A Short History of Italy (476-1900). Henry Dwight Sedgwick
the city of Rome, for the seat of government had been set at Constantinople, at Milan, and at Ravenna; and since the days of the early Cæsars, it had not been necessary for an Emperor to be a native Roman. There was no theoretical difficulty to bar a Frank from the Imperial throne or forbid the seat of government to a Frankish city. In fact, nobody could conceive of the Empire as other than Roman, and the Frankish kingdom could only become an empire by becoming the Roman Empire.
The Papacy had special reasons for these views. Under the Empire Christianity had grown up; under the Empire it had obtained power and dominion, and had become the state religion. The Church might quarrel with Emperors, but it regarded the Empire—the source of secular law and order—as its joint tenant in the world. The one represented religious unity, the other represented civil unity. In addition to these large arguments, local reasons affected the Papacy. Shortly before the expulsion of the Lombards from Italy, the lack of a strong government had been wofully felt. One usurper and then another had been put in St. Peter's chair in riot and bloodshed. It had become plain as day that the Papacy of itself, without the support of a potent secular power, was not able to maintain its dignity, nor even to enforce order in the very city of Rome. The Papacy could not endure without the Empire. The very titles which the Frankish kings had gradually received led up to the Imperial title. Gregory II had called Charles Martel "Patrician," a vague title of honour held by the Exarchs; Gregory III had offered to him the titles both of Patrician and of Consul; Stephen II bestowed upon Pippin the title of Patrician of the Romans; Charlemagne's own titles were King of the Franks, King of the Lombards, Patrician of the Romans; and his son had been crowned by the Pope, King of Italy (781). The title next in order was undoubtedly Emperor of the Romans. Charlemagne himself was a man of gigantic stature and great strength, indefatigable in action, and delighting in hunting, swimming, and martial exercise. His mind also was mighty, restlessly pondering questions of state, of church, of war, of social improvement. He was the greatest of Barbarians, cast by Nature in an imperial mould.
On the other hand there was one conspicuous difficulty in the way of reviving the Roman Empire; this difficulty was that the Roman Empire still existed, and that there was a living Emperor, the legitimate successor of Cæsar Augustus. But that Empire was virtually Greek, and the Emperor no more like Cæsar Augustus than like Hercules. The city by the Tiber had as good title to be the Imperial city as her younger rival by the Bosphorus; the Roman Republic (whatever that ill-defined title may mean), represented by the Pope, had as fair a claim to elect the Emperor, as the army and office-holders at Constantinople. In fact, to Papal and Roman eyes, the rights of Rome were much greater than those of Constantinople.
To us, as we look back, nothing seems more natural than that the great Frankish king, after the conquest of Italy, should have brushed aside the theoretical difficulty of an existing Roman Empire and assumed the Imperial title, Emperor of the Romans. History moves more slowly. Charlemagne was a Frank, accustomed to Frankish usages and ideas; he hesitated to adopt formally a wholly different conception of sovereignty and society. His nobles probably agreed with the advice given by Pope Zacharias to Pippin, that the man who held the power should receive the corresponding title, but being Franks they thought the dignity of Frankish king sufficient. So matters stood with nothing between Charlemagne and the Imperial crown but a theoretic difficulty, and a certain reluctance. Unexpectedly and in quick succession, events in Constantinople swept away the theoretic difficulty, and events in Rome gave the Pope sufficient energy to overcome the reluctance.
At Constantinople, the dowager Empress blinded and deposed her son the Emperor (797), and assumed to rule as sole Augusta. This wickedness, and the ancient doctrine that, though a woman might lawfully share the Imperial throne, she might not reign alone, combined to render plausible a theory readily adopted in the West, that the Imperial throne had become vacant. The event in Rome was this. A savage gang of nobles and ecclesiasts attacked Pope Leo III in the street, beat him, half-blinded him, cut his tongue, and imprisoned him in a monastery (799). He escaped and fled to Charlemagne in Germany. His enemies followed and charged him with various crimes. Charlemagne sent him back to Rome in the company of some great nobles, who were commissioned to investigate the charges, and went himself also. There, in St. Peter's basilica, in the presence of Frankish nobles and Roman ecclesiasts, with Charlemagne presiding, the Pope took a solemn oath of innocence (December 4, 800). Such an oath according to the jurisprudence of the time was necessarily followed by acquittal; and the Pope's innocence necessarily proved the guilt of his accusers, who were punished.
Such crimes, east and west, were insufferable. Something had to be done. Everybody looked to Charlemagne. His position as head of Christendom was acknowledged even beyond the bounds of western Europe. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, a subject of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid, sent to Charlemagne the keys of Calvary and of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of the Holy City. Obviously it was time for the Imperial dignity to be added to Imperial power.
On Christmas day in the year 800, Charlemagne and a great procession of Frankish nobles and Roman citizens made their way through the streets of Rome towards the basilica of St. Peter's, whose gilt bronze roof, taken from a pagan temple, shone conspicuous on the Vatican hill. They walked through the Aurelian gate and across the bridge over the Tiber, then turning to the left, followed the colonnade which extended all the way from Hadrian's Mausoleum to the atrium of the basilica. There they mounted the broad flight of marble steps, at the top of which the Pope and his court awaited the king. Then Pope and king, followed by the procession, crossed the great atrium paved with white marble, past the fir-cone fountain and papal tombs, to the central door of the basilica, which swung its thousand-weight of silver open wide; then, up the long nave, screened by rows of antique columns from double aisles on either side, all rich with tapestries of purple and gold, they proceeded with slow and solemn steps to the tomb of the apostle. Thirteen hundred and seventy candles in the great candelabrum glowed on the silver floor of the shrine, and glittered on the gold and silver statues around it. In the great apse behind the high altar sat the clergy, row upon row, beneath the Pontiff's throne; above, the Byzantine mosaics looked down in sad severity. Here Charlemagne knelt at the tomb, and prayed. As he rose from his knees, the Pope lifted an Imperial crown of gold and placed it on his head, while all the congregation shouted, "Life and Victory to Charles, Augustus, crowned by God, the great and peaceful Emperor!"
Thus was accomplished that restoration of the Roman Empire, which by its attempt to combine Teuton and Roman in political union so powerfully affected the history of mediæval Europe. Charlemagne is reported to have said that the Imperial coronation took him by surprise. However that may be, this great enterprise of a Christian Empire must be regarded, in its final completion, as the joint work of Frankish king and Roman Pope.
CHAPTER VII
FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO NICHOLAS I (814–867)
The period from the death of Charlemagne (814) to the coronation of Otto the Great (962) is a long dismal stretch, tenanted by discord and ignorance. At the beginning stands the commanding figure of Charlemagne,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies.
But his descendants were unequal to their inheritance, and under them his Empire crumbled away and resolved itself into incipient nations. That Empire, in theory the restored Roman Empire, was in fact strictly Teutonic, though buttressed by the Roman Church. Charlemagne deemed himself head of both Empire and Church. In his eyes the Pope was his subject, and he legislated, as a matter of course, upon ecclesiastical affairs. In secular matters he endeavoured to maintain local administration without detriment to a strong central government. For this purpose he divided the Empire into three divisions, of which he made his three sons nominally kings, really his lieutenants. Under these sons he appointed counts and bishops, as local governors. He maintained his central authority by