum. "
3. Innocent I, PL. xx. 582, cap. 1.
4. Cf. P. Batiffol, op. cit., p. 86: " L'église romaine a un principatus sur toutes les églises du monde entier et elle tient ce principatus de Pierre prince des apôtres . . . nous venons de voir le mot principatus s'introduire dans le langue ecclésiastique au V e siècle, et servir è designer le primatus de Pierre entre les apôtres, mais là aussi la souveraineté qui s'attache à l'autorité du siège de Rome, et tout de suite ce principatus du siège de Rome s'avère analogue à celui de l'empereur. "
5. For instance, in the famous decree of Valentinian III ( 8 July 445) the term principatus is studiously avoided; instead, the decree speaks of the " primatus sedis apostolicae. " Further examples in Batiffol, op. cit., pp. 86 ff., who remarks, p. 89: " Le style de la chancellerie impériale, soit à Ravenne, soit à Constantinople, se gardait de qualifier de principatus l'autorité de l'évêque de Rome. Le terme de principatus était apparemment reservé pour designer la souveraineté; impériale. "
chief priest 1 and the jus sacrum part of public law the very idea of a Papal principatus was to stir up the emperor's monarchic instincts. Again, Christianity had established itself as a most potent factor in cementing the Empire since it had become the official religion of the Empire. 2 It would be idle to ponder on the force of coherence which Christianity imparted to the Empire. From the governmental point of view of the imperial monarch, the control of this force as well as of the sacerdotal body was essential. Hence the development of Caesaro-Papism in the second half of the fifth century, which reached its clear outward manifestation in the Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno.
On the other hand, the Caesaro-Papist tendencies of the emperors were not hidden from the Papacy. The signs of the times were unmistakable. The Council of Chalcedon (451) decreed for the See of Constantinople a rank equal to that of Rome, 3 the reason being that Constantinople was New Rome, because, in other words, it was the residence of the emperor. The year before Chalcedon the Pope was addressed as "Patriarch" by the emperor, that is, he was considered an equal of the bishop of Constantinople. 4 The imperially decreed depositions of Flavian, the bishop of Constantinople, and of a number of other prominent bishops, were ominous warnings. The fixation of the Roman-Petrine governmental function of the Pope by Leo was in the
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1. The Council of Chalcedon greeted the emperor (Marcian) as "sacerdos im+00AD perator" whilst Theodosius II was greeted at the Council of Constantinople (448) as ????e?e?`? ßas??e?´? cf. also Caspar, op. cit., i. 467-8, and infra p. 16.
2. In this context particular importance should be attached to the edict of the emperors of 27 February 380 ( Cunctos populos: Cod. Theod. XVI. i. 2 = Cod. Just. I. i. 1) that all the peoples must accept the religion " quam divinum Petrum apostolum tradidisse Romanis religio usque nunc ab ipso insinuata declarat . . . hanc legem sequentes Christianorum catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti, reliquos vero dementes vesanosque judicantes, heretici dogmatis infamiam sustinere. " Cf. the excellent characterization of this important document by H. Rahner , Abendländische Kirchenfreiheit, Einsiedeln, 1943, pp. 104-5: the document marks the beginning of a new period, that of the " imperiale Reichskirche, in der das letzte Wort der himmlisch erleuchtete Kaiser zu sprechen hat. "
3 For the historical background see Monachino, art. cit., pp. 261-91. E. Herman in Chalkedon, ii ( 1953), 463ff; and A. Michel, ibid., 497 ff.
4 Cf. in this context the letter of Theodosius II in Leo's correspondence (Ep. 62, col. 875). On the letter itself see Batiffol, op. cit., p. 251, note 2, and Caspar, op. cit., i. 500, ii. 747-8. In the same year the first imperial coronation by the patriarch was performed, see P. Charanis, "Coronation . . . in the later Roman empire" in Byzrantion, xv ( 1941), p. 52. Against this see W. Ensslin, " Zur Frage nach der ersten Kaiserkrönung durch den Patriarchen " in Byzantinische Z., xlii ( 1949), pp. 101-15, also 369-72, holding that the patriarch did not crown the emperor until 457 (Emperor Leo I). The coronation had no constitutive effects.
last resort aimed against the emperor. 1 Who -- that was the basic problem -- was to govern, that is, to direct and orientate the corporate union of Christians -- the emperor, because he was emperor, or the Pope because he was successor of St. Peter? Who was to lay down faith and doctrine, 2 who was to make "statuta" for the Christian body corporate, who was to control the sacerdotal organism effectively? We must not, if we wish to be just, forget the overriding consideration of the Papacy that the leadership of this union of Christians, of the universal Church, 3 ought to be in Papal hands. The emperors, on the other hand, viewed this same entity as the Roman body politic, as a mere empire, within which Christianity was indeed of paramount importance and for this very reason demanded imperial control. If we keep in mind that Christianity seizes the whole of man and cannot, by its very nature, be confined to certain departmental limits; that Christianity is a force that makes man "a new creature" 4 -- "catholica fides quae humanum genus sola vivificat " as Leo had it; 5 that Christianity demands the whole, and not part, of man, we shall perhaps grasp the intrinsic force of Papal ideology and the strength of imperial resistance. In brief, who was functionally qualified to define the doctrine, purpose and aim underlying the corporate union of all Christians, to direct that body according to its underlying purpose and aim -- emperor or Pope?
The abstract principles of faith must be enunciated, and they can be enunciated only by those who are qualified. 6 And the translation of these
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1. See Klinkenberg, art. cit., p. 47: " In letzter Konsequenz Wendung gegen den die Kirche lenkenden Kaiser. " Hence also Leo's opposition to councils, pp. 53, 88, 94, 107. The resemblance between papal and imperial aversions from councils is indeed striking. On the Henoticon see infra p. 15.
2. We should not forget in this context the importance of imperial legislation (378) by Valentinian and Gratian: the imperial courts were to try heresy, but the important point is the criterion which makes conduct heretical and hence criminal. The distinction is that between adjective (procedural) law -- the criminal trial -and substantive law, the crime itself. Cf. Cod. Theod. XVI. v, 5 = Cod. Just. I. v. 2: the criterion is deviation "a judicio catholicae religionis." In the same year the Roman synod under Damasus requested the emperor's help against those who had been condemned by Damasus, so that the emperor should receive his reward on the Day of Judgment, Mansi, iii. 626, c. 10.
3. The "totum ecclesiae corpus": Sermo 4, C.2, also Ep. 14; the "universitas" which is the "populus Dei": Sermo 3, C. 2; who is to be the "rector" of this "corpus"? Sermo 4, c. 1. These Leonine expressions on the corporate wholeness of the Church (including priesthood and laity) could easily be multiplied.
4. Gal. vi. 15.
5. Leo, Ep. 162.
6. Leo, Ep. 164: " verae fidei sufficit, quis doceat. " The biblical basis of these views was Pauline; cf. Rom. i. 17: " Justus ex fide vivit "; cf. also Gal. iii. 11; Hebr. x. 38.
abstract principles into practice so as to shape the actual mode of living by Christians, into concrete measures and terms is government; this too can be undertaken only by those who are qualified by virtue of their functions. The presupposition for the formulation of doctrine and of its translation into practice is functional qualification: under this presupposition the "civitas Dei" which is built on the rock, will be erected. 1 We must bear in mind that the corpus of Christians is not merely a pneumatic or spiritual body, but at the same time also a concrete, visible, entity. Its organization is indispensable to the realization of its underlying purpose. Hence, in the Christian corpus the administration of the temporal things should be undertaken, in order to bring about the realization of the purpose of the corpus. For this corpus is a living entity made up of living and acting men: their actions must be controlled -- they must be guided. 2 And guidance to be effective can be undertaken only within the limits and terms of the law which by its very nature relates to human actions and conduct: they must fulfil a certain purpose, hence must be guided. 3 But this is nothing else but government, hence the emphatic insistence of the Papacy on the principatus apostolicae sedis 4 and on the binding character of its laws, that is, of its "statuta" or "canones" or "decretalia constituta". 5
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1. Leo in Ep. 162: " . . . vivificat, sola sanctificat, in una confessione permaneat et dissensiones . . . a soliditate illius petrae supra quam civitas Dei aedificatur, abigantur. " On the Augustinianism of this letter see Klinkenberg, art. cit., p. 104, note 149. A direct quotation from St Augustine is also in Ep. 165, c. 5.
2. This is why the terms "gubernatio", "gubernator" and the like, come so readily to the pen of Popes; cf. e.g., Leo I, Sermo 3, cap. 3 ("gubernacula") or Simplicius, Ep. 21 pr. (in A. Thiel, Epp. Rom. pont. genuinae, p. 213: "gubernator"); or Felix III, Ep. 2, c. 7 ( Thiel, p. 237: "gubernatio"). For many other examples see H. Rahner in Z. f. kath. Theol, lxix ( 1947), pp. 5 ff.; cf. also Innocent I , ibid., p. 29, and the passage quoted from the Sacramentarium Leonianum (p. 9): " gubernacula apostolicae sedis. " In parenthesis we may note that the Sacramentarium Rossianum, sub no. 345, contains the same terminology as regards the prayer for a dead Pope (p. 181, of the ed. by J. Brinktrine, in suppl. vol. xxv, 1930, of Römische Quartalschrift ). On the emperors as "gubernatores" see infra p. 107n. 1.
3. Cf. Leo Sermo 3, cap. 2. See also Siricius in his decretal, cap. 7: " Ubi poterit nisi in corporibus, sicut legimus, sanctis sanctus Dei spiritus habitare? "
4. The juristic elements in the papal statements of this period would need close analysis, especially of Leo I and Gelasius I. For the latter cf. E. J. Jonkers, "Pope Gelasius and the civil law" in Rev. d'hist. du droit, xx ( 1952), pp. 335 ff.
5. The important point of the first decretal of the Papacy is that it resulted from the constitutionally influential pontificate of Damasus. Sent to Spain, this first decretal is a formidable document dealing with fifteen major items and is appropriately called a "decretale opusculum" by Isidore of Seville, De viris illustribus, cap. xvi (PL. lxxxiii. 1092). The species "decretal" is the form in which the monarchic-papal legislative will is expressed. It is true law and as such had a sanction
But precisely because law was the effluence. of the Papal claim to principatus, the emperors, from their monarchic point of view, were bound to oppose this claim. Their Caesaro-Papism was a reaction: it was their emphatic insistence on the monarchic principle, to be executed even in a Christian body corporate. The entity under their rule was the Roman empire to be governed only by the emperors: it was their laws by which the human actions of their subjects were to be guided, not the Papacy's.
What, then, according to Papal theory, was the role, the function, of the emperor in this corporate union of Christians? How was he to fit into the scheme of things obtaining in the Christian world? Was there in fact still room for a monarch's rule on the model of olden times, on the model of the ????e?e?`? ßas??e?´?, on the pattern of the RexSacerdos? In the preceding century St Ambrose had already pointed to the emperor's role: he was the son, not the master of the universal Church. "Imperator enim intra ecclesiam, non supra ecclesiam est." 1 Leo I himself was to give the cue to later Papal generations when, with great and characteristically Roman pathos, he wrote to the emperor (Marcian): the Christian corpus was founded on the Petrine commission and as a member of this corpus the emperor's function is its protection. 2 The regia potestas was conferred on the emperor specially -- "maxime" -- for the sake of guarding the Church, for the sake of protecting the
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attached to it (cap. 7 decr. cit.), quite apart from such expressions characteristic of a legislator, "We decide", "We judge", "We provide", etc. The decretal in general is a responsum or a rescript to queries submitted to the Pope; cf. Siricius's decretal: " Ad tua consulta rescripsimus . . . " The Pope answers these queries and thereby creates new law emanating from the caput ecclesiae, and for this reason generally valid for the universal Church. In the form, namely in that of a responsum or rescriptum, the decretal follows closely the responsa of earlier Roman times ( responsa pontificum ) and the rescripts of the emperors, on which see F. Schulz , History of Roman legal science, Oxford, 1946, pp. 16-17, 152, 154. The imperial rescript also took the form of an epistola. Many features are common to both the decretal ( decretalis epistola ) of the Pope, and the rescript of the emperor. And just as later collections of decretals were made, so were collections of imperial rescripts made, for instance, the Decretorum Libri Tres, cf. Schulz, op. cit., pp. 144-5, 154, 240.
1. Ep. 21, cap. 36 (PL. xvi. 1007).
2. See Leo's Ep. 156, cc. 3-5. To all seeming Leo I was the first Pope who introduced the figure of Melchisedek into papal literature, see his Sermo 3, cap. 2, Sermo 5, cap. 3, also Sermo 4, cap. 1. On other Augustinian influences see supra p. 12. Melchisedek was the prototype of the priestly king, combining regal and sacerdotal powers. Christ was Melchisedek, cf. Leo Sermones cit. ; on Gelasius infra p. 23. For the whole question see G. Martini, "Regale sacerdotium" in Archivio della R. deputazione di storia patria, lxi ( 1938), pp. 1-106. Cf. also Jud. 25: Christ alone had imperium and potestas.
corporate union of Christians. 1 What Leo does is to impress upon the emperor his raison d'être within the corporate union of Christians, the "finis" or "telos" of his rulership. 2 In the plan of salvation the Christian emperor is allotted a definite role. 3 For the sake of bringing the Christian principles of life to fruitful realization, God had granted the emperor the administration of mundane things, 4 and naturally the temporal things should be administered with this purpose of assisting the divine plan in view. 5 According to the papal point of view, then, the Christian corpus was to be directed and governed by those functionally qualified, 6 not by an emperor.
II
The emergence, in the second half of the fifth century, of caesaropapism, the regal-sacerdotal system, understandable though it is, peremptorily demanded from the Papacy a theoretical clarification of the function, the raison d'être, and the standing of the emperor within
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1. Ep. 156, cap. 3 (to the emperor): " Debes incunctanter advertere regiam potestatem tibi non solum mundi regimen, sed maxime ad ecclesiae praesidium esse collatam. " Cf. also E. Herman, art. cit., pp. 459 ff.
2. Cf. the same teleological argumentation in Ep. 104, in which the Pope appreciatively speaks of the emperor's efforts to quell heresy, but at the same time underlines the emperor's function as an assistant in the Pope's task: through your zeal, he writes to the emperor, the most pernicious error is quelled: " ut labor noster citius ad desideratum pervenisset effectum. "
3. See Ep. 156, c. 3.
4. See Ep. 142, C. 2 to Emperor Marcian: " . . . fidei Christianae, ob quam justus et misericors Deus tribuit ut vobis sicut divina sunt chara, ita sint mundana subjecta. " The idea of protection combined with the metaphor of the "mater-filius" relationship is the theme of Ep. 164, c. 1. That the teleological considerations expressed in this and in many other letters, were Augustinian, seems beyond doubt. Whether the first historical work written on a teleological basis, that of Orosius, was known to Leo, is doubtful. About St Augustine's teleological view on Rome and the empire, cf. e.g., E. Lewalter, " Eschatologie und Weltgeschichte in der Gedankenwelt Augustins " in Z. f. Kirchengeschichte, liii ( 1934), pp. 1-51; Kaarlo Jäntere, Die römische Weltreichsidee, Turku, 1936 (Annales Universitatis Turkuensis, series B, vol. xxi), pp. 128-42; W. Kamlah, Christentum und Geschichtlichkeit, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1951, pp. 302 ff.; but cf. also G. Combès, La doctrine politique de saint Augustin, Paris, 1927, pp. 207-28. About Orosius and his views on the empire, namely, that it was created by God in order to prepare the advent of Christ, see E. Frauenholz, " Imperator Octavianus Augustus in der Geschichte und Sage des MA. " in Hist. Jb. , xlvi ( 1926), pp. 90-4, and I. W. Raymond , Seven books of history against the pagans, New York, 1936, pp. 9 ff. (here also a translation of Orosius).
5. See Ep. 162, C. 1, and Sermo 82. For further details cf. K. Jäntere, op. cit., pp. 157-62.
6. Sermo 3 c. 2: " rectores ecclesia accipit, quos sanctus spiritus praparavit. " (Ordination.)
the corporate union of Christians, that is, within the Church. This theoretical clarification was undertaken by Gelasius I, first as the draftsman of Felix III's letters, and then as Pope. 1 Indeed, it was Gelasius "qui a consacré le mot principatus" . 2
Sedes apostolica, quae Christo domino delegante totius ecclesiae retinet principaturn. 3
The whole corporate body of Christians -- "toturn corpus ecclesiae" -has its principatus in the Roman Church. 4 Gelasius is convinced that every Christian, whether lay or clerical, knows this. 5 And yet, the Roman Church, despite its claim to the principatus over the whole Christian body, was expected to announce the election of a new Pope -- to the patriarch of Constantinople, for which omission Gelasius, newly elected, was taken to task by the Patriarch Euphemios 6 as well as by the emperor himself. 7 The Roman Church claimed the principatus over the Christiana societas ; 8 the patriarch of Constantinople on the way to becoming imperial Pope -- it was precisely at this time that the patriarch adopted the title "ecumenical patriarch" 9 -- and the emperor issuing his Henoticon in order to achieve religious unity in the empire: 10 indeed, a situation that could not remain static. Although out-
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1. For this see especially Hugo Koch, " Gelasius im kirchenpolitischen Dienst seiner Vorgänger Simplicius & Felix III " in SB. Munich, 1935, fasc. 6; and N. Ertl , " Dictatoren frühma. Papstbriefe " in Arch. f. Urkundenforschung, xv ( 1938), pp. 61-66.
10 The Henoticon was nothing else but a "kaiserliches Glaubensedikt," Caspar, ii. 35; its significance lies in that the emperor without a synod for the first time decrees the faith for the whole empire, and in so far it marks the beginning of caesaro-papism in the East, see Caspar, loc. cit.; this is strongly supported by
2. Batiffol, op. cit., p. 89.
3. In the council of Rome, 495, see A. Thiel, Epistolae pontiflcum Romanorum genuinae, p. 441. All Gelasian statements will be quoted from this edition.
4. Gelasius, Ep. 14, c. 9, p. 367: " . . . satisque conveniens sit, ut totum corpus ecclesiae in hac sibimet observatione concordet, quam illic vigere conspiciat ubi Dominus ecclesiae totius posuit principatum. "
5. Ep. 26, c. 3, p. 395: " ex paterna traditione perpensis confidimus, quod nullus jam veraciter Christianus ignoret . . . pro suo scilicet principatu quem beams Petrus apostolus Domini voce perceptum, ecclesia nihilominus subsequente, et tenuit semper et retinet. "
6. Ep. 3, c. 1, p. 313 considers the patriarch's remonstration as mere arrogance: " quia nimis judicaretur arrogans, si de prima sede taliter existimasset. "
7. On this see F. Dvornik, "Pope Gelasius & Emperor Anastasius" in Dölger Festschrift, Munich, 1951 (= Byzantinische Zeitschrift, xliv), p. 112.
8. Cf. Gelasius, Tractatus II, c. 8, p. 529.
9. See E. Caspar, op. cit., ii. 747. Felix III had already written to the patriarch, Acacius, in 483, Thiel, p. 237, c. 8: " Mihi crede, nescio quemadmodum te ecclesiae totius asseras principem. "
wardly the patriarch of Constantinople had to bear the brunt of the papal attack, its real target was the imperial monarch, first Zeno 1 and then his successor Anastasius. 2
Aided as they were by oriental-Hellenistic influences as well as by the old Roman ideology of the emperor's representing divinity 3 on earth and as a result of the combination of these ideas with a profound sense that they were Christian emperors, the Byzantine emperors considered themselves as the personification of the Rex-Sacerdos idea: like David or even like Christ Himself, the emperor was ßas??e?`? ?e?e?´?. He was ?só???st?? -- Christ-like -- and Autocrator: a?t???a´t?? ?aîsa?. It was due to this deification of the emperor that not only were the most difficult theological problems submitted to, and decided by, him, 4 but also that his "divinitas" 5 showed itself in governmental
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H. Rahner, Abendländische Kirchenfreiheit, p. 185. As a religious edict the Henoticon was a patchwork and aimed at appeasing the monophysites and the Chalcedonenians. Cf. also G. Ostrogorsky, Gesch. at. byz. Swates, Munich, 1940, p. 38f.
1. " Eiusdem Acacii specialis fautor et amator " as Gelasius said: Ep. 26, c. 8, p. 406.
2. Who was "condemned", although not excommunicated by name: he was "damnatus", see his own complaint as reported by Gelasius, Ep. 10, C. 2, p. 341: " Quod dixerit imperator, a nobis se irreligiose damnatum. " On the case see Caspar, op. cit., ii. 54, 73, esp. note 4.
3. The roots of this go back far into the Hellenistic times. It is known that ideas of a saviour dominated the ancient world and these ideas became inseparably bound up with the emperors themselves. Hence the acclamations of the new emperor as the saviour, the "adventus Augusti" -- and these acclamations had all the sacral appurtenances. For this see A. Alföldi, " Die Ausgestaltung des monarchischen Zeremoniells am rö'mischen Kaiserhof " in Mitteilungen des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Rom. Abt. , vol. xlix ( 1934), pp. 29, 30, 88 ff. These acclamations greeting the emperor as the saviour of the world, continued in Rome down to the late fourth century A.D. (ibid., pp. 92-3) and, of course, were noticeable at Constantinople. For this cf., for example, Liber de cerimonüs, ed. Bonn, i. 5, pp. 49-50: " Dicunt praecentores: 'Feliciter venit divina majestas.' Clamat et populus ter: 'Feliciter venistis' . . . populus cursorie dicit: 'Salve potentissime imperator, gaudium orbis, famule Dei, Romanorum felicitas . . . te divinum numen centum annos populo suo praeesse sinat' . . . 'Gaudium hodie, tranquillitas et quies ingens! Domini enim gaudium induti, ut phosphori . . . gaudeant coelestes spirituum exercitus, gaudeant copiae Romanorum, Christiani omnes, festum Deo celebraturi, simul gaudeant'. " Cf, also infra p. 35, and Lib. de cerim. , ii. 40, p. 638, according to which the patricians represent the apostles, and the emperor God Himself. " Magistri enim et patricii referunt apostolos; optimus autem imperator Deum, quatenus nempe homini Deum referre datum est. "
4. H. Rahner, op. cit., p. 181. The consolidation of the Christian religion produced reinvigorating effects upon the imperial cult, see Alföldi, op. cit., p. 35.
5. Soon after Chalcedon the Armenian bishops in their address to the emperor applied the Petrine words to him:"Christ is the head of the Church, but you are the strength and foundation of the Church" -- " vos autem robur et fundamentum
actions: he was the true monarch ruling the cosmos. 1 From this point of view it was essential that the emperors stressed their direct divine appointment and selection: and it is surely no coincidence that precisely in the second half of the fifth century this direct divine derivation of imperial powers and functions came to be so emphatically stressed. In the reiteration of this theme the fifth-century emperors obviously saw the proof of their legitimate position, 2 sanctioned as it was by the patriarch crowning them. 3
By virtue of being divinely appointed the emperors considered themselves entitled and bound, in their capacity as Christian monarchs, to rule their subjects upon the principles of Christianity, which by the second half of this century had become the most pronounced spiritual, mental and intellectual force of society. But just as unity within the empire was essential, so was unity of the faith essential for this empire which had indeed become the imperium christianum. 4 And in order to
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imitantes immobilem. Christi pertain, " quoted from Th. Schnitzler, " Im Kampf um Chalcedon " in Analecta Gregoriana, xvi ( 1938), pp. 111-12. Agapitus of Rhodes writes to the emperor:" Vere namque sacerdos et natura imperator existis, " quoted ibid., p. 112. The emperor is " semen et radix et cultura et scintilla nobis salutis inextinguibilis, " ibid. For other similar statements see Schnitzler, ibid., pp. 109 ff. Schnitzler pertinently remarks (p. 110) that these expressions might be read in a tract entitled " De infallibilitate imperatoris " : they amount to a real Kaisertheologie (p. 104).
1. ?? + ^? ?pa´s?? µ??a´????. For all details see L. R. Taylor, The divinity of the Roman emperor, New York, 1931; A. Alföldi, " Insignien & Tracht der römischen Kaiser " in Mitteilungen des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Rom. Abt., vol. 1 ( 1935), pp. 94-134; M. P. Charlesworth, "Some observations on Ruler-Cult" in Harvard Theological Review, xxviii ( 1935), pp. 28 f., 32, 35 (the emperor as " Dominus et Deus noster "); E. Eichmann, Die Kaiserkrönung im Abendlande, Würzburg, 1943, i. 12; cf. also P. Koschaker, Europa & das römische Recht, Munich, 1947, pp. 8 f. The book by Treitinger was not accessible to me.
2. On this see W. Ensslin, " Gottkaiser & Kaiser von Gottes Gnaden " in SB. Munich, 1943, fasc. 6, pp. 83 ff.
3. The imperial coronation by the patriarch was declaratory, and not constitutive. Cf. Alföldi, op. cit. ( 1935), p. 56; F. Dölger, in Gnomon, xv ( 1938), pp. 209-10 (book review); Eichmann, op. cit., i. 17-18; Ensslin, art. cit., p. 113. Apparently against this Charanis, in Byrantion, art. cit., pp. 51-2. Actually, the earliest evidence of a "coronation" is shown on the golden medallion of Emperor Constantius II which depicts him fesfooned by the hand of God reaching down from the clouds, see Alföldi, table 6, p. 55, who remarks (p. 56) that the Christian interpretation of the scene cannot be doubted: it is the christianization of a pagan allegory.
4. According to N. Baynes, " Eusebius and the Christian empire " in Atnnuaire de l'institute de philologie et d'histoire orientales, ii ( 1934), p. 13, a good deal of Byzantine state philosophy was derived from Eusebius, who is said to have stated in his oration for the celebrations of the Tricennalia of Constantine I "the political philosophy of the Christian empire, that philosophy of the state which was
preserve this unity of the faith, Zeno issued his Henoticon in which he spoke of the Catholic-apostolic Church as the indestructible and perennial mother of his rule. 1 In a way, one might speak of a transmutation of the earlier Roman pagan emperor into a Christian emperor of whose governmental ideology the Christian-religious element had become an integral part. But government demanded not only the proclamation of the correct faith by the divine majesty of the emperor, but also effective intervention in organizational and disciplinary matters, to wit, the exercise of imperial jurisdiction over clerics and appointment of clerics. The deposition of Flavian and the numerous other bishops was only a beginning: later in the century the trials of John Talaja and Calendio, the Alexandrian and Antiochian bishops, for high treason, were manifestations of this governmental activity which aimed at the preservation of the unity of the faith.
Indeed, as we have said, the situation demanded from the Papacy the clarification of the function of an emperor within the corporate union of Christians. And the clarification concerned the origin of the emperor's claim to fix faith and doctrine and to try and to appoint clerics. Was he functionally qualified -- in a Christian society -- to proceed as he did? By what authority did he proceed? Did not the whole conceptual framework of the emperor's position rest upon a profound misconception of his role, of his function, of his raison d'ûtre within the ecclesia? Of course, it was undeniable that the emperor received his rulership from God -- where else could power originate? -- but is this sufficient justification for decreeing faith and for trying those who are the special bearers of divine sacraments and gifts, namely the priests? Surely the administration of divine things, entrusted only to the ordained members, is vital in a divine community such as the one founded by Christ, the ecclesia? Through the sacraments the body of Christ as the congregation of the faithful is alive, but the transmitters of the sacraments and hence of grace are the ordained members of the corpus Christi. Moreover, this society being divinely founded by Christ, must be directed in its outward actions: the actions of Christians must
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consistently maintained throughout the millenium of Byzantine absolutism. The basis of that political philosophy is to be found in the conception of the imperial government as a terrestrial copy of the rule of God in heaven: there is one God and one divine law, therefore there must be on earth but one ruler and a single law. That ruler, the Roman emperor, is the vicegerent of the Christian God." Cf. also p. 17: "For the divine creation (which his source, Diotogenes, had maintained), Eusebius had but to substitute the kingdom of heaven."
1. See Ensslin, art. cit., p. 93: " Reichseinheit und Kircheneinheit " were " eine wesentliche pnlitische Forderung, " referring to the Henoticon, ibid., note 2.
be Christian, that is, in consonance with the teaching of Christ which is entrusted to the priests. In short, public life in the Christian society must be Christian, and public life can effectively be regulated only by the laws which in themselves are only the crystallization of non-legal principles. A Christian society can be directed only by the law that is based upon Christian principles. But is the emperor qualified to lay down those principles and to make them into law?
His function in a Christian society is to learn, not to teach -- the famous Gelasian antithesis of discere-docere -- what is (and what is not) Christian. What is Christian, however, can be laid down only by those who are qualified to pronounce upon it. The ecclesia, indeed a divine foundation, hence a divine community, 1 cannot be directed by those who are not qualified: in this Christian corpus there is nothing more important or vital than those things which belong to religion, 2 for they cause prosperity of the society as such. 3 The Christian religion is the leaven of the respublica and the preservation of the true faith is therefore in the public interest. 4 Divine things and religious matters cannot be administered or decreed upon by the emperor; he must find out what is divine from him who is qualified, 5 to wit, from him who has the principatus over the divina communitas, the Pope: he is responsible for those " quos regendos accepit (scil.Petrus). " 6 For the Pope's powers are those of St Peter himself. according to Gelasius, the Petrine commission is all comprehensive and all embracing. The "Quodcumque" of the commission 7 comprises everything without exception: everything can be bound and loosed:
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1. Gelasius, Ep. 1, c. 29, p. 303.
2. Ep. 1, C. 23, p. 299.
3. " Nulla tamen major est necessitas quam divino cultui et religioni, unde omnia prosperantur. "
4. Cf. Ep. 1, c. 33, p. 305: " Si fides catholica et communio servetur, imperator laedatur, et illis violatis, imperator non laeditur? Absit, ut hoc Christianus et catholicus imperator dicat, vel aliquis catholicus Christianus dicat debere fieri. " And before he says this: " Si fides communioque catholica servatur, dignitas sedis apostolicae minuitur, si illa violator, sedis apostolicae dignitas manet? Absit, ut hoc Christianus catholicus depromat. Si fides catholica et communio laedatur, respublica juvatur, et si illa salva sit, respublica laeditur? Absit, ut hoc Christianus et catholicus profiteatur. "
5. Ep. 10, c. 9, p. 347: " Si quantum ad religionem pertinet, non nisi apostolicae sedi juxta canones debetur summa judicii totius; si quantum ad sacculi potestatem, illa a pontificibus et praecipue a beati Petri vicario debet cognoscere, quac divina sunt, non eadem ipsa judicare. Nec sibi hoc quisquam potentissimus saeculi, qui tamen Christianus est, vindicare praesumit, nisi religionem persequens. "
6. Ep. 3, c. 16, p. 320. Cf. already Gelasius through Felix III, Ep. 15, c. 3, p. 272: " . . . in me qualicumque vicario beatus Pettus apostolus, et haec in illo, qui ecclesiam suam discerpi non patitur, ipse etiam Christus exposcit."
7. Matt. xvi. 18-19.
In "quibuscumque" omnia sunt quantacumque sint et qualiacumque sint. 1
In so far this jurisdictional power creates a "humanum judiciurn". 2 Considering the nature of Christian society, this claim of Gelasius is rather self-evident, for in a Christian society all human actions have an essentially religious ingredient.
Since the Pope alone has the principatus over the [Catholic] Christian body, the emperor, according to Gelasius, must be directed by the sacerdotium. The secular power has not only no right to issue decrees fixing the faith, since the emperor is no bishop, but he also must carry out his government according to the directions given to him by the priesthood. This is what Gelasius says:
Porro regia dignitas a sacerdotio directa diu manet. 3
Again, considering the nature and character of this Christian corpus, Gelasius's claim that the priesthood must direct royal power, is selfevident: and if the sacerdotium is disregarded, it will sap the very foundations upon which this society is built. 4
Consequently, in this Christian world, in the "mundus", 5 the secular power has a mere "potestas", whilst the principatus of the Pope
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1. Tractatus IV, c. 5, p. 562. Cf. also Gelasius through Felix III, Ep. 2, c. 7, p. 237: " Omnia, quae per apostolicae scita doctrinae ligarentur in terris, nec in coelestibus memoravit (scil. Salvator) absolvi. "> See also Gelasius himself again, Ep. 30, c. 12, p. 445: " Sicut et his verbis (scil. Quodcumque ligaveris . . .) nihil constat excepturn, sic per apostolicae dispensationis officium et toturn possit generaliter alligari, et totum consequenter absolvi. " This all comprehensive power to bind and to loose was the hallmark of hierocratic ideology. The terms used hardly varied, cf. infra p. 209, 221 n. 4; Gregory VII infra p. 277; also Innocent III: "Nihil excipiens, qui dixit 'Quodcumque' " (Extra: I. xxxiii. 6), and so forth. Anti-hierocratic writers, especially those who propagated a dual form of government, made this claim to an all-embracing power to bind and to loose the main target of their attacks; cf. infra 406. Dante's protests against it are too well known to need any comment, cf. Monarchia, iii. 3 and 8. Viewing society as the corpus Christi, this claim is nothing else but the principle of monarchic government expressed in religious terms. About the clavesjuris (the juristic transformation of the claves regni coelorum) cf. infra 437; the papal point of view was that in a Christian society every human action must needs have an essentially religious ingredient.
2. Ep. 30, c. 13, p. 446.
3. Ep. 43, c. 6, p. 478: " Etiamsi enim hic rex processit, non tamen episcopus est ordinatus. Porro . . . " as text. It is no doubt interesting that the emperor who had issued the Henoticon, was qualified as " rex ".
4. Ibid., continuing: " Sacerdotium vicissim a rege honoratum, purpurarn laetificat, sceptrum illustrat, dignitatem sanctificat; si vero injuriis afficitur, fundamenta convellit. "
To a Roman the term "mundus" was co-terminous with Roman empire.
expresses itself in the Pontifical auctoritas. 1 And this auctoritas being divinely conferred for the purpose of governing the Christian body corporate, is logically enough sacrata, whilst the emperor's power is a simple "regalis potestas". This is a thoroughly juristic terminology employed by Gelasius. Auctoritas is the faculty of shaping things creatively and in a binding manner, 2 whilst potestas is the power to execute what the auctoritas has laid down. The Roman senate had auctoritas, the Roman magistrate had potestas. 3 The antithesis between auctoritas and potestas stated already by Augustus himself, 4 shows the "outstanding charismatic political authority" which his auctoritas contained. 5 It was sacred, since everything connected with Roman emperorship was sacred 6 emanating as it did from his divinity. 7 It was therefore all the easier to transfer these characteristically Roman ideas to the function of the Pope and to his auctoritas. Whilst, however, this fundamental difference between the pontifical auctoritas and the imperial potestas was clear to anyone versed in Roman juristic terminology and ideology, Gelasius superimposed a typical Christian argument upon it: in a Roman-Christian world, the sacred Pontifical auctoritas is all the
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1. Ep. 12, c. 2, p. 351, which is the famous Duo quippe passage. The letter of Pope Symmachus to the emperor (Ep. 10, in Thiel, pp. 700-708) reads like a pointed paraphrase of Gelasius's Ep. 12.
2. One should not forget in this context the etymology: auctor and auctoritas.
3. Cf. Paulus in Dig. l, xvi. 215: " Potestatis verbo plura significantur, in persona magistratuum imperium. " See also Cicero, De Leg., iii. 3, and Ulpian, in Dig. xiv. 4. 1. 4: " Potestatis verbum ad omnem sexum, item ad omnes, qui sunt alieno juri subjecti, porrigendum erit. " Originally, the emperor title of Augustus indicates that he has received his potestas from the "senatus populusque Romanus," see V. Ehrenberg, "Monumentum Antiochenum" in Klio, xix ( 1925), pp. 203, 210.
4. " Post id tempus auctoritate omnibus praestiti, potestatis autem nihil amplius habui quam qui fuerunt mihi quoque in magistratu conlegae, " Monumentum Ancyranum, c. 34, quoted bya F. Schulz, Principles of Roman Law, Oxford, 1936, p. 182; also by A. Alföldi, op. cit., p. 74; and by E. Schönbauer, "Untersuchungen zur römischen Staats- und Wirtschaftsrecht" in Say. Z., Rom. Abt., xlvii ( 1927), pp. 264-5.
5. See Schulz, op. cit., p. 182: "By virtue of his outstanding charismatic political authority Augustus directed the popular assembly, the senate, the magistrates and finally all social life." See also E. Schönbauer, "Studien zum Personalitätsprincip im antiken Recht," in Say. Z., Rom. Abt., xlix ( 1929), p. 400: by virtue of his auctoritas the emperor becomes a p???t??ó? or a "Staatsfiihrer."
6. Cf. AlfÖldi, op. cit., pp. 70 f., and Taylor, op. cit., pp. 149 ff.; 158 ff.
7. See Schönbauer, art. cit. (note 4), p. 292. From here the way lay open to the Roman crimen laesae majestatis which was essentially a religious crime ( impietas ) and blasphemy, see Alföldi, op. cit., p. 76; also Charlesworth, art. cit., p. 33. The offence concerned a super human being, for which see Schönbauer, pp. 288 ff.
greater, as it has to render an account even for the doings of the kings themselves on the Day of Judgment. 1
Of course, the emperor has his rulership from God, 2 but it is a divine beneficium which he has received, and because it is a divine beneficium, the pontiffs have to render an account of how the emperor has administered his divine beneficium. He should not therefore show himself ungrateful for these divine favours which he received in the shape of " privilegia potestatis suae": these are indeed privileges divinely conferred. And since rulership comes from God -- an axiom which the emperors themselves were ever more anxious to stress just in that period 3 -- God's priests are particularly concerned with the emperor's exercise of the (divinely conferred) rulership: and since in a Christian society, of which the emperor through baptism is a member, every human action has a definite purpose and in so far has an essential religious ingredient, the emperors should submit their governmental actions to the ecclesiastical superiors and should not order the latter about, since they alone know what is, and what is not, divine and therefore Christian: they alone have auctoritas within a Christian body corporate:
Imperatores christiani subdere debent exsecutiones suas ecclesiasticis praesulibus, non praeferre. 4
The view behind these statements is that of the mediatory role of the priesthood and in particular of the Pope. It was in this period that the emperor was first addressed by the Popes themselves as "Son," 5 which designation is suggestive of the role of the Roman Church as the "Mother" of the emperor and the Pope as the "Father." 6 and since
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1. Ep. 12, c. 2: " Duo quippe sunt, imperator auguste, quibus principaliter mundus hic regitur, auctoritas sacrata pontificurn et regalis potestas. In quibus tanto gravius est pondus sacerdotum, quanto etiam pro ipsis regibus hominum in divino reddituri sunt examinerationem. "
2. See already Gelasius through Felix III to Zeno, Ep. 1, c. 1, p. 223: the emperor should bear in mind " et temporalis culminis et aeternae vitae commercia de superna propitiatione pendere. "
3. See supra p. 16 f. and Ensslin's numerous quotations from official titles and documents. About Eastern episcopal statements see Th. Schnitzler, op. cit., pp. 104 ff.; 109 ff.Cf. also supra p. 17.
4. Which is exactly the same thought as he expressed in Ep. 43, quoted supra p. 20.
5. Gelasius through Simplicius, Ep. 3, c. 2, p. 180: " Gloriosissime et clementissime fili imperator. " Gelasius through Felix III, Ep. 1, c. 3, p. 224: " Fili piissime. " About St Ambrose see supra p. 13 and Leo I supra p. 14.
6. The designation of the Pope alone as "Papa" becomes usual in the fifth century. For the history of the term and its Homeric origins see E. Dobschiltz Texte, cit. (supra 5 n. 3), pp. 226-32; P. Labriolle, Une esquisse de l'histoire du mot 'Papa' " in Bulletin d'ancienne litérature et d'archéologie chrétienne, i ( 1911).,
rulership, including emperorship, is a benefice divinely conferred, the function of the Pope as the one who has to render an account, is unquestionable. That emperor who recognizes this state of affairs, is entitled to call himself a "Catholic emperor": the significance of the term "Catholic emperor" is that he subordinates himself to the rulings of the priests of Christ; 1 then, he tells the emperor, " possis regnare cum Christo. " 2
We need not dwell on the ingenuity with which Gelasius turned the imperial argument of the divine derivation of imperial powers into an argument with which to establish control over the emperor. It was in fact the same imperial argument which Gelasius wished to destroy in his Tractatus IV and which gave him a further opportunity to indicate, at least in embryonic form, some other very important principles. When the contemporary emperors asserted, in practical terms, true monarchical power manifesting itself in the combination of regal and sacerdotal functions, for which Melchisedek of the Old Testament stood as a prototype, 3 this was a conception, according to Gelasius, which could not prevail within a Christian society.
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pp. 215-20; idem, "Papa" in Bulletin Du Cange, iv ( 1928), pp. 65-75; P. in Rivista di archeologia cristiana Batiffol , cit., i ( 1924), pp. 99-103; and H. Leclercq in DAC. xiii. 1097-1101. Batiffol, op. cit., pp. 263-4, draws attention to the designation of "pater patrum" which was applied to the Popes only in the sixth century. In parenthesis we may note that second-century jurists styled the emperor "pater patriae," cf. Callistratus in Dig. 48, 22, 19. The formula is still used by Gelasius's contemporary emperor (Anastasius), see infra p. 24. It seems that Caesar himself was the first who was thus hailed by M. Cato and Q. Catulus, see Th. Mommsen, History of Rome, London, 1901, iv. 483. It is curious to note that Edward Coke in Calvin's Case ( 1608) aeclared the king to be "Pater patriae," see 7 Co. Rep. la, at 13b (Engl. Rep., lxxvii. 393).
1. Ep. 1, c. 10, p. 292: " Quod si dixeris 'Sed imperator catholicus est,' salva pace ipsius dixerimus, filius est, non praesul ecclesiae, quod ad religionem competit, discere ei convenit, non docere; habet privilegia potestatis suae, quae administrandis publicis rebus divinitus consecutus est; et eius beneficiis non ingratus contra dispositionern coelestis ordinis nil usurpet. Ad sacerdotes enim Deus voluit, quae ecclesiae disponenda sunt, pertinere, non ad saeculi potestates, quas, si fideles sunt, ecclesiae suae et sacerdotibus voluit esse subjectas. Non sibi vindicet alienum jus, et ministerium, quod alteri deputaturn est, et contra illius beneficia pugnare videatur, a quo propriam consecutus est potestatem. Non legibus publicis, non a potestatibus saeculi, sed a pontificibus et sacerdotibus omnipotens Deus Christianae religionis dominos et sacerdotes voluit ordinari, et discuti recipique de errore remeantes. Imperatores christiani . . . " (as text).
2. Ep. cit., c. 4, p. 352. Cf. also Ep. 27, c. 8, p. 430: " Obsequi solere principes christianos decretis ecclesiae, non suam praeponere potestatem, episcopis caput subdere principem soliturn, non de eorum capitibus judicare. ."
3. Gen. Cf. xiv. 18: Melchisedek king of Salem and priest of the most high God. See also Ps. cix. 4; Hebr. vii. 1-2, 10, 11, 15, 21. Cf. also Jud. 25: Christ alone has imperium and potestas.
According to Gelasius, Christian emperorship originates in Christ Himself. Christ was the last Rex et Pontifex, the last Melchisedek, and by "a marvellous dispensation" He had discerned between the functions of the royal and of the sacerdotal power. Since the time of Christ no emperor had arrogated to himself the title of a Pontiff 1 and no pontiff had claimed the height of royal power, although the pontiffs were actually, through Christ's generosity and in a very special sense, both royal and priestly. 2 But Christ, "mindful of human fragility" 3 had discerned between the functions of each power: "discrevit officia potestatis utriusque." His reason for so doing was two fold. On the one hand, it is written that no one warring for God should be entangled with secular things. 4 The raison d'être of the royal power was to relieve the clerics of the burden of having to care for their carnal and material wants. For the temporal necessities the pontiffs indeed need the emperors, so that they can devote themselves to their functions properly and are not distracted by the pursuit of these carnal matters, but the emperors, Christian as they are, need the pontiffs for the achievement of eternal salvation.
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1. This is historically not true, quite apart from the pre-Constantinean emperors. Constantine himself was ??apó?t????, who addressed the bishops as his "dearest brothers" ( Mansi, ii. 477). The title "pontifex" was also kept by other Christian emperors; and, as we have seen, in the fifth century the emperors were "divine" ( cf. Ensslin, op. cit., pp. 53 ff.), and were greeted as ????e?e?`? ßa???e?´?. And, significantly enough, in the edict of the Emperors Valentinian III and Marcian concerning disputations about the faith "corarn vulgo," each of the two emperors is styled "pontifex inclytus," cf. Hardouin, Conc. coll. , ii. 659 (sub anno 452):
" Edictum Valentiniani et Marciani imperatorum quo prohibentur disputationes de fide coram vulgo: Imperatores Caesares, Flavius Valentinianus, pontifex inclytus . . . et Flavius Marcianus, pontifix inclytus . . . " (the designations are omitted in Mansi, vii. 475; the edict is partly in Cod. Just. I. i. 3). It was against the alarmingly increasing regal-sacerdotal manifestations of the emperors that Tractatus IV was written by Gelasius. Moreover, in one of the few letters preserved by Emperor Anastasius, Gelasius's contemporary emperor, we read the following address: " Imperator Caesar Flavius Anastasius Pontifex inclytus, Germanicus inclytus, Alamannicus inclytus, Francicus inclytus, Sarmaticus inclytus, tribuniciae potestatis XXV, consul III, Pius Felix Victor semper Augustus, Pater Patriae proconsulibus, consulibus, praetoribus, tribunis plebis senatuique suo salutern dicit, "
Thiel, ed. cit., p. 765; also in F. Maassen, Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des kanonischen Rechts, Graz, 1870, i. 334 (sub no. 5). For the meaning of "felix" and "pius" etc., see Alföldi, op. cit., pp. 88-90.
2. Hebr. cit., with I Pet. ii. 9. On this see G. Martini, art. cit. According to Leo I, Rome was a royal and sacerdotal city, see Sermo 82. Leo also coined the term "discretio potestatis," see supra p. 8.
3. The argument of the "humana fragilitas" appears also in a different context, Gelasius, Ep. 14, c. 22, p. 375.
4. II. Tim. ii. 4. But cf. Gelasius's "carnales incursus" with the biblical "negotia saccularia."
On the other hand, Gelasius introduces the very important and fruitful principle of functional order operating within society. To each part of an organic whole is assigned a special function and each member should adhere to the scope of functions allotted to him: then there will be order, or as Gelasius put it, human haughtiness -- humana superbia -- will be prevented from coming into its own again. This principle of functional order is a principle which is necessitated by the manifold functions which a body has to perform in order to be an integrated whole: it is a principle which will play a major part in the fully developed hierocratic ideology. 1 It is a principle that is based as much upon interpretation of history as upon the teleological view of society as a corpus. 2
The Pontiffs have unrestricted power to bind and to loose, that is the " potestas ligandi et solvendi," given to them by Christ, but this potestas is within the framework of government an auctoritas, 3 which is the essence of the Pope's principatus, to be displayed within Christian society. That is why the Pope's jurisdictional primacy appears so much in the foreground in the communications and tracts of Gelasius. What
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1. See infra 41,435 on Gregory I and VII and especially Bernard. This principle of order was of course first applied to the purely sacerdotal organism, so for instance by Leo I, Ep. 16, cap. 2 (to the Sicilian bishops): the various functions were distributed, " ut in Christiana observantia nihil inordinatum, nihil pateretur esse confusum; discernendae sunt causae solemnitatum, et in omnibus institutis patrurn principumque nostrorum rationabilis servanda discretio. " Hence the often repeated insistence on the delineations of the functions to be performed by ecclesiastical officers. The biblical basis of this principle. of functional order may be I Cor. xxi. 6: "divisiones operationum."
2. The passage runs, Tract. IV, cap. 11, p. 567: " Fuerint haec ante adventum Christi, ut quidam figuraliter, adhuc tamen in carnalibus actionibus constituti, pariter reges exsisterent et pariter sacerdotes, quod sanctum Melchisedek fuisse sacra prodit historia . . . Sed cum ad verum ventum est eundem regem atque pontificem, ultra sibi nec imperator pontificis nomen imposuit, nec pontifex regale fastigium vindicavit: (quamvis enim membra ipsius, id est, veri regis atque pontificis, secundura participationern naturae magnificae utrumque in sacra generositate sumpsisse dicantur, ut simul regale genus et sacerdotale subsistant:) quoniam Christus memor fragilitatis memor humanae, quod suorum saluti congrueret, dispensatione magnifica temperavit, sic actionibus propriis dignitatibusque distinctis officia potestatis utriusque discrevit, suos volens medicinali humilitate salvari, non humana superbia rursus intercipi: ut et Christiani imperatores.pro aeterna vita pontificibus indigerent, et pontifices pro temporalium cursu rerum imperialibus dispositionibus uterentur; quatenus spiritalis actio a carnalibus distaret incursibus, et 'Deo militans minime se negotiis saecularibus implicaret' . . . "
3. Gelasius could not very well have said that Christ had given to St Peter "auctoritas ligandi," hence we think that it is erroneous to speak of Gelasius's "dangerous attempt at equalizing the two potestates," so F. Dvornik, art. cit., p. 114.
matters in this Christian society, is the preparation for eternal life, and for this the Pontiffs alone are the key bearers. "Inferior quippe potiorem absolvere non potest," 1 as Gelasius says in the same Tractatus IV.
In view of this influential Gelasian thesis it seems appropriate to direct attention to his theme that Christian imperial power originated in Christ: the pontifical auctoritas and the royal potestas are united in Christ, the true Rex et Pontifex. 2 The Pope functioning as the vicar of St Peter does not, according to Gelasius, combine, like Christ, the two powers in his person and office. It was not until the Petrine commission was considered to constitute a vicariate of Christ that the Pope could be said to combine both powers: then as the vicar of Christ he was, like Christ Himself, "rex et sacerdos secundurn ordinem Melchisedek" -- with the further consequence that Christian imperial power "originated" in the Pope. 3 Until then, as Gelasius said, "Deus est summus et verus imperator." 4
In short, then, the Petrine principatus over the Christian body corporate is in papal hands. It is the gubernatio principalis which is committed to the Pope 5 over all Christians, whether or not they are kings or emperors. "An nescis et te membrum esse pontificis?" 6 All Christians form one closely knit organic union, a body corporate, 7 that because it is Christian, must be directed according to Christian principles; and to define these is the proper function of the Pope. Hence the exclusion of certain members from this society is necessary, if
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1. Tract. cit., cap. 13, p. 569.
2. Cf. Jud. 25: Christ having imperium and potestas.
3. This step was not formally taken until Innocent III.
4. Ep. 26, cap. 12, p. 410. The conception of the vicariate of Christ enabled later writers and Popes to apply to the Pontiffs what applied to Christ, whose vicars they were. Then also Matt. xxviii. 18 ("All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth") could be applied to the Pope. It is true that at the conclusion of the Roman synod of 495, the episcopal participants hailed Gelasius eleven times "Vicarium Christi te videmus" (p. 447), but, on the other hand, Gelasius's immediate successor, Anastasius, wrote in 497 to the emperor that he (the emperor) was "Vicarius Dei" ( Thiel, p. 620) and in the same letter the Pope said of himself. "Legationefungimur pro Christo," p. 616. These designations were quite untechnical and well into the medieval period all bishops were called "vicarii Christi" and most of the emperors too.
5. Ep. 19, c. 1, P. 386: " Quanto enim totius ovilis curam Christo Domino delegante susceptam beati Petri apostoli gubernatio principalis universo gregi debet in orbe terrarum. "
6. Tract. VI, c. 4, p. 600 (to the senator Andromachus and other non-clerical Romans).
7. Cf. also Tract II, c. 8, p. 529: " Una monstraretur compago corporis Christi, quae ad unum caput gloriossissima dilectionis societate concurreret et una esset ecclesia. "
through them the whole body may be infected or affected. A healthy unity of this body demands this. 1 Excommunication, in other words, is an effluence of the close organic nature of this society. 2 This exclusion, too, is reserved to those who are functionally qualified to judge what affects the health of this body. At the same time judgment on clerics, because they are the administrators of the divine mysteries, is necessarily reserved to superior ecclesiastical officers: the emperor is not qualified to judge clerics, since the disciple is not above the master. 3
The imperial judgments on John Talaja and Calendio were therefore quite unjustifiable: true, they were condemned for high treason, but however badly the two bishops may have failed "out of worldly error," and of whatever quality they might have been, as priests they were not subjected to laical jurisdiction. 4 The privilegium fori is not a privilege at all, but a right, since in the corporate union of Christians the standing of the priests is radically different from that of lay persons. 5 The principatus of the Roman Church entails that it is the supreme tribunal in the ecclesia, that is, within the congregation of the faithful. There is nobody who can sit in judgment on a verdict of the Roman Church, 6 because it has the right to judge the whole Church, the whole body of Christians. 7 In brief,
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1. With particular reference to I Cor. xii. 26 this theme is very pronounced in Gelasius's letters; cf. also Ep. 9, c. 4, p. 341.
2. Gelasius through Felix III, Ep. 12, c. 2, p. 258: " A probatorum consortio contagia repellenda sunt perditorum, quoniam mores bonos colloquia perversa corrumpunt "; Ep. 11, c. 3, p. 254: " inter episcopos sanctos et inter Christianos judicavimus non haberi. " Gelasius Ep. 26, c. 5, p. 399: " Contagio haereticorum. " The biblical foundation is Matt. xviii. 18; I Cor. xii. 26 and 27; xv. 33.
3. Gelasius, Ep. 1, C. 8, p. 291. The biblical foundation is Matt. x. 24; Luke, vi. 40.
4. Ep. 26, c. 11, p. 407: " qualescumque pontifices, etsi errore humanitus accedente, non tamen religionern ullatenus excedentes. "
5. Cf. in this context also his argumentation about the contrast between clerics and lay in Frag. 49, pp. 509-10.
6. Ep. 26, c. 5, p. 399: " Neque cuiquarn de eius liceat judicare judicio. . . ab illa autem nemo sit appellate permissus. " This is a characteristic example of how unnecessary certain forgeries were: the Symmachan forger working two or three years after this was written, concocted the so-called Constitutum Silvestri, in which he coined the famous phrase "Prima sedes a nernine judicatur," with which he credited Silvester. The forger had at his disposal a perfectly genuine statement by Gelasius, which would have suited his purpose.
7. Ep. 10, c. 5, p. 344: " Ipsi sunt canones, qui appellationes totius ecclesiae ad huius sedis examen voluere deferri, ab ipsa vero nusquam prorsus appellari debere sanxerunt. Ac per hoc illam de tota ecclesia judicare, ipsam ad nullius commeare judicium, nec de eius unquarn praeceperunt judicio judicari, sententiamque illius constituerunt non oportere dissolvi, cuius potius sequenda decreta mandarunt. "
Nobody at any time and for whatever human pretext may haughtily set himself above the office of him who by Christ's order was set above all and everyone and whom the universal Church had always recognized as its head. 1
In sum, then, the Gelasian thesis culminates in the monarchic conception of the principatus : the Pope as successor of St Peter has sole auctoritas over the corporate body of Christians, amongst whom the emperor takes indeed a vital place, but one of an assistant nature: his function is reduced from that of a monarch to that of a mere "saecularis" or "regia potestas." The direction of this royal power by those who are, within the corporate union of Christians, qualified to do so, is as necessary as the direction of the whole body corporate. In this way this body will fulfil the purpose for which it was founded. The material or corporeal or temporal element in this body demands the guidance, that is orientation and government, by the spiritual or sacramental element of this self-same body. Gelasius bequeathed to all Papal generations a set of ideas based upon an interpretation of history in the light of Christian teleology. 2
Isidore of Seville furnished the most perfect ideological complement to the Gelasian thesis. And it is perhaps not without deeper significance that the Roman was to find his literary complement in a Spaniard who, to all seeming, was unaware of the great author-Pope's views. Isidore might well serve as an example which demonstrates the multifarious and variegated roots from which the later imposing bierocratic system developed. Moreover, Isidore was a true bridge-builder between the early and late medieval times; a bridge-builder also between the
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1. Ep. 12, c. 3, p. 352.
2. The invigorating effect of the Gelasian pontificate can be seen in his immediate successor, Anastasius II, who, as far as we can see, was the first to apply Luke x. 16, when he wrote to the emperor: " Haec me suggerentem frequentius non spernat pietas tua, ante oculos tuos habens Domini in evangelio verba: 'Qui audit vos, me audit; et qui vos spernit, me spernit etc.' Nam et apostolos concinens salvatori nostro, ita loquitur: 'Quapropter qui haec spernit non hominem spernit sed Deum, qui dedit spiritum suum sanctum in nobis,' " (the last reference is to I Thess. iv. 8). Ep. 1, p. 620.
Anastasius's letter to Clovis, the newly converted Frankish king, has something of a prophetic ring when he writes: " Tuum, gloriose fili, in Christiana fide cum exordio nostro in pontificatu contigisse gratulamur. Quippe sedes Petri in tanta occasione non potest non laetari, cum plenitudinem gentium intuetur ad eam veloci gradu concurrere, . . . (Dominus) qui eruit te de potestate tenebrarum et in tanto principe providit ecclesiae, qui possit eam tueri et contra occurrentes pestiferorum conatus galeam salutis induere, "Ep.2, Thiel, p. 624. The authenticity of this letter is disputed.
Germanic and Roman nations. 1 And from the ideological point of view he fully deserves the title "Doctor ecclesiae."
The theme of Isidore was the teleological one of the functions of the prince as a member of the Church. To Isidore the Church is the "Corpus Jesu Christi." 2 This corpus is made up of a plurality of nations within which the princes function. There is but one corpus, held together by one faith, and consequently there is but one regnum: 3 " unus Dei populus unumque regnum." 4 The congregation of all the nations is the Church:
Huius populi congregatio ex gentibus ipsa est ecclesia. 5
It is the "universitas gentium" 6 which forms the Church. In a word, Christendom or the Church is a civitas regis magni. 7
Isidore's views on the function of the prince might be described as a paraphrastic elaboration of Pauline doctrine. 8 The function of the king standing as he does within the Church is the strengthening of sacerdotal directives: his function is the support of the sacerdotal word by the princely "terror." This is his raison d'être. 9 But since this corpus lives by the rulings given by the ordained members, the support of "ecclesiastical discipline" by the Christian prince and his sword is his duty: in fulfilling this duty, he thereby justifies his existence, for Christ gave him rulership in order to protect and guard the body of believers
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1. k. Vossler, in Hochland, xxxix ( 1947), p. 420 f. Cf. also E. Anspach, "Isidor vom 7. bis 9. Jahrhundert" in Miscellanea Isidoriana, 1936, pp. 323-56.
2. Isidore, Quaestiones in Vet. Test. ("In Esdram"), c. i. no. 2 (Migne, PL. lxxxiii. 423).
3. The regnum and the sacerdotium of Christ were pre-portrayed by Melchisedek cuius origo secreta est," De ortu et obitu patrum, c.v. PL. cit., col. 132. Cf. also his Allegoriae quaedam Scripturae sacrae, no. 19, PL. cit., col. 104: " Melchisedek . . . regnum Christi, qui est verus rex justitiae, et sacerdotium figuravit "; see also his Quaestiones in Vet. Testam. ("In Genesin"), c. xi. nos. 4-5, cols. 239-40.
4. De fide catholica, ii. 1, no. 3, PL. cit., col. 499.
5. De fide catholica, no. 4.
6. De fide catholica, ii. 7, no. 3, col. 513: " cuius universitas nunc per totum. orbem terrarum exsultans dicit . . . "
7. Quaest. in Vot. Testam. ("In Regum Primum"), c. i. no. 7, col. 393, obviously borrowing the Augustinian idea of the universal Church.
Especially of Rom. xiii. 4.
9. See Sententiae, iii. 51, no. 4, PL. cit., col. 723:
" Principes saeculi nonnumquam intra ecclesiam potestatis adeptae culmina tenent, ut per eandem potestatem disciplinam ecclesiasticam muniant. Ceterum intra ecclesiam potestates necessariae non essent, nisi ut, quod non praevalet sacerdos efficere per doctrinae sermonem, potestas hoc imperet per disciplinae terrorem. "
For a characteristic application of this Isidorian view cf., for example, Humbert, infra 269. Almost the same words in Hugh of Fleury's Tractatus de regia potestate, LdL. ii. 469 and in Placidus of Nonantula, De honore ecclesiae, LdL. ii. 573.
in Him. 1 For rulership, which Isidore calls principatus, is given to the king as a "donum Dei" -- the ideological kinship with Gelasius's beneficium will be noted -- and it is given for a particular purpose, namely for the protection of the members of Christ who are the "fideles populi."
Dono Dei pro tuitione utantur membrorurn Christi. 2
In this way the king will prove himself useful: "Prodesse ergo debet populis principatus, non nocere." 3 Naturally, usefulness is not an a priori notion: usefulness of rulership depends upon the character of society, and the character of this corpus was Christian, and hence usefulness can be determined only by Christian principles and to lay these down is the sole prerogative of the ordained members of this corpus. They are the "sors Domini," the "lot of the Lord." 4
The criterion of Isidore's idea of rulership, namely the "bene regere" 5 cannot have universal validity: it is applicable only to a Christian society. "Good government" according to Isidore, is useful government. Useful government is government that realizes the purpose and aim of society that is governed.
Non statim utile est omne potestatis insigne, sed tunv vere utile est, si bene geratur. Tunc autern bene geritur, quando subjectis prodest. 6
Accordingly, the implementation of justice is one of the principal avenues by which the king will prove himself useful to his people: but the contents of justice can be determined only by a recourse to the principles, purpose and aim of the society within which justice is to
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1. Sent., no. 6: " Cognoscant principes saeculi Deo debere se rationern reddere propter ecclesiam, quam a Christo tuendam suscipiunt. " We note that, in contrast to Gelasius, it is the princes themselves who have to render an account, and not the Pontiffs.
2. Sent., iii. 49, no. 3, col. 721.
3. Sent., no. 3, and: " ut vere sit utile hoc potestatis insigne. "
4. We think that the earliest designation of the clerics as " sors Domini " a term which later will assume so much importance, was by St Jerome, CSEL. liv. 421. Cf. also Isidore Quaestiones de veteri et novo Testam. , qu. x: " Dic mihi, clerus in cuius lingua dicitur? Respondit: in Gracca; in Latina sors Domini interpretatur. " (PL. Cit. col. 203.)
5. Sent., iii. 48. col. 718.
6. Sent., no. 5, Col. 718. In his Etymologies, IX. iii. 4 (ed. W. M. Lindsay, Oxford, 1911), Isidore says: " Recte igitur faciendo regis nomen tenetur, peccando amittitur. " The determination of what constitutes "peccare" must be left to those who are qualified to pronounce upon it. For some very interesting observations about how these "apparently harmless linguistic remarks" were transformed into legal or political principles, see F. Schulz, "Bracton on Kingship" in EHR., Ix ( 1945), P. 152.
be executed. Again, this being a Christian society, justice will derive its substance from Christian principles: in doing justice, "the prince's heart will not depart from God." 1 In short, by virtue of being Christians themselves, the princes will impart into their laws "the faith of Christ." 2 Naturally, what this faith is, does not depend upon the princes, but upon the "sors Domini." The princes are subjected to "the discipline of religion":
Sub religionis disciplina saeculi potestates subjectae sunt. 3
The function of the king is therefore auxiliary: he assists where the priestly word proves itself inadequate. And he assists by inculcating fear into his subjects. Without fear, Isidore holds, no government can exist. 4 Fear appears to him a wholesome stimulus to the people to keep the laws. The coercion exercised by the king is therefore purely negative: to prevent evil doing--" ut terrore suo populos a malo coercerent " 5 -- and thereby he will induce the subjects to "a right way of living." 6
The fusion of the Gelasian thesis with the Isidorian theme of the function of the prince in a Christian society will in course of time yield the properly medieval hierocratic doctrine. All the basic elements were there: they needed only to be developed.
III
It is perhaps not without a certain historical irony that within the century which lay between the two principal architects of hierocratic ideology, Gelasius and Isidore, the exact opposite ideology came to be applied in legislation and in practice. The at least latent regal-sacerdotal tendencies of the (Eastern) emperors were given their permanent complexion through Justinian. Indeed, Justinian was the proto-
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1. Sent. , iii. 49, no. 2, col. 720: " Qui recte utitur regni potestate formam justitiae factis magis quam verbis instituit . . . nec a Domino recedit cor eius."
2. Cf. Rom. i. 17.
3. Sent. iii. 51, no. 3, col. 723, continuing: " Et quamvis culmine regni sunt praediti, vinculo tamen fidei tenentur astricti, ut et fidem Christi suis legibus praedicent, et ipsam fidei praedicationem moribus bonis conservent." The passage quoted in the text will be quoted as late as the outgoing eleventh century, by Hugh of Fleury, Tractatus de regia potestate, LdL. ii. 475.
4. Sent. iii. 47, no. 1, col. 717: " Nam si omnes sine metu fuissent, quis esset qui a malis quempiam prohiberet? Inde et in gentibus principes, regesque electi sunt, ut terrore suo populos a malo coercerent, atque ad recte vivendum legibus subderent."
5. Sent. , see quotation in preceding note. Cf. also Rom. xiii. 4.
Ibid.
type of the Roman monarch: inheriting the paganism of Hellenistic conceptions and Roman rulership, tinged with a good deal of Eastern mysticism and sublimated by the deep Christianity of the emperor, the Eastern monarch appeared as the earthly representation of divine power: the Sol invictus. He is divinity on earth. 1
As a divinely appointed monarch (the autokrator and kosmokrator) the emperor necessarily rules solely over the entity that is divinely entrusted to him: 2 he rules it in every respect and since this empire is wholly Christian, it is he alone who directs it according to Christian principles emanating from the fount of all Christianity, the divine majesty of the emperor himself. His laws are divine and sacred. 3 Justinian's government is the classic example of the Christian monarch at work in a Christian society. Hence he not only lays down the faith for his subjects, 4 but also must necessarily legislate upon the functions and organic structure of the priesthood itself; hence it is also that, in his capacity as the monarch, he extends his special protection to the priesthood. For, as he laid down in one of his best-known decrees, since both the imperium and the sacerdotium proceed from one and the same source, there is nothing of greater concern to the emperor than the "probity and reputation" of the priesthood: it is the priests who intercede with God. 5 The "honestas sacerdotum," however, is, from the governmental point of view, nothing else but the suitability of the priests for their office: hence the imperial "care" for the priests no less than for the true dogmas of God. 6 What however the true dogmas of God were, it was the business of the monarch to fix, as the history of
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1. Cf. A. Alföldi, "Insignien & Trachten etc." in Mitteilungen des deutschen archaeolog. Instituts, Rom. Abt. , vol. 1 ( 1935), tables 9 and 18, pp. 108, 141.
2. Cf. F. Dölger, " Die Kaiserurkunde der Byzantiner " in Hist. Z. , 1939, p. 246: the emperor is the shepherd of the Christians divinely entrusted to him; see also p. 239.
3. Cf. again W. Ensslin's numerous examples, op. cit., pp. 63 ff.; see also Cod. Just. V. xxvii. 7 (1): " divinis jussionibus "; VII. Ixiii. 4: " divina sanctio "; X. XXXV. 2: " Lex divalis "; etc.
4. The whole of the title " De summa trinitate et fide catholica " in Justinian Codex can be adduced to show doctrinal legislation. Cf. also Cod. Just. , 1. i. 6 pr: "We have hastened to instruct (our subjects) what is the true Christian faith."
5. Nov. vi. pr.: " Maxima quidem in hominibus sunt dona Dei a superna collata dementia, sacerdotium et imperium: et illud quidem divinis ministrans, hoc autem humanis praesidens ac diligentiam exhibens: ex uno codemque principio utraque procedentia, humanam exornant vitam. Ideoque nihil sic erit studiosum imperatoribus, sicut sacerdotum honestas, cum utique et pro illis ipsi semper Deo supplicent." Cf. also Cod. Just. I. iv. 34.
6. Nov. cit.: " Nos igitur maximam habemus solicitudinem circa vera Dei dogmata et circa sacerdotum honestatem quam illis obtinentibus credimus . . . "
Justinian's government only too plainly revealed. 1 In all this we will no doubt detect the gentle, but effective reversal of the Gelasian thesis: Justinian's thesis is modelled on that of Gelasius, and is Gelasianism turned upside down. 2
The character of the Empire as Roman on the one hand and as Christian on the other hand, together with the exercise of true monarchical power by the emperor, explains the quite unprecedented legislation on matters touching the essence of this empire. Roman spirit and Roman rule had always been characterized by the supremacy of law, hence Justinian's predilection for legislation on all sorts of matters which basically violated Papal-hierocratic principles. It is, of course, no coincidence that the Roman character of Justinian's empire is so much stressed. 3 Since the Empire was Roman and Christian, the honorary rank allotted to the "patriarch of Rome" by the monarch is understandable. As the bishop of that city which in fact gave the Empire its Roman complexion, the Pope quite naturally was given an honorary rank above the other patriarchs. But this should not mislead us into thinking that the Pope played any other role but that of a patriarch in the scheme of things devised by Justinian. 4 As a monarch the emperor
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1. In fact, specific occasions apart, none of the emperors considered it necessary to submit ecclesiastical legislation to a council. Cf. also C. Silva-Tarouca, Institutiones historiae ecclesiasticae ii. I ( 1933), p. 31: " Imperatoris legibus episcopi, clerici, monachi, fideles reguntur."
2. This is very rightly pointed out by H. Rahner, op. cit., p. 237: " eine stillschweigende Korrektur der Gelasianischen Gedanken."
3. For this see especially F. Dölger, " Rom in der Gedankenwelt der Byzantiner " in Z.f. Kirchengeschichte, liv ( 1937), pp. 4ff.; cf. Justinian Nov. xxii. c. 2; xxv. pr. and c. 2; xlvii. pr. and c. 1, etc., and Ostrogorsky, pp. 42ff.
4. Cf. Silva-Tarouca, op. cit., ii. 32: " Papa fit unus ex quinque patriarchis imperii, quem imperator ita regere intendit ac suum patriarchum aulicum regit." Cf. also L. Duchesne, L'église au VI siècle, p. 266; L. Brehier, in Fliche-Martin, Histoire de l'église, iv. 441; H. Rahner, op. cit., p. 237. We are not unaware of the modern fashion which denies the caesaropapism of the Eastern emperors. G. Vernadsky even spoke of a diarchy between emperor and patriarch, see P. Charanis, art. cit., p. 59, note 51. The term Caesaro-Papism may well be unaesthetic or inadequate, but what matters is the thing itself, not the term. Cf. especially K. Voigt, Staat & Kirche, 1936, pp. 27, note 28, 53-5, 81, 109. There can be no doubt about the true monarchic functions in every sphere, including the ecclesiastical one, as they were effectively exercised by the emperor. Cf. Th. Schnitzler in Anal Greg. xvi ( 1938), pp. 113-17 (here also the long quotation from A. Gasquet De l'autorité impériale, etc., p. 266, at p. 115 note 6) and now C. Toumanoff, in Traditio, vii ( 1952), p. 489 (book review):
"In the course of history, from the first Constantine to the last, Caesars enjoyed de facto the position of Popes in Byzantine Christianity. Few will deny that the masters of the surviving Roman Empire arrogated to themselves both the Apostolic See's supreme power of jurisdiction and its teaching authority when, e.g. they convoked councils of the Church [but] could not concede a principatus to the Roman Church in precisely those matters which were vital and basic to the conceptual framework of the Empire itself. From his own point of view Justinian may well say that there is little difference between the sacerdotium and the imperium. 1 In his statement that his laws, the leges, imitated the canons, Justinian reveals his ideology all too plainly.
This Byzantine regal-sacerdotal scheme presents itself as the translation of the Christian faith into an essential ingredient of the government. Hence not only the religious and ecclesiastical legislation of Justinian, 2 but also, since there was little difference between the Roman and the Christian empire, the direction of that whole body must needs lie in the hands of the one monarch. The Empire is the divinely instituted guardian of peace and order: outside its frontiers there is darkness and faithlessness. Only the autokrator, the emperor, he who virtually represents divinity on earth, can effectively provide for unity, peace and order. 3 Just as in the celestial cosmos there was only one who combined all power -- Christ as the Pantocrator -- so there was in the terrestrial cosmos only one monarch. 4
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or issued dogmatic pronouncements. But, more than that, they finally became also, in the eyes of their subjects, endued with the papal function of the centre of unity, of the point of concentration, in the Church. It was already by the time of Justinian . . . that the cesaropapist confusion of these two unities had given birth to the idea of the Church as an imperial Church. This was the root of the frictions between the apostolic see and the imperial throne . . ." In the troubled days of Martin I, the imperial messenger at Rome, Georgios, justified the emperor's Typos by saying to Maximus the Confessor: "The emperor is also a priest," ( Migne, PG. xc. 115) and by arguing that scriptural evidence shows clearly Melchisedek having been king and priest. Maximus retorted that Melchisedek was the prototype of Christ, but "the emperor is a layman, for at mass we think of him in connexion with laymen, at the memento and after the bishops, priests and deacons." (PG. ibid.)
1. Nov. vii. c. 2: " Neque multum differant ab alterutro sacerdotium et imperium."
2. Orthodoxy of faith to be preserved only by imperial legislation, Nov. cxxxi; legislation against heretics (Cod. I. i. 6), against monophysites (Nov. xlii), Manichaeans (Cod. I. v. 11); only orthodox Christians suitable for military service, Cod. 1. iv. 20 and I. v. 12; no practising of religion by Manichaeans etc., Cod. I. v. 14 and 20, no propagating or teaching of their faith, Cod. I. xi. 10, their books to be burned, 1. v. 16; only Christians are citizens, Cod. 1. xi. 10; clergy not to attend theatres, racing tracks or circus nor partake in games, Cod. I. iv. 34; Nov. cxxii. c. 12; no absenteeism of clerics, Nov. lvii, no military service, Cod. I. iii. 53; liturgical duties, Cod. I. iii. 42, and Nov. cxxxi; no private oratories, Nov. lviii; cf. also Nov. viii and lxxxvi, cc. 1, 6, 7, Cod. I. iv. 21, 23, 26.
3. For this see F. Dölger, Hist. Z. , cit., p. 232: " buchstäblich. gottähnliche Erhabenheit und Machtfülle "; see also idem in Der Vertrag von Verdun, p. 210.
4. Speaking of Justinian as the most pronounced representative of Caesaro-Papism, K. Jäntere, op. cit., p. 167, says that his governmental principles were the
The sacredness and divinity of the emperor showed itself also in concrete stone and masonry and in the appropriate ceremonial symbolism. All the buildings constituting the imperial palace were sacred, and this sacred character was derived from that part which formed the centre of the whole, the hall of the throne: this had all the appearances of a church. 1 The building which housed this hall was called the Chrysotriklinos. In the conch of the central hall there was a mosaic depicting Christ as God and Man and underneath the mosaic stood the throne of the emperor. The adoration of the emperor on certain feast days had all the appearances of a divine service. 2 The emperor himself after having said his own prayers, was greeted and acclaimed by his dignitaries and subjects, whereupon he turned towards the mosaic in the conch and said a thanksgiving prayer: the acclamations of his subjects were, so to speak, forwarded to Christ, the real Ruler of the kosmos whose vicar the emperor considered himself. 3 On other occasions the emperor feasted his patriarch and patricians in the Chrysotriklinos, a ceremony that no doubt was an imitation of the Lord's Supper. 4 Here in the hall of the throne the kosmokrator and vicar of divinity also
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same as those of his predecessors. " Ein Staat, ein Gesetz, eine Kirche." The true monarchic conception of the emperor found legal expression in the famous " Princeps legibus solutus." This was not of Roman, but of Greek origin and unknown to the classical jurists, e.g., Ulpian ( Dig. I. 3. 31, see F. Schulz, in EHR. , lx, 1945, pp. 157-60.
1. See J. Ebcrsolt, Le grand palais de Constantinople, p. 169: " Les personnages religieux disséminés dans toute la salle, le Christ trônant dans l'abside, conservèrent au Chrysotriklinos l'aspect qu'il avait au début, celui d'une église, " quoted by H. Fichtenau, " Byzanz und die Pfalz zu Aachen " in MIOG. , lix ( 1951), p. 8. See also A. Alföldi, " Die Ausgestaltung des monarchischen Zeremoniells " in Mitt. des deutschen archaeolog. Inst. , Rom. Abt., xlix ( 1934), p. 33. The hall was finished during Justin II's reign, 565-78, see J. B. Bury, History of the later Roman empire, ii. 73, note 1. For early Roman basilicas which were " Thronsäle Gottes, nicht Christi, nach dem Modell der Thronsäle eines Kaisers, der sich als 'vicarius' Gottes auf Erden fühlte," see A. Stange, Das frühmittelalterliche Kirchengebäude als Bild des Himmels, Cologne, 1950, pp. 87, 88-91; about the church of Trier and its innovation, see ibid., pp. 114-20. For symbolic Byzantine details see A. Grabar, L'empereur dans l'art Byzantin, Paris ( 1936), esp. ch. 4: " L'empereur et le Christ ", pp. 98-122; also tables 18, 19, 21, 25, etc.
2. See Fichtenau, art. cit., pp. 9 ff.
3. Fichtenau, p. 12; cf. Liber de cerimoniis, ed. Bonn, i. 1, p. 22; for the acclamation of the emperor see also the passage quoted supra p.16, and Lib de cerim. , ii. 43, p. 222: " Cantores accinunt: 'appareat divina majestas.' Populus ter: 'appareat.' " Cf. also the description of the procession in the imperial palace, ibid., ii. 1, p. 518 ff., esp. p. 519: " Indutus imperator egreditur in chrysotriklinium et stat erectus, in concha orientalil, in qua imago Dei et Domini nostri, sub humana specie Deum exhibens depicta conspicitur, precesque Deo consuetas exsolvit, et metanocam induit." See also ibid., ii. 52, p. 705.
4. Cf. Fichtenau, loc. cit. Cf. also infra p. 342 n. 5.
received foreign diplomats. 1 To a casual observer it may not always have been easy to decide whether he witnessed an imperial or a divine service. The documents which issued from the imperial chancery exhibited the same symbolic traits. The "divine right hand of the emperor" used red ink for the imperial signature, 2 whilst the profile of his divine majesty denoted his "omnipresence." 3 The elaborate ornamentation and miniatures on the documents served the same purpose, namely, to show them to the world as the products of the divine emperor. The subject on receiving the imperial document deeply bowed and kissed the roll reverently, before he took actual possession of it. 4
Despite the temporary unification achieved by Justinian in 553 and despite the incessant proclamation by him and his successors of the Roman fibre of the Empire, this Empire in reality assumed an ever stronger Greek complexion. In fact, the re-union of Italy with the Empire made contemporaries realize the cultural, social and religious chasm that lay between them and the imperial regime. Though nominally Roman, the Empire was to all intents and purposes Greek. 5 The mishandling of Pope Vigilius by Justinian showed the overpowering influence of the divine majesty on the first of the five patriarchs. The guardian of Roman rule, tradition, and spirit was not the Graecized Roman Empire, but the Roman Papacy itself constitutionally an integral part of the Empire. The physiognomy of the Papacy was thoroughly Roman -- we have only to recall Gelasius's statements to realize this, and by the end of the following century this impregnation appeared all the more pronounced by contrast with the "alien" Greek regime.
The true significance of Gregory I's quarrel with the Eastern Patriarch over the title of "universal patriarch" emerges when this quarrel is set against the background of the English mission. The assumption of this title by the patriarch, John IV (the Faster), was neither new 6 nor unknown to Gregory before 595, and yet he did not
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1. Into this category of symbolism belong also the veiled hands of the emperor ("manus velatae") and the use of curtains hiding him from the view of his subjects, about which see A. Alföldi, op. cit. ( 1934), pp. 33-8.
2. For this see F. Dölger, " Die Kaiserurkunde der Byzantiner " in Hist. Z. , 1939, pp. 229 ff., esp. 233 ff.
3. Dölger, art. cit., p. 235, note 2.
4. Dölger, art. cit., p. 234, 239.
5. Gregory I's complaint that there was hardly anyone in Constantinople who was able to translate Latin letters into Greek, is significant.
6. See supra p. 15. Justinian had also used it in 539, see his Nov. lxxxiii pr.: " Petiti sumus a Menna Deo amabili archiepiscopo huius felicissimae civitatis et universali patriarcha."
protest until the June of that year, barely three months before the advance party left for the Frankish kingdom to prepare the way for the English mission. 1 The mission to England occasioned Gregory's protest. What the title meant was that the Patriarch claimed universal jurisdictional power, the same claim that was enshrined in the principatus of the Roman Church. 2 The envisaged extension of Christianity and the consequential exercise of the principatus of the Roman Church necessitated a sharp remonstration against the title claimed by the patriarch. In order to safeguard the claim of the Roman principatus towards the West, Gregory I was bound to protest vigorously to the East. 3 And the very choice of the term principatus in this June 5 95) protest 4 reveals the underlying motive. Principatus over the " populus Dei " belongs solely to the Roman Church, 5 epitomizing as it does the "corpus Christi, quod est sancta universalis ecclesia." 6
Gregory I's societas respublicae christianae 7 over which the Roman Church exercises its principatus unimpeded by considerations of a constitutional nature, is the prophetic vision of medieval Europe. This societas was made up of the nations and kingdoms outside the
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1. For this see Reg. v. 31; vi. 5, 6 and 10. We quote from the Register edition in MGH. Epp. i and ii.
2. The patriarch's claim was of course linked with Constantinople as the urbs regia, cf. Gregory himself, Reg. vii. 37, p. 485; also vi. 58.
3. Gregory was on friendly terms with the patriarch, John IV, during his sojourn in Constantinople as apocrisiary; the friendship continued into Gregory's pontificate; the Regula pastoralis was dedicated to John; one of the first letters was written to John, Reg. i. 3, October 5 90); there is no protest in the Synodica of February 591, Reg. i. 24; although according to Gregory there had already been a dispute between Pelagius II and John on the title question ( Reg. v. 41, p. 332, lines 6-15; v. 39, p. 327, lines 10-12; v. 44, p. 339, lines 4-10; ix. 156), he did not protest until June 5 95): Reg. v. 37. This letter stands in sharp contrast to all previous letters written by Gregory, cf. also its characterization by E. H. Fischer, " Gregor d. Gr. und Byzanz " in Sav. Z. Kan. Abt. xxxvi ( 1950), p. 109: " Schroffheit "; see also Holmes Dudden, Gregory the Great, London, 1905, ii. 250: "insolent."
4. Reg. v. 37. The possibility that the Irish-Celtic Church (which had its headquarters in Iona and by Gregory's time had made a considerable advance into the North of England) was strongly influenced by the Eastern Church, should not be ruled out altogether. Cf. also Caspar, op. cit., ii. 506, 677. See also G. S. M. Walker , "On the use of Greek words in the writings of St Columbanus of Luxeuil" in Bulletin du Cange, xxi ( 1950), pp. 117ff., who points out (p. 131 ) the wide interests in Greek studies in sixth-century Ireland and who also refers to the use of the vernacular Greek language at that time in Ireland.
5. The assumption by Gregory I of the title " servus servorum Dei " is an inverted exaltation of his office; cf. also " cunctorum sacerdotum servus ", p. 323, line 10; p. 322, line 24 -- Luke xiv. II. The term "principatus" had been used by Gregory only once before: Reg. i. 24 to the Eastern patriarchs.
6. Reg. iv. 3, p. 235, line 26.
7. Reg. ix. 67, p. 88, lines 5-6.
imperial framework, that is, outside the legitimate sphere of imperial jurisdiction. No less prophetic is the exaltation of the Frankish king ( Childebert II) and of the Frankish people. "Just as royal dignity surpasses all individual men, in the same way the Frankish kingdom excels all other peoples." 1 And most significantly, this communication was despatched in that historic month of September 595 when the advance party left for the West. The Franks excel the other nations because of their orthodoxy: the theme of St. Peter which formed the keynote of this letter, heralds another age which was to translate the prophetic vision of Gregory I into political reality. 2
There is in Gregory's letters a remarkable difference in tone between those addressed to the emperor and those to Western potentates. Whilst the emperor is invariably the "dominus," Western rulers are the Pope's "filii." 3 Towards the West the Pope adopts language of commanding authority. 4 And it was in the West that the principatus of the Roman Church was effectively realized: from the farthest corner of Europe came the enduring stimulus for the unification of all the "Romani." In more than one respect Gregory I can be called, not only "Consul Dei," but also "pater Europae."
It is nevertheless true that Gregory I did not materially contribute to the development of the hierocratic theme, although by virtue of his writings and his Registers 5 so widely used in the later Papal chancery, a great number of his statements and expressions found their way into later Papal communications. The teleological view on royal power is strongly endorsed by Gregory: the earthly power is at the service of the celestial power. The former is modelled on the latter. 6
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1. Reg. vi. 6, p. 384 to Childebert II: " Quanto ceteros homines regia dignitas antecedit, tanto ceterarum gentium regna regni vestri (scil. Francorum) culmen excellit."
2. Gregory also sent the keys of the Confession of St Peter to Childebert: " Claves sancti Petri, in quibus de vinculis catenarum eius inclausum est excellentiae vestrae direximus,"ibid., p. 385. Cf. also ibid.: " Esse autem regem, quia sunt et alii, non mirum est, sed esse catholicum, quod alii non merentur, hoc satis est." This comparison with "aliae gentes" or "ceterae gentes" might possibly be an echo of the anonymous tract De vocatione omnium gentium, written in the late fifth century, cf. infra p. 76 n. 4.
3. Only once Gregory spoke of the emperor as " piissimus dominus filius noster " ( Reg. vii. 24, p. 469, line 19), but this was addressed to Anastasius of Antioch, and not to the emperor himself.
4. Cf., e.g., Reg. ix. 47, p. 320, lines 5-9; ix. 213, p. 199; ix. 215, pp. 201-3, etc.
5. About Gregory's Registers see especially W. Peitz, " Das Register Gregors I " in Stimmen der Zeit, suppl. vol. ii ( 1917), particularly pp. 69ff. Cf. also E. Posner, " Das Registers Gregors I " in Neues Archiv, xliii ( 1922), pp. 243-315.
6. Reg. iii. 61, p. 221, lines 9-13: " Ad hoc enim potestas super omnes homines Not only
in this is implied the view of the Pope's mediatory role, but also logically arising out of it, is the sanction for violating a papal decree, namely excommunication. And this threat concerns kings as well as clerics. 1 Gregory emphasizes equally the role of the sacerdotium in a Christian society as a vehicle for transmitting papal decrees. 2 The "sacerdotes" are the cultivators of the " ecclesia Dei." 3 The " sacerdotes Christi vice in ecclesia legatione funguntur, " 4 a view and a sentence that gained wide currency in later times. And not the least interesting facet of Gregory's view on the relation between the priests and the emperor is that Emperor Constantine is held up to Emperor Maurice as an example to be followed -- and this was written to the emperor in the same month of June 595 in which the Pope for the first time protested against the patriarchical title. 5 In this communication Gregory I -- as far as can be seen he was the first to do so -- quotes from the ecclesiastical history of Rufinus which puts into the mouth of Constantine the -- later -- famous address to the bishops assembled at Nicaea: "You are gods, constituted by the true God; it is not right that we sit in judgment over gods." 6 This state-
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pietati dominorum meorum coelitus data est, ut qui bona appetunt adjuventur, ut coelorum via largius pateat, ut terrestre regnum coelesti regno famuletur. " Cf. in this context St Augustine, De civ. Dei, v. 24; against this interpretation E. Caspar, op. cit., ii. 469, note 3; cf. also P. Batiffol, Gregoire le Grand, p. 241, and Fischer, art. cit., p. 138; but see H. X. Arquillière, L'augustinisme politique, Paris, 1932, p. 81, who rightly points out that this Gregorian passage contains " la conception ministérielle " of kingship.
1. See the two privilegia in Reg. xiii. 11 and 12, pp. 376-80: " Si quis vero regum, sacerdotum, judicum atque saecularium personarum hanc constitutionem nostrae paginam agnoscens contra eam venire temptaverit, potestatis honorisque sui dignitate careat reumque se divino judicio existere de perpetrata iniquitate cognoscat et, nisi vel ea quac ab illo sunt male ablata restituerit vel digna poenitentia inlicite acta defleverit, a sacratissimo corpore ac sanguine Dei Domini redemptoris nostri Iesu Christi alienus fiet atque in aeterno examine districtae ultioni subjaceat " (p. 378 ). It is known that Gregory VII was to fall back on this, see his Reg. viii. 21, though with a characteristically Hildebrandine accentuation: " Non modo deponi, sed etiam excommunicari . . . decrevit. " The Liber Diurnus, form. 32, p. 86, 89, has a similar penal sanction, but it does not include kings.
2. Cf. Reg. xi. 56a, p. 333, lines 8-9; see also Reg. i. 32, p. 45, lines 1-2.
3. See Reg. i. 75, p. 95, lines 9-12.
4. Reg. ix. 64. Cf. II Cor. v. 20.
5. Reg. v. 36, p. 318 f.; Reg. v. 37 contains the protest about the title.
6. Reg. cit., p. 318; Rufinus, Hist. eccl. , i. 2, in PL. xxi. 468-9. On Rufinus see M. Villain, " Rufin d'Aquilée et l'histoire ecclésiastique " in Recherches de science religieuse, xxxiii ( 1946), pp. 188-91 (" l'image que notre historien se faisait de l'empereur était tout idealisée . . . " p. 189 ). Cf. also J. E. L. Oulton, "Rufinus's translation of the Church History of Eusebius" in Journal of theological studies, xxx ( 1929), pp. 164-8, and G. Bardy, " Faux et fraudes littéraires " in RHE. ,
ment of Gregory culled from Rufinus will also gain a very wide currency. 1
The monastic outlook of Gregory I is faithfully mirrored in the stamp which he impresses upon the sacerdotium. Authority, submission and subordination to superior orders characterized the Benedictine Rule, itself so largely inspired by these characteristic Roman features, 2 which as a result of the wide dissemination of Benedictine monachism was a very powerful agent in the impregnation of the fallow Western soil. 3 On the model of the Benedictine Rule the bishop becomes the "pater familias" of his diocese which is likened to a "regnum," 4 and over which he exercises a "sacrum regimen." 5 In general, the priesthood is a "religiosa militia" whose "exercitus" is entrusted to suitable leaders. 6 The coercion of obstreperous lay people by a subdeacon is not an action against the law, but one in its support. 7 Priests are superior to
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xxxii ( 1936), pp. 282-6. For Eusebius cf. D. Ireneio, " I documenti Constantiniani della Vita Constantini di Eusebio " in Analecta Gregoriana, xiii ( 1938); and W. Völker, " Tendenzen in Eusebius's Kirchengeschichte " in Vigiliae Christianae, iv ( 1950), pp. 164-6. Also F. E. Cranz in Harvard Theol. Rev. , xlv ( 1952), pp. 47ff.
1. According to Gregory, Constantine merely applied relevant expressions of the Old Testament. When Moses said. " Thou shalt not revile the gods " (Ex. xxii. 28) he wished to say " Thou shalt not revile the priests "; the same interpretation of Ex. xxiii. 8: " Applica illum (scilicet furem) ad deos, videlicet sacerdotes. " In Scripture, according to Gregory, the priests are sometimes called gods, sometimes angels, see Reg. cit.: " Nam in divinis eloquiis sacerdotes aliquando dii, aliquando angeli vocantur. "Cf. Mal. ii. 7.
2. For a brilliant characterization of the Rule, see D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, Cambridge, repr. 1950, pp. 5-15; cf. especially pp. 8 - 9 referring to the governmental principles obtaining in the Roman Church as a source on which St Benedict drew.
3. On these Roman features and especially the spirit of, and the borrowings from, Roman law in the Regula, see Ildephons Herwegen, " Vom Geist des Römischen Rechts in der Benediktiner Regel " in Festschrift f. R. Guardini, Rothenfels am Main, 1935, pp. 184 ff., pointing out that St Benedict's instructions resemble Roman imperial decrees: the influence of Roman law in the Rule is particularly noticeable in the penal part of the Rule (cc. 23-30), in the parallelism between " publica disciplina " and " domestica disciplina, " and so forth. Cf. also K. Gross, " Auctoritas-Majorum exempla " in Studien & Mitteilungenz ur Geschichte des Benediktiner Ordens, lviii ( 1940), pp.102-38. For some observations on this topic see also O. Gradenwitz, " Zur Regula sancti Benedicti " in Studi in onore di Salvatore Riccobono, Palermo, 1936, i. 573-84. The problem of the Regula Magistri is of no concern to us.
4. Reg. ii. 52, p. 156, line 30; cf. also Reg. vi. 50, p. 427, line 2; and ix. 218, p. 207, line 31.
5. Reg. ix. 210, p. 218, lines 3-4.
6. Reg. v. 60, p. 374, lines 19-25; " clericatus militia " in Reg. iv. 11, p. 244.
7. Reg. iii. 5, p. 163, lines 3-5: " Violentos namque laicos coercere non contra leges est agere, sed ferre subsidium. "
laymen: inequality of functions is essential to the proper ordering of Christendom. The principle of functional order which we have already met in Gelasius I, appears here in a memorable passage:
Neque enim universitas alia poterat ratione subsistere nisi huiusmodi magnus eam differentiae ordo servaret. 1
For terrestrial society is modelled on celestial society -- the Augustinian background of Gregory I -- and just as here there is no equality, so there is none in the former. 2 Strict hierarchical ordering is the condition for the proper working of the Societas respublicae Christianae. 3 In brief, then, since the body corporate of the Christians is held together by the spiritual element of the faith, those who function as its leaders must be suitable. The cause of a people's ruin lies in bad priests. 4 This, according to Gregory I, is the crucial importance of the priesthood in a Christian society.
The century that followed Gregory I witnessed an ever-growing gulf amounting to open hostility between the "Roman" empire and its Western provinces; this same century also saw the quite unprecedented mishandling of the Papacy by the imperial government; 5 it was also in this century that the Western soil was so strongly permeated
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1. Reg. v. 59, p. 371, lines 15-16. About the application of this important statement by Gregory VII see infra 289. Cf. also St Augustine, Civ. Dei, xix. 13: " Pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis. Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio. " The principle of functional order could not be Better expressed.
2. Reg. cit., lines 16-20: " Quia veto creatura in una eademque equalitate gubernari vel vivere non potest, coelestium militiarum exemplar nos instruit, quia, dum sint angeli, sint archarchangeli, liquet, quia non aequales sunt, sed in potestate et ordine, sicut nostis, differt alter ab altero. "
3. The tendency to centralization is clearly noticeable as also the attempt to weaken episcopal power: the monasteries were encouraged to get into direct contact with the Pope, cf. e.g., Reg. v. 47; 49; vi. 44; vii. 12; 40; viii. 17; xiii. 11; 12 and 13. On this see also H. Dudden, op. cit., ii. 188. Cf. also the reason for the despatch of the Defensor John to Spain, Reg. xiii. 50, pp. 414-18. The papal instruction to his legate is a juristic masterpiece. The legalism of Gregory I was very pronounced and not one of the least important features bequeathed to later generations, cf. also M. Conrat, Geschichte der Quellen & Literatur des römischen Rechts im MA. , Leipzig, 1906, p. 36: Gregory's letters show " eine Fülle juristischer Weisheit. " On the canonistic importance of Gregory's Register see now G. Damizia, Lineamenti di diritto canonico nel Registrum Epistolarum di s. Gregorio, Rome, 1949.
4. Reg. xi. 46, p. 319, lines 4-5: " Nam causa sunt ruinae populi sacerdotes mali. "
5. For this see E. Caspar, op. cit., ii. 515-619; cf. also the excellent selection of documents by H. Rahner, op. cit., pp. 283-346; also Th. Schnitzler in Analecta Gregoriana, xvi ( 1938), pp. 78 ff.
with the characteristic Roman features, through all sorts of agencies which eventually emanated from, or were promoted by, the Roman Papacy. And not the least significant aspect of this century was the strong tie which the Church of Rome had established with the farthest outpost of Latin Christendom, England.
Set against this background of the seventh century, the firm stand which Pope Sergius I took against the imperially convoked Quinisexta (692) is understandable. Western temper had reached a point which enabled this Pope to go into open rebellion against the regal-sacerdotal scheme of the empire, personified as this was in the second Justinian. The significance of the Quinisexta lies in that its decisions were to have universal validity, although the West was not even invited to partake in the deliberations. They resulted in the passing of a number of decrees provocatively directed against the principatus of the Roman Church. 1 Asked by the emperor to sign these decrees, Sergius I flatly refused, 2 because they were invalid. 3 Although, by order of the emperor, two of the trusted papal advisers -- the bishop of Porto, Peter, and the papal counsellor, Boniface -- were arrested and taken to Constantinople for trial, the imperial warrant of arrest against the Pope himself could not be executed because of the hostility of the crowd. 4
The impossibility of executing an imperial warrant of arrest was significant. No less significant was the intimate connexion between the Roman Church and England during the Pontificate of Sergius I. The seed which Gregory had planted at the beginning of this century, had come to fruition. Not only had the Romanization of Western regions advanced, but also throughout this century the links between Rome and England had been of a very special and personal kind: links which were forged through Papal legations, conferment of specific monastic privileges and above all by pilgrimages to Rome -- not primarily because Rome was Roma aurea, but because Rome was the
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1. Constantinople, c. iii, and Chalcedon, c. xxviii were re-issued (cap. xxxvi); the change in the civil status of a city entailed a change in its ecclesiastical status (cap. xxxviii); no celibacy for deacons and presbyters (cap. xiii) -- this chapter created the legal basis of the Eastern difference as regards celibacy. The emperor was the first to sign the decrees, Mansi, xi. 988. For details see Caspar, op. cit., ii. 632 ff.; G. Fritz, Dict. Théol. Cath. xiii, s.v., cols. 1581-97.
2. Cf. Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, i. 372
.
3. Lib. Pont. : " eos ut invalidos respuit. "
4. The Lib. Pont. loc. cit., has a long description of these events. The imperial officer, Zacharias, who was to have executed the warrant, fled before the wildly excited crowd into the room of the Pope himself, and hid himself under the papal bed. Afterwards he was chased out of the town.
burial place of St Peter. 1 Rome and St Peter became inextricably bound up in Western minds, hence the numerous church dedications to St. Peter, St. Paul, and so forth, which all bore an overwhelmingly Roman character. 2 On the other hand, the Roman Church could not but feel a sense of security as a result of these strong ties existing between it and the Western outposts of Latin Christianity. And most significantly, it was just in Sergius's Pontificate that these Western manifestations of Petrine-Roman veneration became most pronounced. The king of the West Saxons, Caedwalla, resigned his throne in 689 to go to Rome, in order to be baptized "Peter" by Sergius. 3 In 690 Willibrord went to Rome to ask permission of Sergius to carry out his missionary work amongst the Frisians, 4 and to obtain relics "to put into the newly erected churches." 5 Five years later Willibrord was consecrated archbishop of the Frisians and received the pallium from Sergius: the new archbishop received the Roman name of Clement. 6
It was precisely in these years of the outgoing seventh century which witnessed these unmistakable symptoms of Western devotion and orientation to Rome, that Pope Sergius took his firm stand against the demands of Emperor Justinian II. 7 Indeed, the purely theoretical protest of Gregory I, prompted by the envisaged expansion of Christianity exactly a hundred years earlier, had produced practical effects now that the Roman Church, as a result of the Western orientation towards Rome, felt strong enough to exercise its principatus, albeit in a negative manner, by condemning the decrees of the Quinisexta and by openly revolting against imperial orders. In this we might well see the heraldings of a new age.
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1. For all details see W. Levison, England & the Continent, Oxford, 1946, pp. 15-44, and Jäntere, op. cit., 249-51. The works of Th. Zwölfer and E. Pfeil were not accessible to me.
2. Levison, op. cit., p. 34.
3. See Bede, Hist. eccl. , V. vii; here also the epitaph "written on the Pope's command on his tomb." Before Caedwalla Oswiu of Northumbria desired to go to Rome for the same purpose, but died before he could go, see Levison, op. cit., p. 37; cf. also Caspar, op. cit., ii. 679 f. After Caedwalla Coenred of Mercia and Offa of Essex went the road to Rome, Levison, p. 38.
4. See Bede, V. xi.
5. Bede, V. xi.
6. Bede, V. xi, and Levison, p. 60, note 1, drawing attention to the mass of St Clement on the Sacramentarium Leonianum, p. 152, ed. Ch. Feltoe. Twenty years later Wynfrid was given the Roman name of Boniface. Cf. also Levison, p. 57 : "The English Church was conscious of its Roman origin; now its first continental offspring (i.e. the Frisian Church) entered into the same relation at once, an attitude which also became the distinctive mark of Boniface and of the German Church created by him."
7. The intitulation of this emperor in a recently discovered edict of his throws significant light on imperial ideology, cf. the transcription by A. Vasiliev, "An edict of Emperor Justinian II", 688 in "Speculum", xviii ( 1943), pp. 5-6.
CHAPTER II
The Emancipation of the Papacy from the Empire
THERE can have been few decades in European history which were of so decisive moment for Europe as those between the third and fifth decades of the eighth century. Battered, in the literal and metaphorical sense, the Papacy had emerged from the many vicissitudes of the previous age: Martin I's martyrdom; Maximus the Confessor's dignified stand; the subsequent trials besetting the Papacy in the christological disputes; the Trullanum and its consequences -indeed all these, to mention only the gravest issues, had tested the Papacy to a point at which ordinary human endurance would have failed. The seventh century can indeed be called the heroic age of the Papacy. And yet, the underlying causes of the virtually inexhaustible disputes and battles were simple. The Papal claim to magisterial and jurisdictional primacy (the principatus ) was severely attacked by the emperor acting as a true monarch (autokrator): in this function he could not permit papal intervention in spheres directly affecting the working of his (Christian) body politic. The Papacy, on the other hand, insisted on the proper qualification for determining doctrinal matters and for controlling the sacerdotal organism. Papal insistence on these vital points led to resistance.
But, from the constitutional point of view, resistance on the part of the Papacy to the imperial claims was made much more difficult, since the Roman Church was within the constitutional framework of the Roman Empire. The Empire as such had not changed; what had changed was merely the capital. Again from the constitutional point of view, resistance to the decrees issued by the Eastern emperor, the Rex-Sacerdos, was a very serious matter, since resistance took the form of rebellion which was nothing else but high-treason. This was really the crux of the matter. As long as the Roman Church formed an integral part of the Christian Roman Empire -- and we must take note that the empire in its turn was highly concerned with this, for it would have been most incongruous if the Church of Rome were outside the nexus of the Roman Empire -- there was no means by which it could offer effective resistance to the imperial government. The only way open to the Papacy was to extricate itself from the imperial framework, a step that was to entail freedom of movement for the Papacy and a good deal of loss of prestige for the Roman Empire.
There is no gainsaying the lesson which the Papacy had learnt in the preceding two centuries. Perhaps the chief lesson which they taught was that the Papacy as an institution was powerless, if it did not have at its disposal a protector and defender, when protection and defence were called for. The Papacy had, so to speak, grown into the texture of the already existing Roman empire, precisely because the Papal Church was the Church of Rome, when Rome was still the capital of the Empire. Considered from this historical point of view, there was indeed no possibility for the Roman Church as a Roman institution to create a defender and protector in the shape of the Roman Empire which had turned out to be its oppressor. But there was no secular power which could have been made a protector and defender of the Roman Church. In short, then, by virtue of the Papacy's being part and parcel of the Roman Empire, it could not only not offer effective resistance to the Roman emperor, but there was also no possibility of obtaining an effective protector and defender. In order to attain these two objectives emancipation from the imperial framework was essential. The Pontificate of Gregory II began this process of emancipation.
I
It was a matter of taxation that brought the issue to a head. Gregory II refused to execute the taxation decrees of the emperor, Leo III; the Pope caused open obstruction, 1 although theoretically and constitutionally he was bound to obey. The imperial oppressions of Italy which took the form of levying heavy taxes acted as a further stimulus to the resistance to the "alien" Greek regime. What Gregory II did was to endorse the already considerable resistance to the imperial government. No doubt this was a bold and courageous move on the part of the Pope who, after all, was virtually the viceroy of the emperor in Italy. The imperial threat to prosecute the Pope for high treason did not apparently produce the desired Papal reaction. 2 The emperor, how-
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1. See E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, Tübingen, 1933, ii. 645.
2. About the attempt to murder the Pope cf. Liber Pontificalis, i. 403: "Paulus vero exarchus imperatorum jussione eundem pontificem conabatur interficere, eo quod censum in provincia ponere praepediebat."
ever, anxious to secure the co-operation of the Pope, offered to abstain from prosecuting the Pope for high treason, 1 if the Pope would agree to the imperial decree 2 prohibiting the veneration of images. 3
The letters written by Gregory II in 729, 4 deserve some fuller quotation. They mark the end of an epoch. Their language is firm and frank. They reveal an utter contempt for the emperor.
We derive our power and authority from the prince of the apostles, Peter, and we could, if we wished, pronounce judgment upon you, but you have already pronounced judgment on yourself and on your counsellors: and you and they may just as well remain accursed. 5
As an emperor of Christians he would have the duty of consulting those who have knowledge and experience in matters of doctrine, who in fact are qualified to teach him:
Listen to us, emperor, cease behaving like a priest, and follow the sacred churches, as you ought to. Dogmas are not the business of emperors, but of Pontiffs, because we have the sense and mind of Christ. 6. . . you, emperor, cannot have the right mind for dogmas; your mind is too coarse and martial.
Gregory reiterates the old theme that the emperor has no right to supervise the churches, to judge clerics, to consecrate symbols of the
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1. About this point see E. Caspar, "Papst Gregor II und der Bilderstreit" in Z.f. Kirchengeschichte, lii ( 1933), p. 54, note 64.
2. About this "jussio" see F. Dülger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden, No. 291, of 728. See also No. 294.
3. Lib. Pont., i. 404 : "Si adquiesceret pontifex, gratiam imperatoris haberet; si et hoc fieri praepediret, a suo gradu decideret."
4. J. 2180 and 2182; both these letters were edited by Caspar, art. cit. (supra note 1), from which edition we quote. The authenticity of these two letters was established by Caspar with convincing reasons which are not invalidated by the argument of H. Grégoire, in Byzantion, viii 0933), pp. 762-3 (book review).
5. Ed. cit., p. 78, lines 194 ff.: "?Te??´saµe? ?a?` ?µee? ?? ????te? tò ?µ??? ?a?` t?`? ???s?´a? ?a?` a???e?t?´a? ?? t??´ ???´?? ?e´t??? t??´ ????fa?´??, d??´?a?´ s?? ?p?t?´µ?a. 'A??' ???a ?a?tò? t?`? ?ata´?a? ded??a? µe´?e ???? a?t?`?, µeta` ??? pe? pep?p?e´?? t??´? s?µ ß???e?´??ta`? s??"
This is no doubt intended to be a sharp reminder to the emperor that, theoretic-ally, he is subjected to the priestly power, even if the Pope evades the personal and actual excommunication of the emperor by the skilful device of maintaining that the emperor has excluded himself from the community of Christians, cf. also Caspar, art. cit., p. 58. The same theme returns in the second letter where, however, the power to bind and to loose was said to have been directly transmitted to the Pope by Christ, without the intermediary of St Peter. "?? ?aßó?te? pa?a` ????´?? t?`? ???s?´a? ?a?` a?d?e?t?´a? ??´e?? ?a?` de´?e?? ta` ?p?´?e?a ?a?` ta` ta` ?p???a´??a." The Pope has therefore power and authority -- "potestas et auctoritas" -- to bind and to loose the terrestrial as well as the celestial.
6 -- "Christi sensum nos habemus" in the Latin translation. For the original Greek text see ed. cit., p. 86, lines 411 ff.: "??? e?s? ta` d??µta t? + ^? ßas??e´??, ???a t? + ^? ????e?e´??, ?t? ?µe? + ^? ???´? ???st??´ ???µe?."
holy sacraments and to handle them or even to receive them without the participation of the priests. 1 Indeed, these are very weighty pronouncements summing up, so to speak, the reason for the Papacy's resistance. We have the sense and mind of Christ: only the ordained members of the Church -- the ?e???´ -- have this privilege; they alone are functionally qualified in a Christian society to pronounce what is, and what is not, Christian, and to shape the pronouncements into a rule binding upon all Christians.
The further threat of the emperor that the same fate would be in store for the Pope which had been visited upon Martin I, made little impression on Gregory II. On the contrary, it apparently gave him a welcome pretext to boast of the security which he could enjoy in regions outside the imperial clutches: these regions were a mere three miles away, as the Pope symbolically expressed it. There a new future lay -- there the power and authority of the Pope was not apparently subjected to the sacerdotal rulings of the emperor.
If you swagger and threaten us with the fate of Martin, we do not wish to enter into a quarrel with you. Three miles away the Pope will escape into Campania, and then good luck to you -- you might just as well chase the wind. 2
And so as to leave no doubt in the mind of his imperial reader, the Pope a few lines later returns to the same theme:
You know very well that your empire cannot even be sure of Roman Italy, except the city of Rome and this only because of the nearness of the sea. But, as I have said, the Pope has to move only three miles and he is outside your empire. It is regrettable that the savages and Barbarians have become cultured, whilst you as a cultured individual have degraded yourself to the level of the Barbarians . . . the whole occident offers the Prince of the Apostles proofs of faith, and if you should send men to destroy holy images (in the occident) then I had better warn you: we prophesy to you beforehand that we shall be innocent of the blood that will then flow; this blood may recoil upon you. 3
And furthermore:
The whole occident looks to us, and even if we do not deserve it, the occidental peoples have great confidence in us and in him whose images you
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1. Ed. cit., p. 86, lines 425 ff.: "??te ßas??e?`? ????´a? e?? ta`? e????s?´a? ?a?` f???? p???´sas?a? e?? tò? ????ò? ??te ???a´e?? ?a?` ?e???´e?? ta` s?´µ ??a ta? ???´?? µ?st???´?? ???' ??te µeta?aµßa´?e?? ????`? ?e?e´??"
2. Ed. cit., p. 82, lines 315-16: "T?e? + ^? µ???´??? ?p?????´se? ? ????e??e?`? 'P?´µ?? e?? t?`? ??´?a? ?appa??´a? ?a?` ?pa?e, d?´???? t??`? ??e´µ???."
3. Ed. cit., p. 83, lines 343-8.
wish to destroy, that is, St Peter, whom all kingdoms of the West venerate like God on earth: if you wish to test this, verily, the peoples of the West are ready. 1
These manly words of the Pope threatened with the fate of Martin and with a prosecution for high treason, produced a reply from the emperor which sounds as stale, hollow and stereotyped as it was unconvincing:
ßas??e?`? ?a?` ?e?e?`? e?µ?. I am king and priest. 2
In historic significance the second Gregory stands on no lower a level than the first. He reaped the fruits of the great Gregory. He attempted physically to tread the avenue which the great Gregory had opened up ideologically. It was indeed a historic decision to leave the city that gave the Church whose head he was, its historic name; to leave that political entity, in whose bosom the Church of Rome had grown; to journey to those distant and wild regions -- free as they were from imperial control -- which acknowledged the Pope as vicar of St Peter. 3
You have followed the treacherous doctrines of perverse teachers: may you well continue with them. We however as we have already written to you, have decided to undertake a journey with God's help, into the innermost parts of the Western countries to give baptism to those who demand it. First I had sent bishops and clerics of our holy church, but their chieftains would not bow their heads to them, but demanded that I personally come to baptize them. Thereupon we decided upon the journey. 4
The journey was not undertaken by Gregory II who died shortly after these letters were written, but the idea of this journey lived on and was realized twenty years later, in 754, by Stephen II. A new chapter in the history of the Papacy and of Europe was to open.
By initiating the process of emancipation, Gregory II in fact inflicted an irreparable loss of prestige upon the Empire. The main constitutional problem created was indeed serious, for a constitutional vacuum was created in Italy: as a consequence of the ineffective rule exercised by imperial authority in Italy, the Pope had become the
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1. 1 Ed. cit., p. 83, lines 335 ff.
2. Ed. cit., p. 85, line 382; also p. 88, line 484: "pa?a?a???´µe? se, ?e, ?e???´ ????e?e?`? ?a?` ßas??e??e?´?, ?a?? + ?? p??e´??a?a?." Reg. No. 298.
3. In view of later history it should be mentioned that in 724, hence five years before these letters were written, Gregory II in a letter to St Boniface, referred to Charles Martel as "patricius," see Migne, PL. lxxxix. 504.
4. Ed. cit., p. 88, lines 496-505.
viceroy, upon whom fell a large amount of administrative and political business. The emancipation of the Papacy from the imperial framework amounted therefore to the annulment of imperial rule in Italy.
The first Gregory's vision had borne fruit: the English mission produced all the effects on the continent which had lain dormant in Gregory's idea. From England came the impetus for the conversion of large parts of Europe, carried out notably by Willibrord and Boniface. 1 As far as the second Gregory was concerned, the vital result of the Bonifacian activity in Frankish lands was the structural organization of the church and its close link with the Roman Church; 2 of no lesser significance was the undoubted veneration of St. Peter by the virile and youthful Western nations; of equal importance was the effect which this "Roman" orientation produced: for the Western mind became from now onwards soaked with characteristic Roman features, that is, features which in themselves had nothing to do with the Papacy itself, since they were of much older provenance, but these features -- authority, law, order, subordination, intellectual tidiness, a practical and sober approach, and so forth 3 -- with which the Western
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1. For this see especially, W. Levison, England & the Continent, Oxford, 1946, pp. 53 ff., 70 ff.
2. Upon his appointment as missionary bishop of the whole of "Germania," on 30 November 722, Boniface took the same oath of obedience and fidelity which every other bishop of the Roman province had taken, cf. Levison, op. cit., pp. 72 - 3. The appointment by Gregory III of Boniface as the papal vicar was of great importance: MGH. Epp. iii. no. 44, p. 292: ". . . praesentem Bonifatium nostram agentem vicem cum digno et debito honore pro Christi nomine suscipere." For details see H. v. Schubert, Geschichte der christl. Kirche im Frühmit-telalter, Tübingen, 1923, pp. 303 ff.; Caspar, op. cit., ii. 701 ff.; Levison, op. cit., pp. 73 ff. The effect of all this could be seen in the council of 747 (MGH. Concilia ii. no. 6, p. 47): "Decrevimus autem in nostro sinodali conventu et confessi sumus fidem catholicam et unitatem et subjectionem Romanae ecclesiae fine tenus vitae nostrae velle servare; sancto Petro et vicario eius velle subjici." Thrown against this background Pope Zacharias's letter addressed to the clerics and counts and dukes in the Frankish kingdom is a clear signpost: he lays stress on the "differentia inter laicos et sacerdotes," and asserts that the priests are the salt of the earth (Matt. v. 13): MGH. Epp. iii. no. 61, p. 326; see also no. 83, p. 365, lines 40-1 (anno 748): "apostolicum praeceptum vobis mando, ut nullus saecularis clericum in suum obsequium habeat."
3. Of course the earlier Roman (imperial) administration had left traces in Western Europe; but one must not underestimate the difficulties with which this Romanism had to contend: even leaving out of account the tenacious tradition of a backward civilization, the most effective incubator of Romanism, the Latin language, had, to all intents and purposes, vanished entirely as a living language in Gaul, certainly since the end of the sixth century; cf. on this the penetrating study by the late F. Lot, "A quelle époque a-t-on cessé de parler latin?" in Bulletin du Cange, vi ( 1931), pp. 97 - 152.
mind had become impregnated, were inculcated into it by the very bearers and propagators of the Christian faith -- the educated clergy. Western Europe, that is, the so-called imperial-free regions, were now drawn more and more into the Roman orbit in its religious and secular aspects. The Roman Empire was to remain Greek.
Nevertheless, the Frankish king was not yet brought into that close Roman-Papal nexus which, from the Papal point of view, would have been desirable. To take an obvious example. In old Merovingian times the validity of synodal decrees was not dependent upon royal approval: on the other hand, the Merovingian monarchy did not lend its hand to the execution of these decrees. But in the later Frankish kingdom these synodal decrees were promulgated as royal decrees -- as capitularia -- and these decrees concerned all sorts of ecclesiastical matters, such as visitation, discipline, monastic rules, clerical dress, deposition, degradation, and so forth. 1 What was of equal importance was that the participants of these Frankish councils were lay as well as clerical: in a way one might say that these Frankish synods constituted the organs of a territorially conceived [Catholic] Christian people: it was, so to speak, a territorial union of Christians which through the medium of bishops and counts deliberated in the synods upon all matters affecting the Frankish "populus christianus." The king himself convoked the synods in the interest of the people. 2 In a way, furthermore, one might say, paradoxically enough, that the universal Church -- the congregation of all the faithful -- was conceived on a territorial plane: it was the universal [Catholic] Church in miniature. 3
Moreover, the strong hold which Christianity had obtained over the Franks explains the assertion of monarchic functions on the part of the king. As soon as the monarch perceived the strength which Christi-
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1. These examples are taken from the so-called Concilium Germanicum, held in 742 under Carlomann: MGH. Conc., ii. no. 1, pp. 3 - 5. On this council see Levison, op. cit., pp. 83 f., who points out that the decrees were merely "proposals submitted to the ruler . . . he reserved the final decisions to himself."
2. Cf. the prologue of the Concilium Germanicum, p. 2, lines 20 if.: Carlomann had summoned that synod "qualiter populus Christianus ad salutem animae pervenire possit et per falsos sacerdotes deceptus non pereat." Cf. also his decree, p. 3, lines 1 ff.: "Per consilium sacerdotum et optimatum meorum ordinavimus per civitates episcopos et constituimus super eos archiepiscopum Bonifatium qui est missus sancti Petri." H. Schubert, op. cit., 308, points out that the prologue and canon 1 are reminiscent of the law of the Wessex king Ine issued earlier on.
3. We think that this territorial conception of Christianity was also Charlemagne's own, in which case it would help us considerably in understanding his "imperial" policy. See infra pp. 112, 116.
anity had obtained, his monarchic "instinct" came to the fore: [Catholic] Christian principles were to constitute the subject-matter of his decrees; these principles were to be built into the royal laws. This applied to organizational as well as doctrinal matters. As monarchs the Frankish kings, including Charlemagne, naturally had to take the liveliest interest in the Roman-directed Christianity; but which Christian principles expounded by the Roman Church, were to become generally binding rules of conduct within the Frankish domain, was to be left - on the basis of the monarchic idea -- to the king himself. Hence the royal control of the synods; hence also the capitularia which, as we have said, were royal decrees that made the resolutions of the synods into laws of the kingdom.
There can be little doubt that the Papacy was vitally interested in these assertions of full monarchic powers. Although basically there was no difference between the emperor and the Frankish king -- both were monarchs of their respective realms -- as far as the Papacy was concerned, however, there was a very considerable difference: the emperor demonstrably flouted the Papal claim to magisterial and jurisdictional primacy; he made the denial of the Roman primacy a specific doctrinal point and thus openly attacked the most vital Papal principle. The Frankish kings, on the other hand, did not openly obstruct the Pope, and thus made the task of the Papacy considerably easier. The Frankish kings bore a genuine veneration for St. Peter and his Vicar, that is, they paid due regard to the magisterial primacy. In actual fact the monarchic idea militated against their recognizing the latent Papal claim to jurisdictional primacy. Furthermore, the Papacy had been constitutionally part and parcel of the empire; constitutionally it was independent of the Frankish kingdom. But, seen from a wider viewpoint, the development in the Frankish kingdom, particularly later under Charlemagne, showed signs which pointed to the possibility of a most uncomfortable repetition: there were ominous signs that the East was going to be transplanted to the West. 1 That this repetition so dreaded by the Papacy, did not come about, was exclusively due to the initiative which the Popes kept firmly in their hands throughout the eighth century.
The presupposition for a fruitful deployment of Papal authority was the extrication of the Papacy from the imperial nexus, a process that had so dramatically begun with Gregory II. Papal initiative was guaranteed, as long as the Papacy was engaged upon the execution of the emancipation plan. The creation of a dominion recognized in public
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1. See infra 95 concerning the secunda Roma.
law, Pontifically controlled on the monarchic model, and protected and defended by a strong secular power, was the means by which the Papacy carried out the extrication in practice, with the consequence that it emerged as a power with an independent status. The device employed by the Papacy for bringing about this extrication -- and could extrication take a more convincing form than the shape of a dominion (loosely called the pontifical or papal state) that was independent in its status by all standards of public law? -- was the harnessing of the Frankish king in the function of the "patrician of the Romans." This flexible and adaptable device was perhaps the most useful instrument which the Papacy had ever wielded, for the Frankish king as a "patrician of the Romans" enabled the Papacy to carry out and bring to a close the process of emancipation; but there was much more to it: the idea of the "patrician of the Romans" crystallized the Papal conception of a Ruler's function: which was to be a protector and defender of the Roman Church. The idea embodied in the Papally created patrician of the Romans was to prove fundamentally hostile to, and destructive of, the idea of royal monarchy in a Christian society.
II
The execution of the emancipation plan was considerably facilitated by the actual conditions prevailing in Northern and Central Italy. 1 The Lombards in particular were a source of continual trouble: their forces had made considerable advances and clearly threatened Rome itself. In the process of emancipation the Lombards begin to play an integral part. Their oppressions, real or exaggerated, were made to serve as the basis of papal demands put to the Franks. The theme of liberating the Roman Church from the clutches of the Lombards becomes now the predominant subject of communications between the Popes and the Franks. But behind this apparent theme there stands the real object of papal policy, namely, the extrication of the Papacy from the imperial framework. Gregory III's appeal to Charles Martel makes the apparent and the real motives quite plain. He appealed to Charles "who ruled the kingdom of the Franks" 2 for the liberation of the
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1. Administratively, since the early seventh century Italy was divided into several districts at the head of which stood a "dux" also called "consul." Cf. also infra p. 58 n. 3.
2 Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, i. 420, lines 16 ff.: "Concussaque est provincia Romanae dicionis subjecta a nefandis Langobardis seu et rege eorum Liutprando . . . vir Dei (papa) undique dolore constrictus sacras claves ex confessione beati Petri apostoli, navali itinere per missos suos direxit, id est. . .
Papacy from Lombard oppression, and in this same appeal he seems to have proposed to make the Frank the "Consul" (Duke) of the Roman duchy. 1 Charles Martel was not tempted.
On the other hand, the very deep veneration which the Franks entertained towards St. Peter and hence towards the Pope as his vicar, makes it understandable that Pippin, the new Frankish king, sought papal approval of his coup d'état against the Merovingian king, Childeric III; the Pope's favourable verdict compensated for Pippin's lack of legitimate succession to the Austrasian dynasty. 2 What the appeal of Pippin for papal sanction made plain 3 was that the Pope in Frankish eyes was the supreme moral authority in Western Europe: indeed, the nature of Pippin's step, taken in no lesser cause than that of substituting one reigning house for another, was no doubt properly appreciated by the Papacy. 4
The Frankish monarchy appeared to the Papacy as the instrument by which the plan of emancipation could be brought to a successful
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postulandum a (ad?) praefato excellentissimo Carolo ut eos a tanta oppressione Langobardorum liberaret." This passage was actually inserted in the Lib. Pont. during Stephen's pontificate, see editorial note no. 34, ibid., and Introduction, p. ccxxiii.
1. This is naturally omitted in the papal account, but reported by the Contin. Fredegarii (MGH. SS. RR. Merovingicarum, ed. B. Krusch, ii. 178-9, cap. 22 (110)): "Eo etenim tempore bis a Romana sede sancti Petri apostoli beatus Gregorius claves venerandi sepulchri cum vinculis sancti Petri et muneribus magnis et infinitis legationem, quod antea nullis auditis aut visis temporibus fuit, memorato principi destinavit, eo pacto patrato, ut a partibus imperatoris recederet et Romano consulto praefato principi Carlo sanciret." About possible other readings see B. Krusch, ibid., p. 179, note 1, and K. Jäntere, Die römische Weltreichsidee, 1936, pp. 231-6.
2. For details of fact see L. Halphen, Charlemagne & l'empire carolingien, 2nd ed., Paris, 1949, pp. 21 ff.
3. It should be noted that Pippin sent the highest available ecclesiastics to Rome, Bishop Burchard of Wurzburg and Abbot Fulrad of St Denis, see Annales Regni Francorum, ed. F. Kurze, p. 8, ad 749: "Burghardus Wirzeburgensis episcopus et Folradus capellanus missi fuerunt ad Zachariam papam, interrogando de regibus in Francia, qui illis temporibus non habentes regalem potestatem, si bene fuisset an non. Et Zacharias papa mandavit Pippino, ut melius esset ilium regem vocari, qui potestatem haberet, quam illum, qui sine regali potestate manebat; ut non conturbaretur ordo, per auctoritatem apostolicam jussit Pippinum regem fleri." The unction of Pippin by St Boniface, ibid., ad 750.
4. Although later much distorted, especially by Gregory VII, the sanction which Zacharias gave, was perfectly justifiable from the point of view of papal ideology. Childeric was useless and according to papal ideology, usefulness (or uselessness) could be judged only by the criterion which papal ideology itself supplied. Modern absolute criteria in judging Zacharias will only blur the issue. Cf. now also H. Büttner, "Aus den Anfängen des abendländischen Staatsgedankens" in HiSt. Jb., lxxi ( 1952), pp. 77 - 90.
conclusion. 1 It is in this context that the Lombards assumed the historic role of serving as a basis for the appeals of liberation, so urgently sent to the Frank who, on his part, had so recently received a favouiable papal verdict. The Lombards under Aistulph conquered Ravenna (751), and the whole surrounding district, and directed their army to the south, to Rome. It was no doubt an alarming situation for the empire; there was no doubt also that the Papacy now under Stephen II viewed the approach of the Lombard forces with dismay. Gregory III's appeal to Charles Martel served as a precedent for soliciting Frankish help; Gregory II's plan of going personally to the innermost parts of Western Europe, was not forgotten either. Both Gregory II and III make Stephen II's journey across the Alps understandable, and the second Stephen's journey was to serve as another precedent for the fourth Stephen's journey across the Alps some sixty years later. Pippin's request in the question of succession had demonstrated " the majesty of the position held by the Roman Pontiff in relation to the Franks." 2 The stage was set.
In 752 Stephen II despatched messengers to Pippin with the request that he would send an escort for the Pope so as to enable him to go to the Frankish kingdom. Pippin acceded to the papal request. His messengers arrived in Rome "where they found Stephen quite ready to set out." 3 But in Rome there had also arrived the emperor's messenger, John the Silentiary, with the imperial order (jussio) to Stephen to proceed to Aistulph at Pavia with the imperial messenger and to ask the Lombard king for the return of the Ravenna district. The whole party set out from Rome on 14 October 753. 4 It is therefore important to keep in mind that Stephen had already resolved to go to Pippin when John, the Silentiary, arrived; it is also clear that the Pope was imperially ordered to support John's demands to Aistulph. Considering therefore Stephen's aims, he travelled from Rome to Pavia (Aistulph's Headquarters) in a twofold capacity. On the one hand, he appeared as the supporter of the imperial legate John; 5 on the other hand, he pursued an aim that was diametrically opposed to his function as a supporter of imperial demands, for nothing could be further from his intention than
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1. Had not the first Gregory indicated that way? Did not he extol the Franks at the historic moment of initiating the English mission? Cf. supra p. 38.
2. L. Duchesne, Les premiers temps de l'éat pontifical, Engl. translation, p. 31.
3. 3. Duchesne, op. cit., p. 33.
4. Lib. Pont., i. 445, line 10.
5. Lib. Pont., ibid., lines 2-4: "(jussio) in qua inerat insertum ad Langobardorum regem eundem sanctissimum papam esse properaturum, ob recipiendum Ravennantium urbem et civitates ei pertinentes."
the "return" of the "exarchate of Ravenna" and the "people of the whole Italian province" to imperial rule, which was the purpose of the imperial legate's embassy to Aistulph. 1 The imperial-papal mission was fruitless. 2 But we must keep in mind that the Pope asked Aistulph for the "return of the lost sheep of the Lord" and for "restitution of the property to the owners." 3
"Gnashing his teeth like a lion" 4 Aistulph permitted the Papal party to proceed to the Frankish Kingdom. Pippin and Stephen met at Ponthion, Epiphany 754. 5 The Pope, according to his biographer, requested Pippin to "order the cause of St Peter (and) of the commonwealth of the Romans." 6 Moreover, as a symbolic detail the biographer tells us that Pippin, after dismounting from his horse, threw himself
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1. The author of the papal biography says this, Lib. Pont., i. 444, lines 3 ff.: Serenissimus vir jamfatum pestiferum Langobardorum regem immensis vicibus, innumerabilia tribuens munera, deprecaretur pro gregibus sibi a Deo commissis et perditis ovibus, scilicet pro universo exarchato Ravennae atque cunctae istius Italiae provinciae populo, quos diabolica fraude ipse impius deceperat rex et possidebat." The biographical account would almost make us believe that after Aistulph's refusal, the Pope continued the journey in the interest of the emperor, for the author goes on to say: "et dum ab eo nihil hac de re optineret, cernens praesertim et ab imperiali potentia nullum esse subveniendi auxilium; tunc quemadmodum predecessores eius b.m.domni Gregorius et Gregorius atque domnus Zacharias beatissimi pontifices Carolo excellentissimae memoriae regi Francorum direxerunt, petentes sibi subveniri propter oppressiones ac invasiones . . ."
2. Lib. Pont., i. 446, lines 7 ff: "Sed nullo modo apud eum impetrare valuit. Nam et imperialis missus et ille simili modo petiit et imperiales litteras illi tribuit et nihil obtinere potuit." It is clear from this account that both Pope and imperial legate presented the same demand to Aistulph.
3. "Eum petiit, ut dominicas quas abstulerat redderet oves et propria propriis restitueret." One might almost think that the Lombards were pagans. Who really was the proprietor to whom the "propria" were to be given back? There can be few historical sources which are so deliberately vague as the " Vita Stephani," our only contemporary account of these highly important doings. For a characterization of this biographer's work, see Duchesne in his Introduction to his edition, p. ccxliii: "Quant à l'hypothèse d'un mensonge, elle ne saurait être admise en aucune façon. Les biographes pontificaux ont une manière de cacher les choses qui leur paraissent dèsagréeables, c'est de sen taire." The "lost sheep" may be an allusion to Matt. XV. 24.
4 4 So the author of the "Vita," ibid., p. 446, line 12: "ut leo dentibus frenebat." Cf. Mk. ix. 17 (18).
5 The best account and the most satisfactory reconstruction is that by E. Caspar, Pippin and die röraische Kirche, 1914; cf. of more recent studies on this question, L. Levillain, "L'avènement de la dynastie carolingienne et les origines de l'état pontifical" in Bibl. de l'école des chartes, xciv ( 1933), pp. 225 - 95. Before setting out for his journey, Stephen is said to have furnished himself with a map of Italy, see A. Dove, "Corsica & Sardinien in den Schenkungen an die Päpste" in SB. Munich, 1894, p. 202.
6 Lib. Pont., i. 447, lines 19 ff.-p. 448 : "(papa) regem lacrimabiliter deprecatus est, ut per pacis foedera causam. beati Petri (et) reipublicae Romanorum dispon-
on the ground and then performed the service of a "strator" to the Pope, that is, he held the bridles of the papal horse and led it along a little distance. These ceremonies over, Pippin, according to the biographer, at once took an oath: "he would obey the Pope's orders and admonitions with all the power at his disposal; he would return the exarchate of Ravenna; he would restore as far as possible the localities and the (violated) rights of the commonwealth." 1 Pippin's promise at Ponthion was solemnized at Easter ( 14 April 754), ratified at Kierzy 2 and very shortly afterwards at the Monastery of St. Denis the Pope anointed Pippin, his wife and sons; at the same time Pippin was created a "patricius Romanorum." 3 Moreover, under pain of excommunication, Stephen prohibited the choice of a king who did not belong to the family of those whom divine foresight had deigned to exalt and "through the intercession of the blessed apostles to confirm and to consecrate through the medium of their vicar, the Pope." 4
According to the Papal biographer, Pippin promised to "restitute" the stolen property to its rightful owner. He therefore despatched emissaries to Aistulph who put this demand to him, 5 although without
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eret." The Annales Mettenses Priores (ed. B. Simson), p. 44 - 5, give a somewhat different picture of the reception by Pippin, but this is of little importance to us.
1. So according to the Lib. Pont., i. 448, lines 1-3: "Qui (Pippinus) de praesenti jurejurando eundem beatissimum papam satisfecit omnibus eius mandatis et ammonitionibus sese totis nisibus obedire, et ut illi placitum fuerit exarchatum Ravennae et reipublicae jura et loca reddere omnibus modis."
2. This is the famous "promissio Carisiaca" which is lost but reconstructed by E. Caspar, op. cit., pp. 99-153. Against the "promissio" being a formal act of Pippin see L. Saltet, "La lecture d'un texte et la critique contemporaine: les pretendues promesses de Quierzy (754) et de Rome (774) dans le 'Liber Pontificalis' " in Bulletin de la littiréture ecclésiastique, 1940, pp. 176 - 206 ; also 1941, pp. 61 - 85.
3. For this see the account in the "Clausula de unctione Pippini" in MGH. SS. RR. Merovingicarum, i. 465; cf. also Chronicon Moissiacense, in MGH. SS. i. 293. On the authenticity of the "Clausula" see L. Levillain, "De l'autenticité de la Clausula" in Bibfiothèque de l'école des chartes, lxxxviii (1927), pp. 20-42; also H. Leclercq in DAC. xiv. 282-90. We adopt the chronology as reconstructed' by Levillain, art. cit., pp. 243-70.
4. Thus in the "Clausula."
5. Lib. Pont., i. 449, lines 6 ff.: "Porro christianissimus Pippinus Francorum rex ut vere beati Petri fidelis atque jamfati sanctissimi pontificis salutiferis obtemperans monitis direxit suos missos Aistulfo nequissimo Langobardorum regi propter pacis foedera et proprietatis sanctae Dei ecclesiae reipublicae restituenda jura." On the meaning of "Porro" see Levillain, art. cit., p. 271, note 1.
With this account should be compared the account in the Cont. Fredegarii, loc. cit. cap. 119 which says of this legation: "Legationem ad Aistulphum regem Langobardorum mittens, petens ut propter reverentiam b. apostolorum Petri et Pauli in partibus Romae hostiliter non ambularet, et superstitiones ac impias vel contra legis ordinem causas, quod antea Romani numquam fecerant, propter eius petitionem facere non deberet."
avail. We take note, at this stage, that "rights and properties" were to be "restored to the Church of the commonwealth of the Romans." In the Papal letters sent to Pippin entreating the king to implement his promise, the same curious phrase occurs: not an inch of territory had Aistulph restored: "nec unius enim palmi terrae spatium beato Petro sanctaeque Dei ecclesiae reipublicae Romanorum reddere passus est." 1 Pippin is reminded of his promise 2 because Aistulph "non reddere propria beati Petri voluit." 3 Pippin is entreated to hasten and to "return and hand over to St. Peter" what he had promised. 4
There is no need for our purposes to go into details of the Pavia convention of 754 5 and of the much more important Pavia Treaty of 756 6 which formed the basis of the "Donation" of Pippin to the Roman Church: deposited at the Tomb of St. Peter, the document constitutionally established a dominion of the Pope that was recognized in public law and enjoyed an independent status. This dominion, not quite correctly called the Pontifical or Papal State, 7 embraced the exarchate of Ravenna, the pentapolis and the districts reaching from Comacchio down south to Ancona-Jesi-Gubbio.
III
We have so far abstained from interpreting some of those curious phrases and terms which the Papal biographer and Papal letters employ and which seem, particularly in translation, to make little or no sense. In order to appreciate these newly coined phrases we should bear in mind that the Papacy had to grapple with an altogether new situation, for which past history and terminology gave no warrant: these new
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1. Codex Carolinus, in MGH. Epp., iii. no. 6, p. 489, lines 17-19. Through the foresight of Charlemagne the papal letters were collected in this Codex which contains all Papal communications from the time of Gregory III down to the end of Adrian I's Pontificate.
2. Cod. Car., no. 6, p. 489, lines 32-4: "Propria vestra. voluntate per donationis paginam b. Petri sanctaeque Dei ecclesiae reipublicae civitates et loca restituenda confirmastis."
3. Cod. Car., no. 7, p. 492, lines 14-15.
4. Cf. also Cod. Car., no. 6, p. 490, lines 5-7: " Quod semel b. Petro polliciti estis, et per donationem vestram manu firmatam pro mercede animae vestrae beato Petro reddere et contradere festinate."
5. According to Caspar, op. cit., pp. 76 - 80, no document was drawn up at Pavia in 754, which would have conferred property on the Pope; only an oath was taken by Aistulph.
6. Caspar, op. cit., pp. 85-9.
7. In medieval times this dominion was called "Patrimonium beati Petri " or the "Regalia beati Petri," cf. also Caspar, op. cit., p. 155.
terms presented themselves as adaptations of old terminology to a new situation.
We have seen that the Pope spoke on behalf of the "whole exarchate of Ravenna and of the people of this whole of Italy" (the lost sheep) and demanded the return of property to the rightful owner. The "exarchate of Ravenna" is one such new term which we meet in the fifties of the eighth century: it had never existed before, since the Ravenna district had not been styled "exarchatus." 1 No doubt, the new term was modelled on "exarcha" and on "ducatus (Romanus)" 2 and at least a partial explanation may be that in comparatively recent times the duchy of Rome was carved out of the larger administrative province of Ravenna, so that the central Italian administration was divided into the duchy of Rome (virtually governed by the Pope) and the remaining Ravenna district (governed by the exarch). 3 What is of interest to us is that the papal biographer consistently brackets the exarchate of Ravenna and the duchy of Rome and in fact is obviously anxious to wipe out all difference between these two districts. What is furthermore important is that the "whole exarchate and the people of Italy" belong to the lost sheep of the Lord; and because they are "lost," the Pope demands their return to the owner.
Pippin had promised the return -- to the Roman Church. There can be no doubt that the basis of Stephen's demands was the Donation of Constantine. If this document is left out of account, it is not possible to explain the ever-recurring phrases of "reddere" and "restituere" which refer to districts which on no account could be said to "belong" to the Roman Church; without the Donation it is not possible to explain Pippin's promise of return and his conduct; it is furthermore not possible to explain the conduct of the imperial legate Gregory at his meeting with Pippin in 756; it is not possible to explain certain phrases in the papal biography or in papal letters. The Donation was fabri-
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1. See Caspar, op. cit., pp. 127 - 9.
2. Caspar holds that the term was first coined by the Pope at Kierzy and that the biographer, when composing his "Vita" afterwards, adopted it, see pp. 123, 130 - 3, 154, note 4.
3. By about 710 this division seems to have been established. The Lib. Pont. reflects the stages of the development. The "Vita Constantini" seems the first to refer to a separate Roman district, i. 392, line 5, cf. Duchesne's note 28, p. 395 ("la première mention du due de Rome"); "Vita Gregorii II," p. 403, line 13 ("Romanus ducatus"); and the "Vita Zachariae," p. 428, line 6, p. 429, line 10, and p. 431, line i, where the "provincia Ravennantium" is juxtaposed to the "ducatus Romanus" or "provincia Romanorum." The next step was the "exarchatus Ravennae" in the "Vita Stephani."
cated before Stephen set out on his journey to the Frankish kingdom. 1 Each of these points deserves a few observations.
Firstly, Pippin's conduct. The service of a "strator" performed by him can be satisfactorily explained only by a recourse to the Donation, for how was the Frank to know of this manifestation of servility shown by Constantine? 2 Pippin's promise of virtually unlimited help can be understood only if one takes into account that according to papal protestations the Lombards had stolen territory which the Emperor Constantine had given to St. Peter through Pope Silvester. It was in any case a disgraceful act to take territory that was given to a church; but it was worse to steal territory whose lawful owner was St. Peter. And the genuine veneration which the Franks had for St. Peter, prompted Pippin to aid Stephen in the recovery of the stolen territory.
Secondly, after defeating Aistulph Pippin made out the document to which we have already referred. When at Pavia in 756, he was approached by the imperial legate Gregory who urged Pippin "to concede to the imperial jurisdiction" precisely those districts for which the Pope himself claimed a "return." 3 Pippin refused. This meek request made on behalf of the rightful owner of the districts, the emperor, can be explained only by recourse to the Donation; what the request really meant was that Pippin should disregard the Constantinean enactment and should therefore "concede" the territories to the emperor. Under this presupposition the biographer's account makes perfect sense. On the other hand, Pippin had taken the oath to defend and protect the Roman Church and his campaigns were the execution of this oath: he acted as a defender of the Roman Church, or rather of St. Peter who was robbed of his territories, but on whose behalf Pippin had undertaken the campaign: in this capacity he could not possibly accede to
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1. L. Levillain, art. cit., p. 234 : "Le Constitutum Constantini est la charte qui a réglé les rapports du pape et du roi." See also L. Halphen, op. cit., pp. 3 - 4 : this document "explique et pretend justifier les revendications territoriales d'Etienne II"; idem, in A travers d'histoire du moyen âge, Paris, 1950, p. 49, note 1. This is also accepted by Bihlmeyer-Tüchle, Kirchengeschichte, 12th ed., Paderborn, 1948, ii. 42, but denied by O. Bertolini, "II problema delle origini del potere temporale dei papi" in Miscellanea Pio Paschini, Rome, 1949, i. 167 - 9.
2. Cf. also Levillain, art. cit., p. 235, note 3, and text ibid. See also F. Kampers, "Roma aeterna" in Hist. JP., 1924, p. 248 : "Dem halb-barbarischen Pippin waren die Dienste eines Strators in der feierlichen Prozession . . . sicherlich ganz unbekannt." Cf. also Halphen, Op. Cit., p. 29: "Protocole jusqu' alors inusité," and H. Leclercq in DAC. xiv. 291-2
3. Lib. Pont., i. 453., lines 1-3: "Nimis eum (Pippinum) deprecans atque plura spondens tribui imperialia munera ut Ravennantium urbem vel cetera eiusdem exarcatus civitates et castra imperiali tribuens concederet ditioni."
Gregory's request. 1 Pippin had conquered the districts on behalf of St. Peter, hence strictly and legally speaking Pippin was a trustee and as such handed the territories to the Pope.
Thirdly, the document handing over the territory was deposited at the Confession of St. Peter. There is a remarkable similarity in phraseology between the Donation and the Papal biographer's account. It was also the same place, the Confession, at which the Emperor Constantine had decreed that his document should be deposited. And the Papal biographer in narrating the deposition chooses a phraseology which is reminiscent of the Donation:
Donation
Patri nostro . . . tradimus perenniter
aque feliciter possidenda.
Apostolo . . . perenniter possidendas
adque disponendas tradidit.
To this context belong also the deliberately vague expressions in the Papal letters which would tally with the no less vague statements in the Donation: both speak of the "civitates et loca." 2
Fourthly, the aim of Stephen's journey was to obtain an overt confirmation of the Constantinean act by Pippin. 3 The confirmation served
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1. Lib. Pont., i. 453, lines 3 ff.: "Et nequaquam valuit firmissimum jamfati christianissimi atque benignissimi, fidelis Dei et amatoris b. Petri, scilicet antelati Pippini Francorum regis, inclinare cor, ut easdem civitates et loca. imperiali tribueret ditioni; asserens idem Dei cultor mitissimus rex nulla penitus ratione easdem civitates a potestate beati Petri et jure ecclesiae Romanae vel pontifici apostolicae sedis quoquo modo alienari."
2. According to the Donation, apart from the imperial palace and the city of Rome, Constantine had transferred "omnes Italiae seu occidentalium regionum provincias, loca et civitates." Cf. the Pope's letter to Pippin, Cod. Car. no. 6, p. 489, line 33: "Civitates et loca restituenda"; ibid., p. 490, lines 9-10: "Decertaveritis pro causa eiusdem principis apostolorum et restituendis eius civitatibus et locis"; ibid., no. 7, p. 493, line 9: "Beato Petro promisistis per donationem vestram civitates et loca." These examples could easily be multiplied. L. Levillain, art. cit., p. 233, note 1, draws attention to the phraseology in Stephen's letter to Pippin, Cod. Car., no. 11, p. 506: "Omnia proprietatis suae percipiat, unde . . . luminariorum concinnatio Dei ecclesiis permaneat" which is reminiscent of the Donation, cap. 13: "Pro concinnatione luminariorum possessionum praedia contulimus." For another instance of borrowing from the Donation, in fact a literal copying, see infra 73. n. 2. It is not apparently possible to fix the dictator of these papal letters: he remains anonymous, cf. N. Ertl, "Die Dictatoren frühmittelalterlicher Papstbriefe" in Archiv f. Urkundenforschung, xv ( 1938), p. 81, note 201.
3. See, for instance, his letters, Cod. Car. nos. 6 & 7, p. 489, lines 12-14: "Justitiam beati Petri . . . exigere studuistis et per donationis paginam restituendum confirmavit bonitas vestra"; ibid., line 34: "Vestra voluntate per donationis paginam b. Petri sanctaeque Dei ecclesiae reipublicae civitates et loca restituenda confirmastis"; ibid., p. 492, line 33: "(Quae) confirmastis, protectori vestro, beato Petro, reddere festinate." The oldest copy of the Donation is in the St Denis formulary infra pp. 74 n. 2, 199 n. 2 at end.
as the basis for the restitution of the districts claimed and hence of the dominion itself. From this point of view it becomes understandable why the biographer and the Pope consistently speak of "reddere" and "restituere." The restitutions of territory gave the Pope a status in public law: the Papacy had virtually extricated itself from the imperial nexus. A district was created in public law which, constitutionally, was carved out of the empire.
We have already alluded to curious phrases adopted by the biographer and the Pope. We have tried to give a partial explanation for the "exarchatus" and its close connexion with the Duchy of Rome. Whilst this term concerns the territorial claims, the curious term "sancta Dei ecclesia reipublicae Romanorum" is of far greater ideological significance. In close proximity to this term stands the other term "populus Romanus."
The term "respublica Romanorum" must on no account be confused with a very similar one -- the "respublica Romana." This latter term was always synonymous with the Empire. The former was no doubt modelled on the old term and yet conveyed an entirely different meaning. The change concerns the qualification of the "respublica." The new term designates the notion of a "commonwealth" composed of Romans, not of Greeks; a commonwealth or a society composed of those who live according to the Roman faith, not the Greek one; a society composed of those Christians who follow the teachings of the Church of Rome, not of Byzantium. The Romani in this sense are all Christians who accept the position of the Pope as vicar of St. Peter and follow his exposition of the faith. The Romans, in a word, are synonymous with Latin Christians. 1 This is indeed the fruit of St. Boniface's work 2 and in a wider sense of Gregory I: it is the ideological conflation of Romanitas and Christianitas. Pippin's own purposeful introduction of the Roman liturgys 3 naturally promoted this process of exchanging
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1. If the two terms are not distinguished, confusion will arise, and Stephen would then make a demand for a return of territories on behalf of the emperor. It is well known that Ch. Diehl, Etudes sur l'administration by?antine dans l'exarchate de Ravenna, p. 221 ff., made this mistake. Of more recent date is T. G. Jailand, The Church and the Papacy, London, 1944, p. 371: "Stephen II felt obliged to undertake the task of ambassador on behalf of the Byzantine emperor Constantine V to the Frankish court. Yet actually it was a happy misfortune. The king who received him, was Pepin."
2. On Pippin's share in the reform movement see especially W. Levison, England & the Continent, pp. 87-91. See now also Th. Schieffer, Angelsachsen und Franken ( Abhandlungen d. Akademie d. Wissenschaften, Mainz, 1950), pp. 1435 ff.
3. The effect of this was a unification of the Frankish services, about which see H. Netzer, L'introduction de la messe Romaine en France sous les Carolingiens,
Romani for Christiani. In this context due importance must be attributed to the sacramentaries and prayer texts. 1 In this eighth century the contrast between the "Romani" and the "Graec" was clearly felt by contemporaries. 2 Nor should the significance of the second prologue to the Lex Salica, written in the reign of Pippin, be forgotten: the Franks alone were the chosen Christian people: " Vivat qui Francos diligit Christus." 3 In brief, a Christian was a Roman.
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Paris, 1910; and Th. Klauser, "Die liturgischen Austauschbeziehungen zwischen der römischen und fränkischen Kirche" in Hist. Jb. liii ( 1933), pp. 169 ff. Later Charlemagne requested a copy of the Sacramentarium-Gregorianum.
1. See also infra p. 89 and especially G. Tellenbach, "Die liturgishen Austaushbeziehungen zwishen der römischen und fränkishen Kirche" in SB. Heidelberg, 1934-5. Here also due importance must be attached to the effects which the Ordines Romani exercised, even if these were confined to liturgy only. They too considerably contributed to the conflation of "Romanitas" and "Christianitas." After the Lateran synod of 680 Pope Agatho despatched Benedict Biscop and Johannes Archicantor to England with an OR., where it was at once introduced, see Bede, Hist. Eccl. iv. 18; cf. also Giles's remarks in the Bohn library translation, p. ix. This Johannes was probably the author of the OR. which preceded OR. I, see C. Silva-Tarouca, "Giovanni Archicantor di S. Pietro a Roma e l'Ordo Romanus da lui composta" in Atti dellapontificia accademia Romana di archeologia, 1923, pp. 194-207, and A. Baumlstark , in K. Mohlberg & A. Baumstark, Die aelteste erreichbare Gestalt des Liber Sacramentorum anni circuli der rdmischen Kirche (in Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen, xi-xii, 1927), pp. 44*, 64* (1 owe the reference to this work to Dr C. H. Talbot). Together with the Sacramentaries the ORi. were powerful agents in orientating the Western mind towards Rome?. Migne (PL. lxxviii. 937-1368) printed the 15 ORi.; see M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du taut Moyen Age, vol. i ( 1931) and esp. vol. ii 0949) and vol. iii ( 1951), with numerous additional Ordines of earlier times. Our numeration follows Mabillon's. The place of the Ordines in monasteries was partly taken by the monastic Consuetudines. About the introdution of certain feast days, e.g. ember days, Candlemasday, etc., cf. L. Eisenhofer, Liturgik, 5th ed. by J. Lechner, 1950, pp. 177, 150. Liturgical garments were of Roman provenance. For monastic dress see Ph. Oppenheim, Das Mönchskleid im christi. Altertum, suppl. vol. xxviii, 1931 of Röm. Quartaischrift.
2. For a characteristic contemporary example see the Historia Langobardorum by Paulus Diaconus, MGH. SS. RR. Langobardorum, ii. 75, cap. 5: "Expedierat Romanis Gothis potius servire quam Graecis"; cf. Caspar, op. cit., p. 161. See also the contemporary Penitential of Theodore of Canterbury, where the same antithesis of Romans and Greeks will be found, iii. 8: "secundum Graecos . . . secundum Romanos" (ed. H. I. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher und das kanonische Bussverfahren, ii. 568);cf. also ibid., p. 573, Rubrica: De moribus Graecorum et Romanorum; c. 4: "Graecorum monachi servos non habent, Romanorum habent." Roman liturgy was prescribed for all English churches by the synod of Cloveshoe in 7 47), see Haddan & Stubbs, Councils & eccles. documents, iii. 367, cap. 13.
3. Lex Salica, ed. K. A. Eckhardt, Weimar, 1953, p. 88. In two assertive articles S. Stein tries to prove that the Lex Salica was a forgery made in the mid-ninth century, see his second article, "Lex Salica II"" in Speculum, xxii ( 1947), especially pp. 406 ff. But cf. now J. M. Wallace-Hadrill in Rev. d'hist. du droit, xxi ( 1953), pp. 12-27.
But apart from this purely religious meaning of "Romani," 1 the term 2 could be, and was, taken in a mere geographical sense denoting the inhabitants of Rome and in a wider sense the Italians. Just as the Church of Rome epitomized the whole of (Latin) Christianity, in the same way the geographical Romans -- the populus Romanus -- epitmized the Romans wherever they lived. In this sense the "Roman people" is, according to Papal conceptions, the "peculiaris populus" of St. Peter 3 who "himself" writes a letter to Pippin emploring his help. St Peter and Rome coalesce into one notion, into St. Peter's Rome. 4 The city that holds the body of St. Peter demands special protection: the city of Rome is the geographical expression of "Christianitas." 5
In a transitional period such as the one with which we are dealing one cannot expect a fully matured terminology: so much was in the making and in a state of flux for which there was no terminological precedent. 6 This, we think, applies with particular force to the phrase from which we started: "Sancta Dei ecclesia reipublicae Romanorum." The "respublica Romanorum" was Christian society whose leaven
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1. Apart from the purely religious connotation there were also cultural and social implications in the term.
2. Caspar, op. cit., pp. 147, 163 - 4, etc., takes the term only in the geographical sense and considers that it embodies a "national-Italian programme of the Papacy."
3. It is not without significance that the first Pope who appealed to the Franks, Gregory III, also employed this term in his offer to Charles Martel, see Cod. Car., No. 1, p. 477, lines 1-2: "Pro cius reverentia (Petri) nostris obedias mandatis ad defendendam ecclesiam Dei et peculiarem populum." The expression itself seems to be of biblical origin, Deut. vii. 6 ; xxvi. 18.
4. St Peter's letter, Cod. Car., no. 10, p. 501, lines 37 ff.: "Ego, apostolus Dei Petrus, qui vos adoptivos habeo filios ad defendendum de manibus adversariorum hanc Romanam civitatem et populum mihi a Deo commissum seu et domum, ubi secundum carnem requiesco. . ." See also ibid., p. 503, line 3: "Non separer a populo meo Romano"; and line 5: "Subvenite populo meo Romano."
5. Cf. again St Peter's letter, cit., lines 22-5: "Defendite adque liberate . . . ne, quod absit, corpus meum, quod pro domino Jesu Christo tormenta perpessum est, et domus mea, ubi per Dei preceptionem requiescit, ab eis contaminentur." Cf. also p. 503, line 23: ". . . quatenus doleat vobis pro civitate ipsa Romana nobis a Domino commissa et ovibus dominicis in ea commorantibus necnon et pro sancta Dei ecclesia mihi a Domino commendata"; p. 502, lines 20 ff.: ". . . ad liberanda hanc meam civitatem Romanam nimis velociter occurreritis."
6. It should be pointed out that a number of these new terms was dropped in this same century. For instance, the "sancta Dei ecclesia reipublicae Romanorum" does not appear after 774 in the Lib. Pont. or the papal letters. Precisely because these terms were coined during a period of transition, it is so very difficult to determine their exact ideological contents. Gregory I's expression may possibly have been a model, cf. supra p. 37.
was the faith as expounded by the Roman Church. This society was composed of the "Romani." Their epitome is the populus Romanus, the inhabitants of Rome. 1 The theme of those many letters of the Popes written to the Franks, was that the "Roman people" had been committed to the Pope's care. 2
These considerations may help us to detect the meaning of that curious phrase. It is a terminology which can have meaning only within the scope of public law. It attempts to express the governance of the Romans by the Church of Rome. Again, this governance can be applied to the "respublica Romanorum" in the wider (religious) sense as well as in the narrow (geographical-territorial) sense. Considered from the point of view of the "restitutions" demanded by the Pope, the term "Church of the commonwealth of the Romans" had a merely geographical and territorial meaning and denoted that entity which came loosely to be called pontifical or papal state 3 inhabited by the "populus Romanus." 4
Now, by virtue of the Constantinean enactment St Peter was given through the medium of the Pope a (more or less specified) territory, which Pippin as a Roman (= Christian) considered it his duty to protect and to defend against Lombard depredations. This, we think, is the meaning of the title conferred on him, "patricius Romanorum." The term meant "patrician" of those Christians who lived according to the Roman faith. Naturally, this term included the epitome of the Romans, the "populus Romanus," the city of Rome: protection and
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1. Cf. for instance, Cod. Car. no. 8, p. 496, line 40: "sanctam Dei ecclesiam et eius populum de inimicorum impugnatione debueratis liberare." See also p. 497, line 13.
2. For instance, Cod. Car., no. 6, p. 489, line 25: "(ad) populum nobis commissum sumus reversi."
3. But whose actual territorial frontiers, as the letters of Stephen and his successors make so abundantly clear, were not clearly defined: the Popes demanded more and more territory, that is to say, more restitutions. Despite our fundamental opposition to J. Haller's famous thesis we agree with him when he says that the Popes were by no means satisfied with the frontiers as laid down in 756. "Der junge Staat tat eben, was alle Wesen in der ersten Jugend tun: er wollte wachsen," Abhandlungen z. Geschichte des MA, Stuttgart, 1944, p. 10.
4. That these conceptions of the "Romani" were still current in the twelfth century is shown by the author of the Summa Lipsiensis (see the passage in J. F. Schulte , Geschichte der Quellen & Literatur des kanonischen Rechts, Stuttgart, 1876, i. 105, note 9); by Huguccio (cf. EHR. lvii, 1952, p. 435, note 1); by the Summa Reginensis (cf. A. M. Stickler, "Vergessene Bologneser Dekretisten " in Salesianum Coloniensis xiv, 1952, p. 488) and so forth. Cf. also the Summa Coloniensis ("populus Romanus" applicable to the city of Rome only) in Schulte, SB. Vienna, lxiv, 1870, p. 112.
defence of these latter Romans was the effluence of his protection and defence of all the Romans = Christians.
The protection of St Peter -- that is the ever-recurring theme of those numerous papal letters beseeching Pippin's and later Charlemagne's help. And, as we have seen, in one case St Peter himself writes a letter to Pippin to ensure his help. The Roman Church, St Peter's Church, is threatened, the Petrine veneration of Pippin is to be translated into the tangible terms of military help to St Peter's Church. As a patrician of the Romans he is to be a fighter for St Peter + ?, and in fighting for St Peter's Church he fights at the same time for the whole of Christendom, since the Roman Church is the "head and mother of all other churches." 1 By defending the Roman Church Christendom will be saved-Pippin is to exalt the Roman Church "per quam et salus Christianorum existit." 2 For St Peter, as he himself testifies, is the "preacher and illuminator of the whole world." 3 No other church has been committed to St Peter but the Roman one, and defence of this one church redounds to the good of all Christianity. 4 In short, the Roman Church is the "fons vivus," the "fundamentum fide!" of all Christianity. 5 If the Roman Church is endangered, the whole of Christendom will be endangered. According to papal con-ceptions, the proper functioning of the Roman Church which is in
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1. This is precisely one of the subjects in Stephen's letter to Pippin, Cod. Car. no. 11, p. 504: "Sancta omnium ecclesiarum Dei mater et caput." See also ibid., no. 6., pp. 488-9: ". . . valde studendum est, ut, unde gloriosiores ceteris genti-bus in servitio b. Petri vos omnes christiani asserunt, inde omnipotenti Domino, qui dat salutem regibus, pro defensione sanctae suae ecclesiae perfectius placeatis." See also ibid., no. 8, p. 496, lines 37-41 and lines 17-19: "Peto te, ne pereamus, ne quando dicant gentes, quae in cuncto orbe terrarum sunt, ubi est fidutia Romanorum, quam post Deum in regibus et gente Francorum habebant?"
2. Cod. Car., no. 7, p. 491, lines 7-8.
3. Cod. Car., no. 10, p. 503, lines 37-9: "Deus et Dominus noster . . . nosque praedicatores et inluminatores totius mundi constituit." The "inluminator" may be reminiscent of the Donation of Constantine, cap. 8. The same term in Paul I's letter, ibid., no. 42, p. 556, lines 10-11: "beatus Silvester Christianorum in-luminator fidei." J. Haller, op. cit., p. 22, note 3, draws attention to the intitula-tion of St Peter: "Petrus vocatus apostolus," a phrase which was not of Roman, but of Frankish, origin, hence there is some justification for saying that some Franks must have co-operated in the drafting of this letter of St Peter.
4. Cf. Cod. Car., no. 10, p. 501, lines 36-7.
5. Cod. Car., no. 10, p. 502, lines 35 ff.: "Currite, currite -- per Deum vivum et verum vos adhortor et protestor -- currite et subvenite, antequam fons virus, unde satiati et renati estis, arescat; antequam ipsa modica stilla de flagrantissima flamma remanens, ex qua vestram lucem cognovistis, extinguatur; antequara mater vestra spiritalis, sancta Dei ecclesia, in qua vitam speratis percipere aeternam, humilietur, invadatur et ab impiis violetur atque contaminetur."
the interests of all the "Romani" -- the whole "respublica Romanorum," the community of the Latin Christians -- presupposes its freedom which only an independent territorial status of the Roman Church -the territorial "respublica Romanorum" -- can guarantee.
Protector of the Romans = Christians; defender therefore of the mother church of all Romans Christians; exaltation of the universal Church through the protection and defence of St Peter's Rome-this was the function which Pippin was to fulfil; this was the function which he also largely did fulfil. Pippin's service to St Peter was wholly conditioned by religious motives. 1 As a Roman = Christian he was bound to be moved by the insistent papal appeals; moved also by the -- at times -- picturesque papal descriptions of the rewards awaiting him in the next life. It is to these motives that the Popes continually appeal; it is on the basis of these motives that Pippin acts. But we must not confuse the motives prompting Pippin with the function or office which he was supposed to perform. For the Pope had clothed him in the garb of an officer, that of the "patrician of the Romans": this term too belonged to public law and designated an office and was one more new coinage, modelled on earlier terminology.
The imperial officer at Ravenna was known as the exarch or "patricius" without any qualification. 2 He was appointed by the emperor in Constantinople and acted on his behalf as a defender of Italy. The
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1. In so far we agree with Haller, op. cit., pp. 24-5.
2. A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, 3rd & 4th ed., ii. 21, note 2; E. Caspar , op. cit., p. 182, note x. The late Stein, "La période byzantine de la papauté" in Cath. Hist. Rev., xxi ( 1935), pp. 161-2, considered that this title was not a novelty, because the Eastern patrician was acclaimed as pat??´??e t?? 'P?µa?´?? according to the Liber de cerimoniis (see ed. Bonn, 1832, i. 48, p. 253, line 9); but this was compiled by Constantine Porphyrogenitos in the tenth century, see also editorial note ad line 9. Stein's further reference (note 34) to Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Langobardorum, iv. 38 (MGH. SS. RR. Lang., ed. G. Waitz) does not apply because this was written in the second half of the eighth century. Fredegar in his Chronicon, iv. 69, p. 155 (MGH. SS. RR. Merov., ed. B. Krusch) uses the term "patricius" and "patricius Romanorum" indifferently and in no technical sense. Isidore of Seville speaks of a "Romanus patricius" in his Chronicon, cap. 115 (PL. lxxxiii. 1054). The "Clausula"\ itself, again quite untechnically, speaks of Pippin as "patricius." On the other hand, one might perhaps have expected official use of the title "patricius Romanorum" later, but it does not occur; for instance, in Constantine De administrando imperio the title is throughout the simple "patricius" while the emperor is always ßas??e?`? t?? 'P?µa?´??, see the Greek edition with English translation by Gy. Moravcsik and R. J. H. Jenkins, Budapest, 1949. Treating of the "patricius Romanorum" conferred by Pope Stephen II on Pippin, H. Leclercq in DAC. xiii (1938), col. 1327 says: "Un titre nouveau, distinct du patriciat byzantin"; also Col. 2494: "Ce patriciat est un inconnu jusqu'alors." Here also further literature.
Frankish patrician of the Romans was a novelty, not only because the Pope had created him, but also because this specific officer had not existed before. Nevertheless, the term "Romans" whose patrician Pippin had become, had exactly the same meaning which we have tried to show in regard to that clumsy phrase "Church of the commonwealth of the Romans." Both terms in fact appear at exactly the same time, on the occasion of Stephen's journey to Ponthion. Since 751 when the last exarch of Ravenna was driven out by the Lombards, there had been no patrician, hence in a way one might say that the vacancy was filled by the appointment of the Frankish king as patrician. 1
Now the manner of, and the purpose for, creating Pippin"patricius Romanorum" warrant a few observations. Little more than two years before the Pope anointed him, he had already been anointed king by St. Boniface. 2 The significance of the papal unction lies not only in that the Carolingian dynasty was raised above any ruling family in Western or Eastern Europe by the action of St Peter's vicar, but also in that this act conferred the office of a patrician of the Romans: this is the form of address used by Stephen II and his successors when writing to Pippin. The significance of the papal act is only heightened when one realizes that in Rome the ceremony of anointing was not yet known. 3 The Frank was now the papally created and anointed king and at the same time was made an officer. Through this a most intimate religious connexion was established between king and Pope, a connexion which was a distinction for the king, but also entailed service in his function as an officer.
Stephen II did not omit to drive this last point home. He wrote to Pippin that God Himself through the mediation of St Peter had anointed him 4 but with a definite purpose, namely, defence and protection and consequently exaltation of the Roman Church. Through
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1. Cf. also K. Jäntere, "Die römische Weltreichsidee", p. 273.
2. See "Annales Regni Francorum", ed. cit., p. 8. On the date itself see L. Levillain, art. Cit., pp. 228-9 (between 31 October 7 51) and 23 January 7 52)). The parallelism between Saul-Childeric and David-Pippin should be noted, cf. E. Eichmann in Hist. Jb., lxix ( 1949), p. 610.
3. See G. Ellard, Ordination Anointings in the Western Church, Cambridge, Mass.; 1933, p. 31; and H. Leclercq in DAC. xiii. 2136. Anointing as part of the priestly ordination became known only in the first half of the tenth century, see Ellard, op. cit., p. 77: "The anointing went to Rome by way of Ravenna. I think the subjugation of Rome at the hands of the woman (Marozia) extended farther than has been hitherto estimated. In appointing her relative John to the Papacy (John X), did she not introduce the pontifical ritual from beyond the Alps that for all time should hold Rome captive?" Cf. also infra p. 150.
4. Cod. Car., no. 7, p. 493, lines 11-17; no. 8, p. 496, lines 15-16.
the unction Pippin became the specific defender of the Roman Church; 1 through the unction he was consecrated to service to the Roman Church 2 in his capacity as patrician of the Romans. The function of the "patrician of the Romans" was indissolubly linked with Pippin's kingship, but his kingship had no duties that were not purely Frankish; hence the need to create the king an officer. The anointing of Pippin as king by the Pope presented itself as the medium through which the office could be conferred. This office provided the link in public law between the king and the Pope, an all the stronger link as it was so powerfully and solemnly forged by anointing him king.
We should take note that whenever the Pope referred to the unction in his letters, he invariably employed a phrasing which revealed the purpose, the telos, the finis, of the papal unction: the employment of conjunctive terms, such as the final "that," "in order to" ("ut") or "for the sake of" ("ad") are expressions characteristic of papal phraseology as well as of papal ideology: Pippin was anointed "in order to defend the Roman Church" or "for the sake of defence" or of liberation -- these are standing phrases in the Papal letters. 3 And in at least three letters this purposeful anointing is stated to have made Pippin the "arm," the "brachium," that would see that justice was done to St Peter. 4 And we obtain still more of a glimpse into the future when St Peter in his own letter declares:
Ideoque ego, apostolus Dei Petrus, qui vos adoptivos habeo filios ad defendendum de manibus adversariorum hanc Romanam civitatem et populum mihi a Deo commissum. 5
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1. Cod. Car., no. 7, p. 493, line 10: "Ideo vos Dominus per humilitatem meam mediante beato Petro unxit in reges, ut per vos sancta sua ecclesia exaltetur et princeps apostolorum suam suscipiat justitiam."
2. Cf. also E. Eichmann, Kaiserkrönung, ii. 168, referring to W. Sickel, "Die Verträge der Päpste mit den Karolingern " in Deutsche Z. f. Geschichtswissenschaft, 1894, p. 335: "Die Salbung bedeutet die Weihe zu Dienst für die rö;mische Kirche."
3. Cf. the many passages which we have quoted; they could easily be multiplied.
4. Cod. Car., no. 6, p. 489, lines 27-8: "Omnes denique Christiani ita firmiter credebant, quod beatus Petrus princeps apostolorum nunc per vestrum fortissimum brachium suam percepisset justitiam." An almost identical wording in no. 7, p. 493, lines 28-30; see furthermore no. 13, p. 510, lines 19-20: "Quoniam maximam post Deum et b. Petrum in vestri fortissimi regni brachio possidemus spem . . ." E. Caspar, op. cit., p. 182, note 4, draws attention to the expression used by Martin I who also identified "brachium" with "patricius," see Mansi, x. 856: "Quomodo habebam ego tali viro adversus stare, habend praecipue brachium universae militiae Italicae? An potius ego ilium feci exarchum?"
5. Cod. Car., no. 10, p. 501, lines 38-9. About the adoption and its meaning, see infra p. 257. In 7 58) Paul I sent a big sword to Pippin, Cod. Car. no. 17, P. 517.
In short, then, the Frankish king, by virtue of the papally conferred office of the "Patrician of the Romans" was to be the defender and protector of the Roman Church.
At this vital stage we should be clear about the nature of the papally conferred office. The office is the garb in which Pauline-GelasianIsidorian views were clothed. It was a characteristically Roman nomenclature. In its contents the office showed kinship with an older office, also of Roman provenance. The essence of the new patrician's duty was the (military) defence of the "Romani"; and in so far as this defensive aspect of his duty was concerned, there seems to be great kinship between him and the earlier defensor civitatis. This officer was created in 364 1 and his duty was the civil protection of those classes which were in need of his protection from oppression by powerful citizens in a municipality or other corporate entity. 2 These defensores were also called "patrons" 3 or "defensores reipublicae" or advocati reipublicae or "defensores disciplinae." 4 Their functions were greatly developed as time went on 5 and Justinian allocated to them a whole title in his Code. 6
Moreover, if they were to sue or to be sued, ecclesiastical bodies, such as individual churches, adopted this device of a defensor and appointed a layman who was to act and to represent them in the imperial courts. Upon conciliar request in 407 an imperial decree made the appointment of this defensor ecclesiae who was to be taken from the ranks of the advocati, a duty for ecclesiastical corporations. 7
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1. For details of this office see A. M. Bethmann-Hollweg, Der Civilprocess des gemeinen Rechts, Bonn, 1866, iii. 107 f.; Paulya-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, iv. 2365 if.; Cod. Theod., I. xxix.: "De defensoribus civitatum."
2. Pauly Wissowa iv. 2367.
3. Cf. Cod. Theod. I. xxix. 1: "Edimus ut plebs omnis Illyrici officiis patronorum. contra potentiorum defendatur injurias."
4. Cf. Cod. Just., I. Iv. 6.
5. The historical development of the Defensores is presented by E. Chénon, "Étude historique sur le Defensor civitatis" in Nouvelle Revue hist. de droit français et étranger, xiii ( 1889), pp. 321-62; 515-61.
6. See Cod. Just., I, lv; cf. also Nov. xv and xxv.
7. It was of these defensores that Cassiodorus spoke, Variae, ix. 16 and ii. 30. For this see O. J. Zimmermann, The late Latin Vocabulary of the Variae of Cassiodorus, Washington, 1944, pp. 206, 219-20. From these must be distinguished their offshoot, also called Defensores ecclesiae (Romanae) who were particularly concerned with the administration of the papal patrimony, about which see F. Martroye, "Les defensores ecclesiae aux ve et vie siécles" in Revue hist. de droit franfais et itranger, 4th ser., ii ( 1923), pp. 597-622; cf. also B. Fischer, "Die Entwicklung des Instituts der Defensoren in der römischen Kirche" in
The essential point is that this defensor civitatis was an officer in public law who derived his position from either an imperial appointment or popular election with subsequent imperial confirmation. There was no independence attached to the office -- this functionary was created for a specific and limited purpose. 1 He was, so to speak, a police organ. 2 If he was a defensor ecclesiae, he had to be taken from laymen, as Pope Pelagius I had enjoined. 3 The defensor is a public officer whose duty consists in giving help, protection and defence when requested by those who ask for his intervention. The scope of his office is circumscribed; he acts upon instructions. The idea underlying. this defensor or advocatus or patronus is that his power is derivative and that he acts when his services are invoked by those for whose protection he was appointed or elected. 4
If we keep in mind the nature of this office and its practical application by the Roman Church, it will not be too difficult to see that what Stephen II did was to mould that officer into the patrician of the Romans: he was the military defender and protector of the Romans, and the Pope had indeed an old model for this -- the defensor ecclesiae. The patrician of the Romans was the defensor ecclesiae writ large. All this brings us back to the purpose of the unction. The religiousliturgical act provided the framework for the creation of this officer and his intimate link with the Pope who performed the unction on behalf of God.
The significance of this would not be brought out clearly if Pippin's idea of defence and protection were not set against it. One might indeed be tempted to say that later medieval European history was telescoped into the spring months of 754. An appeal to Pippin for defence of the Roman Church was bound to fall on fertile soil. For quite apart from the very deep Petrine veneration of the Frank, the protection and
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Ephemerides Liturgicae, xlviii ( 1934), pp. 443-54; and H. Leclercq in DAC. iv. 412, 418, 422. OR. I has "defensores" taking part in the public processions; this OR. is of eighth-century origin, see M. Andrieu, Les ordines Romani du haut moyen age, i, 1931, pp. 3,344; and ii, 1949, p. 38.
1. See especially Cod. Just. cit., lex 5.
2. Cf. also E. Chénon, art. cit., p. 337 : "Un véritable commissairc de police et á ce titre l'auxiliaire du gouverneur de la province."
3. J.986 (558-60), partly incorporated in Gratian, XVI. i. 20. The Pope exemplifies the tasks of the "defensor" thus: "causarum cognitio, conventiones, actus, publicae litigiae et quaecumque vel ecclesiastica instituta vel supplicantium necessitas poscit."
4. He was, for instance, not free to renounce his office without imperial permission, Cod. Just. cit., lex 10.
defence of the defenceless and weak was precisely one of the chief functions of a monarch; and when it was St Peter's Church that was in need of protective help from him who showed by words and deeds his veneration for St Peter, the duty of the Frank was clear. And yet, did his view on defence and protection tally with the Roman-papal idea of defence and protection?
The function of Pippin, the monarch, was autonomous; it was the old Germanic-royal idea that as a monarch he has the duty to protect and to defend when he considers that defence and protection are needed. As the monarch of the kingdom ruled by him, it was his prime function to see that weak and defenceless individuals and corporate bodies must be royally protected against injustice from whatever quarter it may come. The judgment as to when injustice is committed, as to when in other words, protection is called for, must be left to the monarch. The judgment of how and when to act, to defend and to protect, is the monarch's sole prerogative. He alone knows when the interests of his kingdom and of his monarchy demand that his sword be drawn or that new laws are necessary; he alone is the final and autonomous judge who bases his decision to act upon criteria emanating from his function as monarchic ruler. The protection and defence given by the monarch are the effluence of his monarchic position. 1 Monarchic rule incorporates the function of a protector and defender.
Put thus side by side, there is little difficulty in seeing the fundamental gulf separating the Roman-papal idea of protection and defence and the corresponding monarchic idea. The former protector acts in the capacity of an assistant, of a lieutenant, of an organ who is specially appointed for this very purpose of defence and protection; this is his raison d'être; he acts when ordered to act -- he is literally speaking ad
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1. It was the great merit of A. Waas, Vogtei und Bede, Berlin, 1919, to have drawn attention to the idea of the Munt (mundeburdium) as an essential element in the conception of monarchy. See especially pp. 24, 25, 110. The conception of the Vogt -- linguistically derived from vocatus; see also advowson which is directly based on advocatus (cf. O.E.D.) -- has the same duplicity of meaning in the medieval period as so many other terms in daily use. This is of great importance in assessing the function of the monastic Vogt, cf. Waas, pp. 33 - 52, 99 - 118 ; also H. Planitz in Sav. Z., Germ. Abt., xli ( 1920), p. 424 : "Klostervogtei ist ihrem Wesen nach Muntherrschaft." It may, however, be open to doubt whether there was a development from the Roman advocacia to the Frankish Vogt, as Waas seems to suggest, cf. p. 12 : "Aus dern Beamten ist ein Herr geworden." Cf. also Planitz, loc. cit.: here is one of the many cases in which "ein dem Römischen Recht entlehntes Rechtsinstitut im MA. seinen alten Namen beibehalten, sich aber innerlich völlig gewandelt hat," We would hold that one and the same term served to express two different things.
vocatus. The latter, also in a literal sense, is autonomous 1 and acts independently and on his own initiative; he is the monarch upon whom alone rests the decision when and how and where and whom to defend and to protect. The former conception denotes control of the protector; the latter denotes control of the protected. 2 The latter's protection and defence emanate from his being the monarch (and not from his being a public officer). Protectio trahit subjectionem might not be an inadequate summary of the Teutonic-royal idea. A good deal of medieval history revolves round the different interpretations of the one concept of protection. 3 The office of the "patrician of the Romans" signalled the first serious ideological breach in the monarch's fortifications. 4
It is thus hardly possible to overestimate the ideological significance of Stephen II's step. In a symbolic nutshell, so to speak, the papal theme is presented to us, the theme according to which the king in a Christian society fulfils a certain function allotted to him: the king, in papal terms, is not a monarch: he is not autonomous; he is an assistant, adjutor, defender, advocatus. We can perhaps now understand why the papal letters issuing forth from the papal chancery in such prolific quantities during the second half of this century, consistently dis-
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1. a?tó? and ?óµ??.
2. On no account do we suggest that Pippin exercised any control over the Roman Church; but we maintain that, as the Frankish monarch, he controlled the Frankish clergy and its legislation. But later there will ensue also control of the Roman Church on the basis of the monarchic protection exercised by the emperor of the Romans. For some very suggestive observations see P. E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio, Leipzig, 1929, i. 175, note 5, although we are unable -- as it is hoped the text makes clear -- to follow the same savant in his "Das Versprechen Pippins und Karls d. Gr. für die römische Kirche" in Sav. Z., Kan. Abt., xxvii ( 1938), pp. 193-217. Whilst protection is the generic idea, defence relates to a specific and concrete situation. Cf. Cap. i. 93, no. 33.
3. Even the prototype of a medieval monarch, Charlemagne, used the terms in a way which may easily give rise to erroneous views. In his first "Capitulare" of 7 69) he said that he was "devotus sanctae ecclesiae defensor atque adjutor in omnibus." What he thought when using these terms was assuredly quite different from what the (Roman) Papacy attributed to these characteristically Roman expressions.
4. We have also to refer to Pippin's refusal to style himself "patrician of the Romans." Whether he sensed the implications of title and office, it is not possible to say. It is not, however, without significance that according to Einhard's report there was considerable resistance on the part of the Frankish barons to the projected implementation of the duties assumed by Pippin, see Einhard, Vita Karoli, ed. G. Waitz, cap. 6, p. 7. It would be idle to assert that Pippin threw himself with enthusiasm and zeal into the war against Aistulph. For a survey of some modern estimates of Pippin, cf. K. Jäntere, Op. Cit., pp. 276-9.
regard Pippin as a king before the papal intervention: St Boniface's unction of Pippin as a king was not mentioned once. What the papal letters stressed was that the Pope anointed Pippin a king for the particular purpose of defence. A perusal of the papal communications may easily lead to the assumption that Pippin was not king before the papal act.
That Stephen II did not act upon this assumption is obvious. But it is also obvious that the unction of Boniface was tacitly set aside: into its place stepped the Papal unction. Thereby kingship was given a new meaning altogether, a meaning that was expressed in the newly coined term of public law -- the "patrician of the Romans." Pippin was created king by the papal unction; he was created a king for a specific purpose, that of protecting and defending the Roman Church. This was his task with which he was entrusted by the Pope 1 and this was to be his function as a king. Indeed, this is very far removed from the function of the king who is a monarch. It is understandable why the letters lay so much stress on the fact that Pippin was anointed by God Himself (or St Peter) through the instrumentality of the Pope: thereby the function of the king in a Roman (= Christian) society was made manifestly clear: Christ Himself, "King of kings and Lord of lords" had instituted Pippin as a king for the purpose of exalting His Church. 2 Papal unction was given a constitutive meaning. 3 In brief, the function
____________________ 1. This, we think, is the meaning of the term commendare frequently used in the papal letters to Pippin. There is no technical connotation attached to the term.
2. Cf. Cod. Car., no. 7, p. 491, line 15: "Rex regum et Dominus dominantium salvos vos instituit, ut per vos sancta Dei ecclesia exaltetur." Cf. also no. 6, p. 489, lines 41-2: "Conjuro vos . . . per beatum Petrum, principem apostolorum, qui vos in reges unxit, ut doleat vobis pro sancta Dei ecclesia." No. 7, p. 493, lines 11-12: "Ideo vos Dominus per humilitatem meam, mediante beato Petro, unxit in reges, ut per vos sancta sua exaltetur ecclesia et princeps apostolorum suam suscipiat justitiam." No. 8, p. 496, lines 15-16: "Sic adjutorium sumas a Deo omnipotente, qui te unxit super turbas populorum per institutionem beati Petri in regem." These examples could be multiplied. Cf. Paul I, Stephen's successor, in Cod. Car. no. 13, p. 510, lines 15-16: "Coram Deo vivo, qui vos in regem per suum apostolum beatum Petrum ungui praecepit."Idem, ibid., no. 36, p. 544, lines 32-33: "Vester Dominus Deus noster, qui vos regnare jussit." Stephen III, ibid., no. 44, p. 559, lines 31-3: "Coram Deo vivo, qui vos regnare praecepit." With this should again be compared the Donation of Constantine, cap. 19, where Constantine says of himself: "Coram Deo vivo, qui nos regnare praecepit."
3. But for Pippin the papal unction was a mere formality, since he had already been anointed by St Boniface. We cannot refrain from mentioning the very significant entries of Baronius in his Ann. Eccles., ed. Lucca, 1744, xii. 589 ( ad 7 54)): after quoting the Lib. Pont. account of Pippin's unction by Stephen, the learned cardinal says: "Haud dubium est adversantes habere Latinos omnes historicos,
of the king, that of the patrician of the Romans, is the king's raison d'être. As yet, it is still attached to kingship, but the time is not so far distant when the "patricius Romanorum" will give way to the "imperator Romanorum." 1 And on the distant horizon there appears the problem of legitimate rulership in a Christian society.
IV
A brief examination of the ideological significance and the genesis of the Donation of Constantine appears advisable. The forgery was made not later than the early fifties of the eighth century, at any rate before Stephen II set out on his journey to Pippin. 2
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qui unctionem Pipini factam jussione Zachariae pontificis per s. Bonifacium tradunt." Two pages later, we read (p. 591): "At licet litteris Zachariae pontificis Pipinus in regem ante provectus fuerit, et s. Bonifacii unctione initiatus, tamen non ab eo tempore, sed ab hoc anno (754) coepti sunt numerari anni ipsius regni, ut docent vetera monumenta Francorum." For the latter assertion there is no warrant as a glance at the DD. of Pippin proves.
1. The actions of the second and the fourth Stephen were so similar that, as we have said, the former's intervention must have served as the precedent for the latter's. Pippin was king before the papal intervention, but the Pope nevertheless made him king once more; Louis I was emperor before the papal intervention at Rheims (816), but he was made emperor again by Stephen IV who put the crown of Constantine on Louis's head. In each case papal intervention secured the course of events. On Louis see infra pp. 143 ff.
2 See supra p. 59; furthermore, G. Lähr, Die konstantinische Schenkung, Berlin, 1926, p. 11, and the Paris MS (BN. 2777) written before 792 containing the forgery (cf. MGH. Formulae, no. 11, p. 503; F. Kampers, "Roma Aeterna" in Hist. Jb., 1924, p. 245 f. (beginning of Stephen's pontificate). That the place of the forgery was the papal chancery is indisputable, cf. supra p. 60, and the arguments of K. Hartmann, "Grundherrschaft & Burokratie im Kirchenstaat" in Vierteljahrsschrift f. Social & Wirtschafts geschichte, 1909, pp. 146 f. and of H. v. Schubert, Geschichte der christl. Kirche im Frühmittelalter, Tübingen, 1923, p. 320, who points to the primicerius Christophorus as a possible author, a suggestion that has a good deal to recommend itself in view of the diction of the Lib. Pont. which we have pointed out, supra p. 60. Schubert held 756 as the most likely date, however. Scheffer-Boichorst, in MIOG., xi ( 1892), pp. 128 ff., L. M. Hartmann, Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter, Gotha, 1910, ii-2, pp. 220 ff., and Caspar, op. cit., p. 183, assumed the pontificate of Paul I as the most likely time of the composition. Some have maintained that the forgery was made at Rheims and after the turn of the century, but before 816, so, for instance, M. Buchner , "Rom oder Reims, die Heimat des CC" in Hist. Jb., 1933, pp. 137 ff., W. Neuss, Die Kirche des Mittelalters, Bonn, 2nd ed., 1950, p. 79, and E. Eichmann , Kaiserkrönung, i. 28, idem, Weihe & Krönung des Papstes im MA., Munich, 1951, p. 24. Most recently, W. Ohnsorge, "Konstantinische Schenkung, Leo III und die Anfänge der kurialen römischen Kaiseridee" in Sav. Z., Germ. Abt., lxviii ( 1951),pp. 78 ff., suggested as the date the year 804, but see infra p. 82. Here also a useful survey of recent views will be found, pp. 78 - 81. There is also select bibliography in Levillain, art. cit., p. 231, note 3. The text of the Donation
Since its detection as a forgery, the fabrication has not escaped very severe strictures on the part of some historians. But it would seem appropriate to keep apart the external trappings of the document and its substance. The document must be judged by contemporary standards: it elaborated an earlier product, and unless this is taken into account, the Donation is not understandable. That this detracts a good deal from the supposed originality of the forger, goes without saying. Moreover, some of the details, such as those relating to clothing, were not invented at all -- the forger had perfectly genuine models -- but in common with so many medieval forgeries, the author antedated everything in his document, so that everything was a gift to the Pope from the great Constantine. Lastly, the ideology embodied in this document, is no invention either.
The basis upon which the eighth-century forger worked, was the Legenda sancti Silvestri, a somewhat romantic version of Constantine's conversion 1 made towards the end-of the fifth century. This Legenda was born of true Roman parentage. 2 The time of its composition is very significant: it was made during the years which witnessed the first serious clash between the Papacy and the Roman Empire situated in the East. The clash concerned nothing less than the authority of the emperor and the authority of the Roman Church in matters vital to both of them, in matters in faith, doctrine and jurisdiction over clerics. The emperor's Henoticon (482), the significance of which lies in that the emperor alone and without a synod for the first time decrees by law the faith for the Empire, 3 was the prelude to this first serious clash,
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is in P. Hinschius, Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae, pp. 240-54, and the best modern edition is that by K. Zeumer, in Festgabe f.R.v. Gneist, 1888, pp. 47-59, which is also in C. Mirbt, "Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums", 4th ed., 1924, no. 228, pp. 107-112.
1. This was established by W. Levison, "Konstantinische Schenkung & Silvesterlegende" in Miscellanea Fr. Ehrle, Rome, 1924, ii. 181 ff., 239 ff. Levison also showed how well known the story was, not only in Rome, but also in England and the Frankish kingdom during the eighth century, see pp. 206 - 14. But cf. already C. B. Coleman, Constantine the Great and Christianity (in Columbia Studies in History, etc.), New York, 1914, pp. 161 ff., esp. 164 ff.
2. Whilst there is every justification for saying that the Papal Chancery was the birthplace of the Donation, there is no shred of evidence that its source, the Legenda, was made there: on the contrary, everything points to its composition outside the chancery, see F. Di Capua, II Rituo prosaico nelle lettere dei papi, Rome, 1948, iii. 171 ff. (Lateranum, n.s., xi-xii): all the Symmachan forgeries stand in sharp contrast to the style of the chancery. But cf. Peitz, p. 3 (of the work quoted infra 76 n. 3).
3. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, ii. 35, characterized it as a "kaiserliches Glaubensedikt": tacitly the Council of Chalcedon was set aside by it -- the real
the Acacian schism lasting thirty-five years. It was just then that under Felix III in 485 historically unwarranted declarations were made in the Roman synod to the effect that the Council of Nicaea had submitted its decisions to Pope Silvester for confirmation; 1 and this synod of Rome that actually ratified the Nicaean decisions, was duly invented shortly afterwards. 2 It was just then also that Felix III and his draftsman who later became Pope Gelasius I, made the classic pronouncements on precisely those matters considered vital by both emperor and Pope. They concerned the standing and function of the emperor in the Roman-Christian world. In this world there was no room for imperial decrees fixing dogma and faith and the exercise of jurisdiction over clerics; on the contrary, the emperor's role was to learn, not to teach, was to subject his decisions to priestly judgment.
Behind these vigorous assertions of the Papal point of view 3 there is the basic assumption that the emperor has the duty to fulfil certain functions. The question engaging the Papal mind was the raison d'être of the emperor: it was the same question which engaged even popular thought. Had not the Roman Empire a providential mission? Was it not created providentially for the sake of preparing the ground for the union of all the nations in the one corpus Christi? 4 If the popular clerical
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beginnings of Cesaro-Papism. This is strongly endorsed by H. Rahner, Abendländische Kirchenfreiheit, 1943, pp. 190, 192.
1. Cf. Mansi, vii. 1140; E. Caspar, op. cit., i. 121; ii. 109.
2. Cf. E. Caspar, op. cit., loc. cit. There were said to have been present 267 bishops at this (invented) Roman synod. This invention stands at the doorstep of the Symmachan forgeries of 501. The Liber Pontificalis in the "Vita Silvestri" contains this invented synod, but takes one more step by declaring that the Council of Nicaea was convoked by the order of Pope Silvester, see Lib. Pont. i. 171. About the initiation of the Lib. Pont. in the twenties of the sixth century, cf. Caspar, op. cit., ii. 314 ff., and H. Leclercq, DAC. ix. 354-460. From then onwards the papal biographies are contemporary entries and therefore so valuable.
3. Indeed, the revolutionary thesis of W. Peitz, Dionysius Exiguus als Kanonist ( "Schweizer Rundschau," Einsiedeln, 1945) concerning the summons of Dionysius by Gelasius to Rome (pp. 2, 6, 12 - 13 ) and the work of the monk would entirely fit into the framework of Gelasius who must have keenly felt the lack of an easily available collection of decrees: the whole pontificate of Gelasius was "rigorous traditionalism" ( Caspar, op. cit., ii. 47) and for a traditionalist there can be no better support than the law emanating from Petrine Rome. Cf. already L. Duchesne in Lib. Pont. i, pp. xciii ff., concerning Dionysius and the Legenda, and Peitz, p. 3. On the importance of the Gelasian pontificate for canon law see especially G. Le Bras, "Un moment decisif" in Revue historique de droit français et étranger, ix ( 1930), pp. 506-18; idem, ibid., xxx ( 1952), pp. 497-8; and P. Fournier & G. Le Bras, Histoire des collections canoniques, Paris, 1932, i. 23 ff. Reckoning of years by the years of Grace was introduced by Dionysius.
4. Cf. the contemporary anonymous tract De vocatione omnium gentium (PL. li. 704): "Ad cuius rei effectum credimus providentia Dei Romani regni latitu-
mind of Rome was moving within this historical-teleological framework, how much more was the Papal mind enraptured by these teleological views. Did not Leo I shortly before expostulate on the function of the (Roman) Church? 1 Did not the same Leo dwell on the theme of Roma, formerly the teacher of error, now the mistress of truth, being a royal and sacerdotal city, and therefore the mistress of the world? 2 And, above all, was it not just then also that Constantinople ominously struck up the theme of New Rome and raised claims by virtue of its being the urbs regia, the residence of the emperor? Was not the twentyeighth chapter of Chalcedon a clear pointer? Constantinople was assigned equal rank to Rome, because it was the seat of the imperial government and senate. 3 Was this exclusively political argument a sufficient justification for Constantinople's claims? 4 Moreover, did not also from 451 (or 457) onwards the imperial crown play a ceremonial religious role by virtue of the patriarch's crowning the emperor? 5 Rome was the mistress of the world, Pope Leo I had said, because St. Peter had resided there. 6 Surely, the physical presence of the emperor
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dinem praeparatam: ut nationes vocandae ad unitatem corporis Christi prius jure unius consociarentur imperii" (ii. 16). In this context the prayers for the Roman empire in the Sacramentaria are worthy of note. About Orosiuscf. supra p. 14 n. 4.
1. See especially Leo's Ep. 104 and 156, cc. 3-5; Caspar, op. cit., i. 551, and H. M. Klinkenberg, "Papsttum und Reichskirche bei Leo d. Gr." in Sav. Z., kan. Abt. xxxviii ( 1952), pp. 90, 100, 101, 109.
2. Cf. Leo Sermo 82, c. 1. In c. 2 he propounds the theme of the empire's providential mission which may have inspired that popular tract already referred to (p. 76 n. 4). Cf. also the phrase "universarum gentium vocationi" in Sermo 4, c. 2 (cited supra p. 11 ). In parentheses we should note that the second-century Roman jurists had apostrophized the city of Rome as "urbs regia"; cf. e.g., Modestinus, in Dig. 27, 1, 6 (11): "In urbe regia, quae et habetur et est communis patria." It is difficult to say whether Leo knew of this; about Leo's juristic sense cf. supra p. 12. But he certainly seems to be the first Pope who called Rome a royal and sacerdotal city, Sermo 82.
3. In this context reference must be made to c. 17 of Chalcedon according to which the changed civil status of a city entails a change in its ecclesiastical status. Cf. also Leo's statement with particular reference to the reasons of New Rome's claims, in Ep. 104, c. 3.
4. The weakness of this argument was clearly felt by Constantinople, hence the attempt to make Constantinople an apostolic city next to Rome by inventing the story of its foundation by the apostle, St Andrew, St Peter's brother. The story was current between 476 and 525 but was fixed in writing later, see Caspar, ii. 748.
5. See supra p. 10 n. 4.
6. Leo Sermo 82, cc. 3 and 7. Cf. also Ep. 14, c. 11, where Rome and the see of Peter (the "una sedes Petri") are held to be identical: in a Roman-Christian world, Rome alone can be the head, not that upstart city of Constantinople. See now Klinkenberg, art. cit., pp. 44, 46, and his comments on that letter, ibid., note 19.
in Constantinople cannot make all this difference. 1 Anyway, how was it that Constantinople became the residence of the emperors? How did this change of capital come about? If Constantinople raised these claims by virtue of being the urbs regia, 2 how and why did it become an urbs regia? 3 Did not the great benefactor of the Roman Church, Constantine, remove his capital from Rome to Constantinople? Could there not be established a connexion between Constantine and the Church of Rome on the one hand, and the transfer of the capital on the other hand?
Set thus against the climate of the time 4 the Legenda assumes some ideological importance. It is no doubt true that it was a "tendentious novel" 5 written in hagiographic style, depicting Constantine's conversion in not always very attractive terms, and enumerating in some detail his activities during the first eight days as a Christian. The author was certainly not very skilled or particularly gifted, and yet the very choice of his theme, Constantine's conversion, points to his wishing to pursue a definite aim. And it was this underlying aim of the Legenda which was clearly grasped by the author of the Donation in the eighth century. In order to understand this, we must briefly review both documents.
According to the Legenda, Constantine had conferred on the Roman Church the privilege whereby it was the head of all the priests within the Roman world, just as the judges had their head in the person of
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1. Cf. Gelasius, Ep. 26, c. 10, p. 406 ; quoting the Leonine argument of Ep. 104, c. 3 about the regia civitas, Gelasius says: "imperialis praesentia mensuram dispensationis religiosae non mutat . . . de imperatoris praesentia blandiuntur . . ."
2. Cf. the Eastern objections to the condemnation by Felix III of the Patriarch Acacius: the Pope had no right to proceeed without a synod against the "pontifex" of the "regia civitas," see Gelasius in his Ep. 26, p. 393 : the Easterners "pueriliter adjicientes: 'precipue pontificem regiae civitatis.'"
3. One should not forget in this context the great cultural gulf between Orient and Occident. With true Roman superiority Gelasius contemptuously refers to the "Greeks" who are unable to separate the true and the false and with whom a hotchpotch of orthodoxy and heresy is excusable, Ep. 27, p. 435.
Cf. also Ep. 7, p. 335, cap. 2, also cap. 3, p. 336. Nor should one leave out of account the change of the situation in Italy since 476 when the empire was again under the rule of one emperor residing in Constantinople, and when from the Eastern point of view Rome had sunk to the rank of a merely historic site. The 28th chapter of Chalcedon must have appeared still more ominous in the 70's and 80's of the fifth century.
4. It appears that the contrast of "gold" and "lead," later to be so much exploited, was also coined at that time in the tract wrongly ascribed to Ambrose, De sacerdotali dignitate, cap. 2 (PL. xvii. 569); cf. on this point H. Rahner, op. cit., p. 175, note 5.
5. So Levison, art. cit., pp. 186, 201, 214.
the king. 1 The blunder committed by the author need not detain us. 2 That the quotation of the alleged enactment of the first Roman Christian emperor was aimed at Byzantium, there can be no legitimate doubt. The author also reports that on the eighth day after his conversion, Constantine as a sign of his contrition, had prostrated himself, had put his crown down and wetted his purple mantle with his tears. 3 This episode is very suggestive. Who conferred the crown on Constantine after this incident? That he was emperor after the eighth day, nobody ever doubted. In whose custody, so to speak, was the crown and the imperial insignia while the emperor lay prostrate? The answer to these questions was at least indicated: the trustee was the Pope. 4
What was only symbolically hinted at by the author of the Legenda, was fully expressed by the author of the Donation. In it he made Emperor Constantine hand over all the imperial garments, insignia and symbols, including the sceptre, the lance, the orb, the standards "et diversa ornamenta imperialia" to Pope Silvester. 5 Amongst the imperial garments the Pope also received the "chlamys purpurea," the "lorum" and the "tunica coccinea." 6 And so as to emphasize the
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1. The text of the Legenda is in B. Mombritius (ed. H. Quentin and A. Brunet), Sanctuarium seu vitae sanctorum, Paris, 1910, ii.508-31. The reference in the text is to p. 512: "Privilegium Romanae ecclesiae pontifici contulit, ut in toto orbe Romano sacerdotes hunc caput habeant, sicut judices regem." There is another edition of the text in Coleman, op. cit., pp. 217 - 27.
2. We should note that the Donation did not contain this blunder.
3. Mombritius, ed. cit., p. 513: "Octava die preressit albis depositis totus mundus et salvus: et veniens ad confessionem apostoli Petri ablato diademate capitis totum se planum projiciens in faciem tantam illic lachrymarum effudit multitudinem: ut omnia ilia insignia vestimenta purpurea infunderentur. dans vocem inter amaras lachrymas quibus se errasse, se pecasse . . ."
4. G. Lähr, op. cit., p. 3, has already drawn attention to this.
5. The Pope kept only the sceptre; this was the "ferula," the straight staff, a direct copy of the Byzantine imperial staff whose eagle on its top was exchanged with a cross. It was an extraliturgical papal symbol, cf. Eisenhofer, Liturgik, p. 109, and now also Eichmann, Weihe & Krönung des Papstes, p. 32. The episcopal staff is curved, but did not come into Roman usage before the eleventh century.
6. The "chlamys" was the purple mantle worn by the emperor, open on its right side and held together by a clasp on the right shoulder, see Eichmann, op. cit., 33-5. The "tunica coccinea" was an outer garment of purple silk reaching down to the knees, cf. L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chrétien, Engl. transl. of the 5th ed., pp. 380-81. The "lorum" was a broad scarf embroidered and ornamented, the one end hanging down, the other was slung across the left arm. In fact, this "lorum" was the pallium which had already been in use in early sixth century and had developed out of the oriental omiphorion, cf. Duchesne op. cit., pp. 385-6, Eisenhofer, op. cit., p. 108, and Eichmann, op. cit., pp. 19-21. Cf. also the quotation from the Lib. de cerim., infra, p. 80 n. 3.
totality of Constantine's gifts, the author then collectively mentions "omnia imperialia indumenta" as being given into the possession of the Pope. 1 And as a further outward symbol of the Emperor's servility to the Pope, he performs the office of a Papal "strator." 2
The author of the Donation makes the Emperor express the wish to place the imperial crown on Silvester's head as a sign of true imperial power. But Silvester refused to wear the imperial crown above his clerical tonsure, whereupon Constantine put the "phrygium" on the Papal head: this "phrygium" was brilliantly white and designated the Lord's resurrection. 3 At the same time Constantine decreed that the Pope alone should use the "phrygium" in public processions. 4 "Ad imitationem 5 imperii," as the author made Constantine say, he also gave to Silvester the imperial residence -- "palatium nostrum" -- as well as the city of Rome, all provinces of Italy and the occident, the "loca et civitates." 6 In short, the characteristic external symbols of emperorship and the "potestas" over the territories including the islands, 7 are handed to the Pope.
It is of course a truism to say that the Donation made the Pope a real
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1. Later papal attire was modelled largely on these imperial grants, see Eichmann , Kaiserkrönung, ii.131 ff., and op. cit., pp. 22 ; cf. also P. E. Schramm, in Studi Gregoriani, ii.413 ff.
2. See cap. 16: "Tenentes frenum equi ipsius pro reverentia b. Petri stratoris officium illi exhibuimus."
3. Cap. 16: "Decrevimus itaque et hoc, ut isdem venerabilis pater noster Silvester, summus pontifex, vel omnes eius successores pontifices diadema, videlicet coronam, quarn ex capiti nostro illi concessimus, ex auto purissimo et gemmis pretiosis uti debeant et eorum capite ad laudem Dei pro honore b. Petri gestare; ipse veto sanctissimus papa super coronam clericatus quam gerit ad gloriam b. Petri, omnino ipsa ex auto non est passus uti corona, phrygium vero candido nitore splendidam resurrectionem dominicam designans eius sacratissimo vertici manibus nostris posuimus . . ." In this context attention should be drawn to the following passage in the Lib. de cerim., ed. Bonn, ii. 40, pp. 637-8: "Credimus nempe loros, quos magistri et patricii die festo resurrectionis Christi Dei nostri gerunt, representare tumulationem eius. Quod autem loros auro conspicuos gestant, id interpretamur imaginem splendoris resurrectionis Christi esse; tamquam si a Christo, velut sole, per cius resurrectionern radiis solaribus circumcollustrati splenderent." Then follows the passage about the patricians representing the apostles, see the quotation supra p. 16 and also infra p. 254 on Henry VI.
4. Cap. 16: "Statuentes eundem phrygium omnes eius successores pontifices singulariter uti in processionibus."
5. The medieval meaning of the word "imitatio" is identical to the modern meaning, see J. de Ghellinck, "Imitatio" in Bulletin du Cange, xvi ( 1941), p. 153.
6. See cap. 17.
7. See cap. 13. On this claim to possess all the islands see A. Dove, loc. cit., and especially L. Weckmann, Las Bullas Alexandrinas, Mexico City, 1949, pp. 40-3, 65-6 ("omni-insular doctrine").
emperor, a Rex-Sacerdos, a Papstkaiser, 1 and that in this way the Pope became the very copy of the Eastern basileus-hiereus. The author of the Donation took great care to make this point clear: the Pope may use the imperial insignia -- "papa uti possit imperialibus insigniis" and from here to Gregory VII is only a small step. 2 But, as we have said, we should not assume that these external trappings, important though they are, fully exhaust the significance of the document. For behind these trappings there is hidden a very profound ideology.
In the first place, considering the time of the composition of this document and its progenitor, it could have meaning only as regards the Eastern Empire. It was a document that was conceived entirely within the mental climate and thought pattern of the Roman Empire. In order to prove to Pippin the territorial claims, the Donation was made, but the real object of Stephen's obtaining Pippin's confirmation was the emancipation of the Papacy from the imperial framework.
This brings us to the second and far more important point, which concerns the very function of the Roman emperor as seen by the author of the Donation. An answer had to be found to the question of how this Roman Empire that derived its very name from Rome, came to have its capital in Constantinople. How did this transfer of the capital come about? It is a very vital question. It was, we think, this problem that engaged the author of the Legenda, the significance of which the author of the Donation clearly and fully grasped. Although his source only suggested an answer, he gave it explicitly. And in giving his answer, he at the same time contributed a good deal to the fixation and development of Papal doctrine.
The change effected by Constantine's transfer to the East did not concern the political institution of the Roman Empire as such, but merely affected the seat of the emperor, that is, the actual place where the imperial crown was worn. The author of the Donation, like his source, realized this vital point. That is why he offers an explanation for the transfer of the capital by Constantine: he makes the Emperor
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1. Eichmann's terminology.
2. Dictatus Papae, cap. viii: "Quod solus papa uti possit imperialibus insigniis." See on this especially Schramm, art. cit., p. 413 f. We should also note that the imperial prerogative of a solemn public procession was now to be a papal prerogative "ad imitationem imperii nostri." There were perfectly genuine models for the forger, if he had known history a little better. The Roman acclamations on first receiving the picture of the new emperor were transferred to the person of the Pope, certainly by 686 when the Lib. Pont. reports, i. 368: "in eius laude omnes simul acclamaverunt"; cf. Schramm, Die Anerkennung Karls d. Gr., Munich, 1952, pp. 19-20.
declare that it would be inappropriate for an emperor to reside in the same place in which the divinely instituted head of the Christian religion has his seat, hence his decision to transfer his capital and to build a new city in the East. 1
When we now link this explanation of the transfer with the refusal of the Pope to wear the imperial crown, it will be seen that Constantine removed the crown from Rome to Constantinople with Papal connivance. If the Pope so wished, he could have worn the crown himself: the crown was his, but out of his own volition he refused to wear, that is, to use it. 2 Since Constantine had worn a crown after the removal to Byzantium, he wore it -- we merely try to follow the author's thought -- because the Pope had acquiesced in Constantine's wearing it: Silvester had acquiesced in Constantine's transferring the crown from Rome to Byzantium, which city then became the capital of the Roman Empire as a consequence of the Emperor's residence. Moreover, Constantine bound all his successors to respect the constitutional arrangements which he had made with the Pope, hence all post-Constantinean emperors, including the present one, must adhere to the enactments -- which meant that their crown was there by Papal acquiescence. The crown of the Roman Empire was in Constantinople on sufferance by the Pope: this is how Constantinople became an urbs regia. But this right to wear the crown in Constantinople could be withdrawn. In short, the historical fact of the capital's transfer was utilized for ideological purposes: it was presented as the effluence of Papal volition.
All this marks a complete reversal of the state of things. Instead of the Papacy, constitutionally, being subjected to the Roman emperor,
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1. See cap. 18: "Unde congruum prospeximus, nostrum imprerium et regni potestatem orientalibus transferri ac transmutari regionibus et in Byzantiae provincia in optimo loco nomini nostro civitatem aedificari et nostrum illic constitui imperium; quoniam, ubi principatus sacerdotum et christianae religionis caput ab imperatore coelesti constitutum est, justum non est, ut illic imperator terrenus habeat potestatem."
2. "quam (coronam) ex capite nostro illi concessimus . . . non est passus uti corona," cap. 16, quoted supra 80 n. 3. W. Ohnsorge, art. cit., p. 82, maintains that the Donation presupposes two real crowns, the one which Constantine left to the Pope, and the other which he took with himself to Byzantium. This is precisely the mistake which Ohnsorge makes and which leads him to see in the Donation the papal expression of the Two-Emperor problem and a subsequent legitimation of the act of 800 (p. 86 ). But there is no warrant in the document for the statement that there were two crowns, see cap. 16 and cap. 18 (quoted supra, note 1). Cf. now also the observations of H. Löwe in Deutsches Archiv, ix ( 1952), p. 579.
it now turns out that the Roman emperor derives his right to wear the crown from Papal acquiescence. But thereby also the whole Eastern regal-sacerdotal ideology was thrown overboard, or at least an attempt was made to do so -- no wonder the East never recognized the Donation. The Roman emperor had no right, according to the Donation, to dictate to the Papacy, because he wore the crown, that most conspicuous symbol that showed him to the world as the emperor, by virtue of Papal acquiescence in Constantine's taking it to Constantinople. The crown was the Pope's as a result of Constantine's grant, but he allowed its use to Constantine and his successors. In brief, the "true" state of things was the exact reverse of what the Eastern emperors had held it to be.
In order to explain the change of capital, the author takes recourse to ideology. Ideology furnishes him with the tools by means of which he gives the answer to that vital question of how Constantinople became the capital of the Roman Empire. 1 But as regards the purpose of the Donation, its inherent ideology also concerns the function, the finis, the raison d'être of the Roman emperor. For what the author tries to express in these facts - and time-tied terms was the right order of things in the Roman-Christian world. The Roman Empire pretended to be Christian. But past history had all too clearly shown that the Christianity of the emperor was more than questionable, since he had continually remonstrated against the Roman-Papal exposition of the faith -- we recall Leo III's stereotyped "I am king and priest" - and even openly attacked the position of the Roman Church. Again, our mind turns back to the fifth century when the Roman emperor was said to be "filius," not "praesul ecclesiae." He should follow, it was then said, the doctrinal and jurisdictional rulings of the Roman Church, not rebel against it, and not set himself above the priests: "exsecutiones suas ecclesiasticis praesulibus subdere debet," for this is the proper way of governing a Christian society as the Roman Empire wishes to be considered. It is the function of the Roman-Christian
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1. This ideology which the author of the Legenda already had wished to express, might well have been suggested to him by the private letter of Emperor Honorius to Theodosius II in 421. In this letter the emperor said: "Procul dubio illius urbis ecclesia speciali nobis cultu veneranda est, ex qua et Romanum principatum accepimus et principium sacerdodum accepit," P. Coustant, Epp. Rom. Pont., p. 1029 (PL. l. 769 f., in Boniface I's letters). Cf. with this also the stipulation of the Legenda itself, supra p. 79 and Nicholas I's statement to the Eastern emperor, infra p. 200. On the dossier in which this private letter was contained, see E. Caspar, op. cit., i. 601, 608. The new edition by C. Silva-Tarouca of this dossier, the Collectio Thessalonicensis, Rome, 1937, was not accessible to me.
emperor to subordinate himself to the rulings of the priests who alone know what is, and what is not, Christian, and who accordingly expound the dogma. "Nos habemus sensum Christi" Gregory II had declared shortly before.
A Roman emperor follows the Roman Church: if he does not, he ceases to be a Roman emperor; and becomes a Greek emperor. The prototype of all Roman-Christian emperors was Constantine. What Gelasius had so tenderly and subtly expressed, was now brought down to symbolic earthiness. Gelasius's idea of the emperor's holding his empire as a "beneficium" conferred by God, as a divine favour, not as a right, was now in the mid-eighth century contained in the view that the Byzantine emperor held his crown by Papal connivance, that is, by Papal favour. The divine favour appears in the cloak of a Papal favour. 1 A favour can be withdrawn. As regards the idea itself, there is no difference between Gelasius and the Donation. In a Roman-Christian world there is no room for autonomous rulership: rulership is a favour, a "beneficium": it is not sui juris.
Thus seen, the Donation is not as inept as it is nowadays the fashion to denounce it. Credit must be given where credit is due. True, we must look beneath the trappings, if we wish to detect its contents which culminate in the representation of the function of a Ruler in a Christian society. What in the last resort the author of the Donation is concerned with is the problem of legitimate rulership in a Roman-Christian world: born and bred in the milieu of the Roman Empire, it could not express this problem in any other terms but those of its surroundings, the Roman Empire. The ideology, or the substance of the product, is not an invention: history is harnessed to the service of an ideological programme. Later medieval thought will develop the theory of the Ruler's function in a Christian society, within the corpus Christi, and most of this later theory will be quite independent of the Donation: and in so far as Papal doctrine was permanent. The Donation marks a transitory stage in the development of the Papal theme. 2
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1. It is at this point that the fundamental idea of the Pope's mediatory role assumes its true importance. We recall the statement of Stephen II, Cod. Car., no. 7, p. 493: "Vos Dominus per humilitatem meam mediante Petro unxit in reges . . ."
2. Although primarily intended against the East, the Donation by virtue of its underlying ideology (which was no invention) was easily adaptable to Western conditions, too. This, we believe, explains its usefulness to later papal generations. Its original purpose, however, was never quite forgotten, as Leo IX's full quotation of the Donation in the troubles with Michael Kerrularios proved, cf. also infra p. 268. But there can be no doubt about the weakness of the document which derived the Papstkaiser's position from an imperial act. As long as the Pope's
There is, however, an important observation which must be made. We have tried to show the meaning that could be attached to "Roman," namely, a purely religious one. Through the efficacy of the Donation a second meaning of "Roman" begins to emerge which in course of time will take its place next to the religious connotation of the term. This second meaning of "Roman" was historical-political. It belongs to a category of thinking entirely different from that implied by the other meaning. The notion of "Roman emperor" was political and denoted rulership: it denoted universality of dominion, at least conceptually. Now the empire whose capital was in the East, was Roman, because it directly continued that entity that had formerly arisen from Roma antiqua; in its genesis that empire and that emperor had nothing to do with the Church of Rome; the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East, too, had (historically) nothing to do with the Church of Rome. By turning fact into fiction, namely by "explaining" the transfer of the capital, the Donation interlocked this historical political Romanism and Papal ideology. The ideational universality of the Roman Church and the ideational universality of the Roman emperor's function from now onwards are inextricably associated. The political repercussions on East and West were unforeseeable.
The crown symbolized rulership. The Papal disposal of the Roman crown 1 signified the true monarchic position of the Pope in the Roman Christian world: the Roman Church as the epitome of a universal entity, [Catholic] Christianity, can through the Pope confer only universal rulership, and the only such rulership available and understandable was that of Roman emperorship. The Pope confers the crown in order to be in a position to govern Christian society, the corpus Christi. 2 The Papal creation of the universal Ruler, the Roman emperor, has a definite purpose: the Roman emperor is not created a monarch, but a defensor
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Vicariate of Christ (Who was both king and priest; and Who had imperium and potestas) was not developed, this construction was indeed necessary. It was not until Innocent III that the vicariate of Christ was fully developed -- but then the Donation was also "devalued" by him, cf. Sermo in festo b. Silvestri, PL. ccxvii. 481-2.
1. We take note that after the abortive attempt of 800 the Pope travelled to Rheims with Constantine's crown, in order to crown Louis I; cf. infra p. 143 ff.
2. If we understand the late Eichmann correctly, he too seems to have sensed this, when he explained Silvester's refusal to wear the crown: "In Wirklichkeit lag in der Ablehnung des Gebrauchs das Eingeständnis, dass das Papsttum die ihm zugedachte Rolle nicht selbst übernehmen konnte, weil die militärischen Kräfte fehlten . . . es war indirekt doch gesagt, dass der Papst sie (the crown) eigentlich tragen konnte und durfte, dass er über sie verfügen und sie weitergeben kann," Weihe . . . des Papstes im MA, pp. 28 - 9.
or advocatus of the Roman Church. This is his function, his raison d'être, whilst the dignity of his rulership ascends to the highest available degree, to that of Roman emperorship. That is the reason why the political concept of universal rulership, of Roman emperorship, becomes henceforth an integral part of Papal theory. The emancipation of the Papacy from the Eastern imperial nexus is the prelude to the Papal nexus of the Western Roman emperor, soon to be the "specialis filius" of the Roman Church. In other words, the teleology of functions has led to a teleology of history. 1 The Roman emperor's function is that of an adjutor of the Roman Church: a Byzantine cannot perform this function, only a Roman can. The religious Romanism of the king was the presupposition for his political role as a Roman emperor, as the "unicus filius ecclesiae Romanae."
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1. From a contemporary point of view the Donation seems to have fulfilled Isidore's criterion, namely, that "argumentum est ficta res, quae tamen fieri potuit," quotation by K. Pivec, in MIOG. lx ( 1952), p. 416 (book review). This teleology of history was not of course invented by the forger: it was at least as old as St Ambrose and St Augustine, and could be seen at work in a number of purely doctrinal topics, cf. supra p. 14. In this context attention might be drawn to the teleological interpretation of the Old Testament, for instance, by Isidore of Seville who relies heavily on St Augustine's teleology, cf. Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum, PL. lxxxiii. 209 ff.