HAVING offered a general survey of the condition of Europe at the settlement of the Barbarian nations on the ruins of the Roman Empire, we proceed to follow out the annals of the Kingdoms which they founded. While the dominion of Rome filled the world, the biography of the Cæsars embraced the fortunes of mankind; and under their universal sovereignty, it was easy to confine the current of general History within a single mighty channel. But the inundation of the Barbaric conquests broke out into as many different and devious torrents as there were chasms rent in the dismembered Empire. To define with clearness the wandering course of these streams, to mark their occasional confluence, and their frequent diversion, becomes a task of no ordinary perplexity. In tracing the affairs, during the Dark Ages, of numerous States whose Political relations were at intervals variously interwoven and separated, it is difficult to attend to the strict chronological order of events, and at the same time to preserve any Historical chain of international connection. As far as possible, however, to combine these objects, there seems no better method than, restricting our view to the fortunes of a single State at a time, to pursue them to some remarkable point, at which their conjunction with those of a second Country may lead us to shift the scene of our observation. In this manner we shall successively be attracted to the condition and annals of all the prominent European nations under the same epoch; and the insulated story of States less conspicuous in themselves, or less connected with the rest, may afterwards be brought down in an episodical form to the corresponding period. Our transitions must thus necessarily be frequent, but will more lucidly and naturally conduct us through the complicated vicissitudes of our subject, than if we attempted either to confound their distinct character under one general view, or throughout to maintain several unconnected heads of narration, for events whose course is rather irregularly blended than uniformly parallel and separate.

In this projected arrangement, the fallen majesty of the seat of ancient empire seems to claim our first notice for ITALY. The revolution which had finally delivered over that Country to the rule of a Scythian Chieftain, was a less violent change than the ordinary process of Barbarian conquest. The elevation of Odoacer was effected by no new swarms of Northern invaders; and the settlement of his followers in the

Italy.

From

A. D. 476.

to

A. D. 755.

Italian Provinces is to be regarded only as the establishment, in a firmer posture, of those bands of foreign and licentious mercenaries, who had long formed the only defence, while they were also the terror, of the degraded State. After the deposition of the feeble Augustulus, we have seen that the name of the Empire of the West was suppressed by the modesty or prudence of the fortunate adventurer, who had raised himself, on Under the revolt and the choice of his fellow-soldiers, to the Odoacer. supreme authority; and during fourteen years, Odoacer reigned under only the general title of King. He was not unworthy of a Throne; and the calamities of Italy, so long desolated by war and anarchy, and finally subjected to the rapine of the victorious and insolent mercenaries, were alleviated and arrested by his wisdom and humanity.*

A. D.

476.

to

A. D. 489.

A. D.

489.

to A. D. 493.

The virtues and courage of Odoacer, however, could its conquest not ultimately protect his Throne against the superior by the Osgenius and power of a foreign rival. Theodoric, King trogoths. of the Ostrogoths, who were already seated in Pannonia, was induced by the facility of his position, or the proposal of Zeno, Emperor of the East, to undertake the conquest of Italy. The Greek despot was not sorry to be relieved by this expedition from the vicinity of a dangerous ally and a turbulent people; and though Zeno had maintained an amicable correspondence with Odoacer, and accepted his recognition of the supremacy of the Byzantine Throne, Theodoric entered Italy to reign as the lieutenant or the royal vassal of the Eastern Emperor. His standard was attended by the whole martial host of his people; and the entire nation of the Ostrogoths descended upon the Italian plains with their wives and families, their cattle and waggons, and all their most precious effects. Odoacer defended with unshaken resolution the Crown which his sword had won. He suffered repeated defeats, and lost all Italy except Ravenna; but in that strong city he still maintained himself, and for three years balanced the fate of the contest. It was at last terminated by an agreement, which gave equal and undivided authority over Italy to the two leaders, and admitted Theodoric within the walls of Ravenna. But in the midst of the conse quent rejoicings, Odoacer was treacherously stabbed by the hand or at the command of his rival; the remains of the mercenary bands, who had so long held possession

Paulus Diaconus, lib. i. c. 19. Cassiodorius, Chron, ad annos, 476-489,

History of Italy, were everywhere massacred by the Goths; and Theodoric reigned without opposition from the From Alps to the extremity of Calabria.*

A. D.

to

A. D.

755. Reign of Theodoric

A. D.

493.

to

A. D.

Happily for the fate of the Italians, the King of the 476. Ostrogoths united in his person all the heroic qualities of a Barbarian conqueror, with the milder virtues and intelligence of civilized life; and notwithstanding the foul act of perfidy which sullied its commencement, his long reign was an era of tranquil felicity for the subjuthe Great. gated population. Under his vigorous but impartial administration, they enjoyed safety and consideration; to Romans alone (for so they were not ashamed to call themselves) were the Civil offices of Government confided; and the natives retained their laws and language, 526. their personal freedom, two-thirds of their landed property, and protection from the violence of their Barbarian conquerors. The military employments, and the defence of the State, were reserved to the Goths, who were spread over the Kingdom in possession of one-third of its soil, and held their lands by the general condition of this martial tenure. In a new and happy climate, their numbers multiplied with formidable rapidity; and in a few years after their settlement, they could muster two hundred thousand warriors, besides their women and children. It was the politic desire of Theodoric to maintain the separation of his Italian and Gothic subjects, by their restriction respectively to Civil and to military occupations: but in their fixed seats the Goths readily imbibed the arts of civilization, and lost a portion of their warlike spirit in a taste for the refinements of luxurious indulgence.

Erient of

The fame of Theodoric extended, his power was the Gothic dreaded, and his sovereignty even was recognised, far Monarchy, beyond the Alpine barriers of Italy. Northward and Eastward, he continued, or rendered himself, master of the Pannonian, Rhetian, and other territory, from the source of the Danube to the site, on its lower banks, of the modern Belgrade; and his arms repelled and punished the hostility of the Eastern Empire. In the new Barbarian Kingdoms of the West, his conquest of Italy had excited general alarm; but this feeling was changed by his moderation into amicable and respectful deference. By his domestic alliances, he connected his family with the Royal Houses of the Franks, Burgundians, and Thuringians; and the marriage of his daughter with the Sovereign of the kindred nation of the Visigoths of Spain and Aquitaine, rendered him, as the natural guardian of his orphan grandsons, the Protector and the Regent of that oppressed Monarchy against the Frankish ambition. The territorial communication between the two races of the Goths in Spain and Italy, was completed by Theodoric's defeat of the Frankish Sovereign, and his acquisition of Arles and Marseilles; and the great Gothic Monarchy extended under his Sceptre, as King or as Regent, from Sicily and the Southern capes of Spain to the banks of the Rhone and the source of the Danube, and from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the parallel course of the latter river. The true glory of Theodoric, however, rests on the pacific triumphs of his reign. With singular moderation this enlightened Barbarian, in the pride of victory and the flower of his age, renounced the prosecution of further conquests to devote himself to the duties of Civil

Government

Theodoric

Procopius, De Bello Gothico, lib. i. c. 1. Jornandes, c. 57. Cassiodorius, Chron. ad ann. 490-493.

Procopius, Goth. lib. iii. c. 4.

VOL. XI.

Italy.

From

A. D. 476.

to

A. D. 755.

government. By the terror of his name, and under the mild vigour of his administration, his Kingdom was constantly preserved from foreign insult, and flourished in recovered prosperity. Amidst the blessings of peace, and beneath his fostering encouragement, Agriculture was restored, Navigation was pursued in security, and Commerce increased and multiplied. For three and thirty years, Theodoric watched with laborious anxiety over the common happiness of his Gothic and Italian subjects. Few Sovereigns have in an equal degree merited to be numbered among the benefactors of mankind: yet it is painful to add that the evening of his life was clouded by popular disaffection, soured by ingratitude, and defiled with virtuous blood. Difference of Religion interrupted the harmony between him and his Italian subjects. Like most of the Barbarians, Theodoric had been educated in the Arian Heresy; and the discontent of a Catholic people was unjustly produced by his firm maintenance of a general Religious toleration, of which they had themselves enjoyed the immunity. His protection of the Jews and punishment of their oppressors was resented as a crime against the Orthodox Church; and the bigotry of the Catholics provoked the King to the verge of persecution. The hatred of the Italians, forgetful of the benefits of his reign, was excited, with equal want of reason, by the imposition of necessary taxes; and the mind of Theodoric, stung to indignation by their fanaticism and ill-founded murmurs, was filled with suspicions of treason. The murder of his rival Odoacer was a stain upon the fair fame of his manhood; and the execution of his minister, the learned and pious Boethius,-the last of the Romans, says a great author, whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countrymen,*—and of the inno- His death, cent and venerable Patrician, Symmachus, branded the old age of the Monarch with indelible infamy, and embittered his last hours with unavailing remorse.†

A. D. 526.

The splendour of the Gothic annals terminates with Fall of the the reign of Theodoric; and the total duration of their Ostrogothic Monarchy in Italy only survived his death twenty-seven power. years. Into this narrow period were crowded the rapid succession, the troubled reigns, and the violent deposition or death of six Princes; two bloody and calamitous struggles against the forces of the Eastern Empire; as many exterminating invasions of the Franks; the overthrow and surrender, the general revolt, and the final subjection of the Ostrogothic Kingdom to the Imperial Sceptre. Such an epoch of slaughter and anarchy, devastation and horror, will be sufficiently noticed in its general results: it is neither within our purpose, nor would it profit the reader, to burthen his memory with the details of barbarous wars, obscure crimes, and daily revolutions. The possessions of Theodoric, who had no son, descended upon the children of his daughters. To his infant grandson Athalaric he bequeathed the Ostrogothic Crown, and to Amalasontha, the guardianship both of her son and the Italian Kingdom. In the

The intellectual acquirements of Boethius,-which might have reflected lustre on a more auspicious era, but which serve only to deepen the obscurity of his own times with the solitary gleams of genius and Philosophy-will entitle him to further and honourable notice among the few names that form the scanty sum of Literary History during the Dark Ages.

Cassiodorius, in Chron. et Variorum Lib. Procopius, Gothico, lib. i.—ii. usque ad c. 6. Jornandes, c. 57-59. Among the moderus, Gibbon has devoted his thirty-ninth chapter,-a splendid monument, to the life and reign, the character and actions of Theodoric 20

From A. D.

476.

to

A. D.

755.

was

History. ability and virtues of her Government, this Princess for some years proved herself the worthy daughter of Theodoric: but her sex, which by the Gothic Law had excluded her from the Throne, also prevented the felicitous exercise of her wisdom and power. The Goths endured with impatience the prudent and salutary administration of a woman; and her youthful son taught to spurn her authority. Some of the Nobles, his instigators, fell the victims of her deadly revenge; and when premature intemperance had hurried the young Prince to his grave before the age of manhood, her attempt to preserve her regal power by a marriage with her weak and vicious cousin Theodatus, who had some claims to the Crown as the nephew of Theodoric, was followed by her own ruin and that of the Monarchy. The noble blood which she had tyrannically shed, rendered her justly odious to a free people; and, by the faction hostile to her rule, her new husband, the object of her undisguised contempt, was easily exasperated to connive at her imprisonment and strangulation. The attention of Justinian, who now filled the Throne of the Eastern Empire, had been eagarly attracted to the state of the Gothic Court. Under the guise of mediation, his ambassadors had fomented its dissensions, and secretly prompted the murder of Amalasontha; but she was no sooner dead, than, in their master's name, they denounced war and retribution against the ungrateful usurper, who had repaid his elevation to the throne by becoming the assassin of his Queen and his benefactress.

under Belisarius.

Conquest of In a moment of fallacious vigour, the transient and their Italian unnatural effort of expiring strength, the arms of the Monarchy by the forces Eastern Empire had just achieved the conquest of of the East Africa and the destruction of the Vandalic Monarchy; ern Empire, and Justinian was now encouraged by this success to attempt the overthrow of the Ostrogothic power and the recovery of Italy from the Barbarian domination. The vain image of a Roman Empire was still preserved by the Greek Sovereigns of Constantinople. But the formidable array and numbers of the Roman Legion were replaced by scanty and mercenary bands, of various Countries and animated by no common feeling of patriotism or national spirit; and the only strength of the small Imperial Army which disembarked in Italy for the conquest of the Gothic Kingdom was to be found in the courage and military talents of its leader Belisarius. The despicable Theodatus, too inactive or too pusillanimous to resist the advance of the invaders, was deposed by the indignant voice of his nation, and murdered by a private enemy as he fled from the popular vengeance; and Belisarius entered Rome in triumph. From Ravenna, the Gothic Capital, Vitiges, who was called to the Throne by the election of his fellow warriors, advanced with an immense host to avenge the national disgrace; and for above a year the heroic Belisarius sustained the siege of Rome by the whole Gothic power. At the conclusion of that period, the tardy arrival from the East of a reinforcement of a few thousand men, was sufficient to complete the discomfiture of the Goths; Belisarius became again the assailant; and the reduction of Ravenna, and surrender of Vitiges, in the fourth year of the war, completed the incredible conquest of a great Kingdom and a warlike people, by a force which seems never to have exceeded twenty thousand men.*

A. D.

536. to

A. D.

540.

Procopius, De Bello Gothico, lib. i-iii. c. 1. Muratori, Annali d'Italia, vol. v. a. n. 536–540,

Italy.

From

A. D.
476.
10

A. D. 755. Revolt of

the Goths

A. D.

540.

The mean jealousy and base ingratitude of Justinian recalled his illustrious General from the Italian command; and Belisarius had no sooner departed, than the Goths revolted, and the fruits of his successes were lost by the misconduct and cowardice of the Imperial Commanders. Without troops and without supplies, the aged hero was a second time despatched to Italy, only to become the powerless and mortified spectator of the Gothic progress; and his second recall was granted to his own solicitation. After the ephemeral elevation and murder of Hildebald, the brave and virtuous Totila was raised to the Gothic Throne; and his valour and ability had reconquered the greater part of Italy. before Justinian was roused to vindicate the honour of his arms. His favourite, the eunuch Narses, no un- Their fina worthy successor of Belisarius, and far better supported subjugatio by Narses by the Imperial countenance, landed in Italy with a well-equipped army; and the ruin of the Gothic Monarchy was finally accomplished by his victorious arms. But the struggle was fierce and obstinate; and in the desperate extremity of their fortunes, the Goths displayed more of the unyielding spirit of freemen than they had evinced in the pride of their power and strength. The Gothic war did not terminate before Rome had been lost and won for the fifth time; and until the heroic Totila and Teias, the two last Sovereigns of their nation, had successively fallen, as became them, in the field of battle. A tremendous defeat which Narses subsequently inflicted on an invading jection of host of the Franks and Alemanni, gave security to his Italy to t conquests; and all Italy reposed in obedience and Eastern peace under the Sceptre of the Eastern Empire.* Empire.

A. D. 552.

to

A. D. 554.

Total sub

nation.

The internal dissensions of the Goths, the hatred Extinctio which the subject population of Italy had ever borne of the O to their Barbarian conquerors, and the affection with trogothic which they welcomed the Imperial arms, had all assisted the genius and fortune of Belisarius and Narses. Yet under every evil of intestine disunion, the Gothic Kingdom, with a force of two hundred thousand combatants, could not have been twice subjugated by far inferior numbers, whose imperfect courage was with difficulty sustained by the talents of their leaders, if the Goths had not, during their Italian settlement of less than sixty years, already lost the better part of their original spirit. The sudden annihilation of a brave people is among those gigantic vicissitudes of human fate which can never be contemplated without awakening some portion of commiseration and interest. The mass of the Gothic warriors had been destroyed by the sword, or by famine and disease. The remnant emigrated Northward, enrolled themselves in the Imperial service, or was compressed into the servile population of Italy; and from this epoch the very name of the Ostrogothic nation totally disappears from the annals of Europe. This subjugation of a numerous and warlike race of the North, by a handful of degenerate Greeks and promiscuous mercenaries, presents a strange and inexplicable spectacle; and the extinction of a nation which, but half a century before, had struck terror into the Eastern Empire, and founded a great and flourishing Monarchy, must be numbered among the unsolved problems which perplex the obscure History of a barbarous Age.

As the lieutenant or representative of the Emperor, Narses, under the title of Exarch, and from the Gothic

* Procopius, Gothica, lib. iii. c. 2. iv. c. 35. Muratori, Annali, vol. v. a. D. 540-553

From A. D. 476.

to

A. D.

755.

Government

A. D. 552.

to

History. Capital of Ravenna, administered the Government of Italy with wisdom and vigour for about fifteen years. But his Political virtues were sullied by personal rapacity his rule became odious to the Italians, and on some complaints of his avarice and oppression, he was removed from his office. The sentence of his recall by the Byzantine Court is said to have been accompanied with an insulting message from the Empress Sophia, of Narses. the consort of Justin II., "that the Eunuch should leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper occupation of handling the distaff among the maidens of the palace." According to the vulgar belief of the Age, the bitter retort of the hero," that he 567. would spin her such a thread as she should not easily Invasion of unravel," was explained in the immediate invasion of Italy by the Lombards. Whether this enterprise was really instigated by his revenge for the ingratitude of the Imperial Court and the Italians may be doubted:* but, whatever be the truth of the popular tale, the coincidence of the Lombard invasion with the recall and death of Narses decided the fate of Italy. He shortly expired in extreme old age; and his decease removed the only obstacle to the success of the Lombards.

A. D

the Lom

bards A. D.

568.

Thir conquest of

Italy.

A. D.

568.

to

A. D.

That People, whose enterprise was to perpetuate their name in the fruitful plains of Northern Italy, were one int part of of the most warlike and powerful Tribes of Vandalic origin. They had for about forty years occupied Pannonia in the traces of the Ostrogothic settlements; and the whole nation, under their Sovereign Alboin, now descended from the Julian Alps. The new Exarch, the 570. helpless successor of Narses, could offer no opposition in the field; the pusillanimous Italians were not ashamed to believe without a trial that the Barbarians were invincible; and the whole country to the gates of Rome and Ravenna rapidly passed under their dominion. The strong city of Pavia was the only place which maintained an obstinate resistance against the invaders. The siege lasted three years; and when famine had opened the gates, Alboin spared the inhabitants, and established among them the Capital of his The King new Kingdom of LOMBARDY. The arms of Alboin and dem of Lom- his numerous and martial nation appeared irresistible, bardy. the Sovereignty of the Greek Empire over its Italian Province seemed to touch the verge of its destruction: yet the invaders unaccountably failed to achieve the completion of their conquests; and for nearly two centuries, the Exarchs of Ravenna continued to divide, though unequally, the possession of Italy with the The Impe- Lombard Princes. The Province of Ravenna, the Pentapolis of Romagna, and the maritime districts of the South, remained under the Government of the Rome, with her Bishops, long preserved her fidelity to the Eastern Emperors, less from affection to them than terror and hatred of the Barbarians; and even the Italian fugitives from the Continent, who at different periods had sought security, and founded a Republican independence, in the islets of the Venetian shallows, acknowledged, in a large sense, the supremacy of the Imperial Lieutenants. With some exception, the Kingdom of Lombardy, therefore, may be described in

nai Exar

chate of Kaveuna.

Narses is accused of this treason by Paulus Diaconus, De Gestis Langob. lib. ii. c. 5. (in the first vol. of Script. Rer. Ital. p. 427,) and,— which Gibbon has not noticed,-also by Anastasius, Biblioth. Vite Rom, Pontif. in vitá Johannis III. (in the IIId volume of the same collection, p. 133.)

general language as comprehending only the Northern half of Italy; but a Chieftain of their nation penetrated with his followers into the South, and there founded the Lombard Duchy of Benevento; which, yielding no more than a nominal obedience to the Court of Pavia, survived the Monarchy, and for five hundred years occupied a great portion of the present Kingdom of Naples.*

Italy.

From

A. D. 476.

lo A. D.

755.

tion of the

The imperfect dominion of the Lombards in Italy Character subsisted with considerable splendour for two hundred and duraand six years. Their national character appears among Lombard the fairest in the History of the Barbaric races; their power. spirit was equally generous, brave, and free; and their laws and institutions may be favourably compared with those of the other Northern conquerors. Like the rest of the States of German origin, the Monarchy of the Lombards was in principle elective: but the whole Kingdom was parcelled out, immediately after its settlement, into thirty Provincial Governments or Duchies; and a great territorial aristocracy was thus created, which soon became hereditary in Italy in the descendants of the Lombard Dukes. But the election of their Kings and the confirmation of their laws were equally the necessary acts of the People, and the proof of their freedom. That freedom was often Barbarian license; and crime and disorder throw an occasional stain over the Lombard annals: but many of their Princes were honourably distinguished by their talents and virtues; and their reigns are occasionally contrasted with the turbulence of a rude and violent Age by the blessings of order and internal tranquillity.

A. D.

573.

Alboin, the warlike founder of their Italian Monar- The Lomchy, who possessed the usual qualities of a conqueror bard Kings. and a savage, did not live to enjoy the fruits of his success; but was murdered, after a reign of only four years, at the instigation of his Queen Rosamond. Her father, the King of the Gepidæ, had fallen in battle against the Lombards before her forced union with their Monarch; and her brutal lord, during the intoxication of a feast in his palace near Verona, obliged her to drink from a goblet which had been formed of the skull of her parent. She vowed to wipe out the insult in his blood; and the indulgence of an adulterous passion was superadded to the desire of vengeance. After the murder, the Queen fled to Ravenna, where she listened to the addresses of the Exarch: but her former paramour anticipated her in the attempt to make way for this new union by poison; and she was compelled herself to receive from his hand the deadly cup which she had prepared for him. On the premature death of Alboin, Clepho, a noble Chieftain, was elected, by the suffrages of a National Assembly at Pavia, to the Kingly dignity: but the stroke of a domestic assassin closed his mortal career in less than two years; and the Lombards seem then by common consent, whether disgusted by the Government of Clepho, or moved by the artful ambition of their Dukes, to have suspended the Regal office for about ten years, during the minority of his son Autharis. Throughout this interregnum, Italy was delivered over to the oppression of numerous Ducal tyrants: until the disorderly aggressions of these Chieftains, both upon the French frontiers and the Provinces of the Exarchate, provoked the alliance of

*Paulus Diaconus, lib. ii. c. 7-27. Muratori, Annali d'Italia, A. D. 567-570. A reference to the modern text of Gibbon is always implied.

A. D. 574.

1

From A. D.

476.

to

A. D.

History. the Frankish and Imperial arms; and the sense of common danger then united the Lombard Dukes and nation in the necessity of restoring the Royal Government in the person of Autharis, who had now attained the age of manhood. The young Prince justified the election of his People by the display of valour and ability. He successfully defended his Kingdom against three formidable invasions of the Franks, and the feeble cooperation of the Greek arms; overran the Imperial Provinces to the Southern extremity of Calabria; and confirmed and extended the Lombard power, though he did not consummate the subjugation of Italy.*

755.

A. D. 584.

A. D.

591. to

A. D. 712.

Rotharis.

Grimoald.

Luitprand.

A. D. 712.

to

A. D. 736.

State of

From the death of Autharis to the accession of Luitprand, we may pass over the successive reigns of twelve Lombard Sovereigns, and the lapse of above a century, in which there is little change in the fortunes of Italy to arrest our observation. Yet the names of two active Princes in this long interval deserve to be honourably rescued from the general obscurity, less for their military achievements than for the judicial benefits of their reigns. By Rotharis, the seventh King of the dynasty, who surpassed all his predecessors in wisdom, if not also in military skill, the first written code of the Lombard laws was, with the national assent, formally promulgated; while his successes against the Exarchs of Ravenna long established the peace and security of his Kingdom. Under Grimoald, the eleventh in succession from Alboin, a Prince of equal valour and moderation, the Emperor Constans II. was disgracefully defeated in a personal expedition into Italy; and the Lombard Monarch was no sooner relieved from the cares of war, than he applied himself zealously to those of Civil Government, and made considerable improvements in the laws of Rotharis. From the epoch of this revision, the liberal and impartial benefits of the Lombard jurisprudence were eagerly embraced by the Italian as well as the Barbarian subjects of the Monarchy; and the reign of Grimoald is also remarkable, in connection with Ecclesiastical affairs, for the conversion of the Lombards from the Arian to the Catholic faith.† The pacific virtues of Luitprand, whom we have already characterized as the most enlightened and humane of the Lombard legislators, were shaded by the more questionable attributes of a warlike and ambitious spirit. He aspired to render himself the sole master of Italy; and the distracted state of the Greek Empire might excite his hopes of reducing the Provinces of the Exarchate, and the new Ecclesiastical independence of Rome, under his own dominion. The origin and consideration of the famous dispute relative to the worship of images, which, during his reign, agitated the Eastern Empire, and produced the separation of the Greek and Latin Churches, belong to Ecclesiastical History: our present subject requires us only to notice the effects of the Religious contest in the revolt of Italy from the Byzantine Sceptre, the rise of the temporal power of the Popes, the ruin of the Lombard Monarchy, and the ultimate restoration of the Empire of the West.

To explain the progress of these memorable events, Rome from it is necessary to revert to the state of Rome during the period of three centuries which has been reviewed

the Vth to the VIIIth century.

*Paul. Diacon. lib. ii. c. 27. iii. c, 34. Muratori, A. D. 570-591. + Ibid. lib. i.-v. passim. Muratori, A. D. 591-712.

in the present Chapter. The condition of that once mighty and fallen Capital of the world had been affected by the same vicissitudes as the rest of Italy. Under the great Theodoric, her citizens had enjoyed the security and happiness which were common to his Kingdom: in the wars of his successors with the Generals of Justinian, they had undergone every extremity of suffering. Their city, as we have already remarked, was five times taken and recovered by Goths and Greeks before Narses had achieved the reduction of Italy, and placed an Imperial Præfect in the Capitol. Under the Gothic Kings and the Exarchs who succeeded them, Ravenna became the Capital, and Rome was degraded to the second place among the Italian cities: when Pavia boasted the Throne of the Lombard Kings and the Assembly of their nation, "the eternal city" sank perhaps to the third place. By what means Rome was preserved from the Lombard yoke, it is difficult to un derstand: the conquests of the Barbarians extended almost to her walls, their arms were repeatedly at her gates; but they never acquired possession of the city, and the Italian fugitives from the Provinces who swelled the population, might give it strength to resist the conquerors. Theological hatred sharpened the motives of patriotism or fidelity in animating the defence of the Roman citizens against the Lombard assaults. The Barbarians were first Pagans, then Arians in the eyes of the zealous Catholics their misbelief and heresy equally converted resistance to their arms into a Religious duty; and this principle, which was encouraged by the spirited exertions of the Roman Pontiffs, was easily identified with the obligations of loyalty, first to the Eastern Emperors, and afterwards more deservedly to those Ecclesiastical Governors. The Popes of this period, who were usually Romans by birth, and chosen by the Clergy, Senate, and People, appear in general to have merited their elevation by their virtues; and the Romans, deserted by the feeble Court of Constantinople, withdrew their respect and confidence from the Emperors to repose obedience on their nearer protectors.

Italy.

From

A. D. 476.

to

A. D.

755.

cal and

But both the Ecclesiastical and temporal power of Rise of the the Popes was of very gradual and silent progression. Ecclesiasti In the early Ages of the Christian era, the Bishops of temporal Rome, as residing in the Metropolis of the universe, power of and governing the most ancient and numerous of the the Popes. Western Churches, had always been held in the highest Episcopal rank of dignity and consideration; and their diocese had constituted one of the three Patriarchates into which the Church was divided before the Capital of the Empire was transferred to Constantinople.* The Ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman See, as the only Patriarchate of Western Europe, might naturally extend over Italy and the Latin Provinces of the old Empire; but the temporal power of the Popedom had its later origin entirely in the neglect of Rome by the feeble Emperors of the East, and their tacit abandonment of its defence to the Bishops and the Citizens. The Pontiffs were recommended to the Romans by their personal qualities, and endeared as the objects of popular suffrage. The wants of their defenceless flock, and the danger of their own position, compelled them to undertake the duties of temporal

* De Marca, De Concordantiá Sacerdotii et Imperii, c. 8. of the first book. Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church, lib. ix.