From the tumults about images in 730, the Emperor had no power in Italy.

gross idolatry, while admitting such practices. What will be their effect with the multitude? The actual condition of the mass of the people in all countries where Popery has been unchecked, gives us a sufficient answer to this question; nor do we scruple to condemn these practices as ABOMINABLE IDOLATRIES. Tell us not how Fenelon or Pascal might extricate themselves from this impiety: what are the frequenters of churches in Naples and Madrid? nothing better than the GROSSEST POLYTHEISTS, and far less rationally religious than were their ancestors of the times of Numa and Pythagoras."*

CHAPTER V.

THE POPE FINALLY BECOMES A TEMPORAl sovereign, A. D. 756.

§ 43.-THE popes, although seizing every opportunity to exalt their own authority, had not, up to the commencement of the eighth century, ventured the attempt to excite rebellion against the ancient emperors, or to wield in their own hands, the sceptre of temporal sovereignty. In the present chapter we are to follow them, in their career of ambition, till they united the regal crown to the episcopal mitre, and took rank among the kings of the earth.

We have already referred to the rebellious tumults, excited at Rome, and encouraged by pope Gregory II., when in 730, the edict of Leo was promulgated, enjoining the destruction of images. From that time forward, till the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, the government of the city of Rome, and the surrounding territory, was administered only nominally, in the name of the emperors of the East, while the real power was vested in the popes, sustained as they were by the ignorant and superstitious multitudes. "After the prohibition of picture worship," says Gieseler, "the city of Rome was in a state of rebellion against the emperors, though without an absolute separation from the empire. From this they were withheld by fear of the Lombards, who, under Liutprand, were waiting only for a favorable opportunity to extend their sway over Rome, as well as the Exarchate, and whose purpose it was the great object of the popes to defeat."+

In the year 734, the Emperor sent an army and a fleet to reduce to submission the Pope and the refractory Romans, and to enforce the execution of his decree against images, but as nearly all his vessels were lost at sea, the attempt was abandoned, and from this

Pope Gregory III. applies to Charles Martel for help against the Lombards.

time forward, says Bower, "the Emperor concerned himself no more with the affairs of the West, than the Pope with those of the East." The Exarch, or emperor's Viceroy, continued still to reside at Ravenna, but was not in a condition to cause the imperial edict against images to be observed even in that city, much less to undertake anything against the Pope or the people of Rome, who had now withdrawn themselves from subjection to the Emperor, and were governed by magistrates of their own election, " forming a kind of republic under the Pope, not yet as their prince, but only as their head."*

§ 44. In the year 740, in consequence of the Pope refusing to deliver up two rebellious dukes, the subjects of Luitprand, king of the Lombards, that warlike monarch invaded and laid waste the territories of Rome. In their distress, their fear of the resentment of the Emperor forbidding them to apply to him for the assistance they urgently needed, they resolved to apply to the celebrated Charles Martel, the great hero of that age, who had received that surname, which signifies hammer, in consequence of a celebrated victory gained over the Saracen forces, near Poictiers, in 732, by which he had probably saved his native country, France, from being subjected under the Mahometan rule. Charles was at this time mayor of the palace to the king of France, but wielded in his own person all the power of the kingdom. To him, therefore, pope Gregory III. despatched the most urgent and pressing entreaties to hasten to his aid. "Shut not your ears, my most Christian son," writes Gregory, "shut not your ears to our prayers, lest the prince of the apostles should shut the gates of the kingdom of heaven upon you!" The Pope had sent him his usual royal present of the keys of the tomb of St. Peter, with some filings of Peter's chain inserted, and appealing to these, he adds, in his letters, "I conjure you, by the sacred keys of the tomb of St. Peter, which I send you, prefer not the friendship of the Lombard kings, to that regard you owe to the prince of the apostles!"†

§ 45.-Whether it was, however, that the stern warrior did not attach much value to these wonder-working keys and filings, or whether he was unwilling to offend the king of the Lombards, it is certain that he turned a deaf ear to these pathetic appeals of the Pope; till the latter, despairing of gaining his help by appealing to his piety or superstition, attacked him in a more vulnerable part, by appealing to his ambition. This Gregory did by proposing to Charles, that he and the Romans would renounce all allegiance to the Emperor, as an avowed heretic, and acknowledging him for their protector, confer upon him the consular dignity of Rome, upon condition that he should protect the Pope, the church, and the Roman people against the Lombards; and, if necessity should arise, against the vengeance of their ancient master, the Emperor.

* Bower's History of the Popes, vol. iii., page 300. + Gregory III., Epist. in Baronius, ann. 740.

Leo III., Gregory III., and Charles Martel die in the same year.

Pepin of France

These proposals were more suited to the warlike and ambitious disposition of Martel, and he immediately despatched his ambassadors to Rome to take the Pope under his protection, intending, doubtless, at an early period, to consummate the agreement.

Pope Gregory, however, did not live to carry into effect his treasonable purpose, Charles Martel to profit by it, or the emperor Leo to hear of it. They all three died in that year, 741, within a few weeks of each other. Before the death of Martel, his timely interference had procured the Romans a brief respite from their invaders, for soon after the arrival of his messengers at Rome, the Lombard king retired with his troops to his own dominions, though he still retained the four cities he had taken belonging to the Roman dukedom. Upon the almost simultaneous death of these three noted individuals, the Emperor was succeeded by Constantine, the Pope by Zachary, and the mayor of the palace by his son Pepin, as the nominal mayor, but the real sovereign of France.

§ 46.-Pope Zachary was immediately ordained, without waiting for his election to be confirmed, either by the Emperor or his Italian representative, the Exarch; the imperial power in Italy being at this time reduced to so low an ebb, that the Emperor had no power to resist this encroachment upon his right of confirming the Universal Bishops-a right which his predecessors had claimed and enjoyed without interruption ever since the decree of Phocas had created that dignity. Soon after his ordination, pope Zachary visited in person the camp of Luitprand, the Lombard king, who, upon the death of Charles Martel, was preparing again to invade the territories of Rome, and had influence sufficient, by threatening him with damnation if he refused, and promising the favor of St. Peter if he complied, to prevail on him to deliver up the four cities he had taken; which he accordingly did, declaring in the presence of all, that they no longer belonged to him, but to the Apostle St. Peter, without saying a word of the Emperor, who, if any one, was, without doubt, their rightful master and sovereign.

§ 47. A few years later, A. D. 751, Pepin, son of Martel, conceived the design of dethroning the feeble monarch, Childeric III., under whom he was acting as prime minister and viceroy. Though he possessed the power of the sovereign, yet he was still a subject, and determined, if possible, to obtain the title of king as well as the authority. Not deeming it prudent to depose the legitimate sovereign without providing to satisfy the scruples of the timid or the superstitious, Pepin resolved to submit the case of conscience to pope Zachary; viz., who best deserved to be called king; he who was possessed of the title without the power, or he who possessed the power without the title. The situation of Zachary, exposed as he was, on the one hand, to the indignation of the Emperor, and on the other, to the attacks of the warlike Lombards, was such as to leave no doubt that he would give such an answer as would secure the favor and protection of the powerful Pepin. Accordingly he

Lombards conquer Ravenna

Pepin, advised by the Pope, usurps the throne of king Childeric.

gave, without hesitation, such an answer as the usurper desired; viz., that he ought to be called king who possessed the power, rather then he who, without regal power, possessed only the title. The feeble Childeric was immediately deposed and confined to a monastery, and Pepin proclaimed king in his stead. He was crowned and anointed by Boniface, the Pope's legate, and two years after, in order to render his title as sacred as possible, the ceremony was performed again by pope Stephen, the successor of Zachary, on the occasion of a journey into France to obtain his succor against the Lombards. Upon the arrival of Stephen into Pepin's dominions on this occasion, he was received with the most extravagant honors. The king and queen, with their two sons, Charles and Carloman, the chief lords of the court, and most of the French nobility, went out three miles to meet him. Upon his approach, Pepin dismounted from his horse and fell prostrate on the ground; and, not suffering the Pope to dismount, he attended him part of the way on foot, performing, according to the Romish historian, Anastasius, "the office of his groom or equerry."†

§ 48. In the year 753, Aistulphus, king of the Lombards, invaded the exarchate, and laid siege to the city of Ravenna. The city was bravely defended by Eutychius, the last of the exarchs, till his affairs were desperate, when he embarked on board a vessel with the remnant of his soldiers, and fled to his master, the Emperor, to Constantinople. Thus ended the exarchate of Ravenna, and with it the splendor of that ancient city, in which for nearly two centuries the exarchs, as the viceroys of the emperors, had maintained the imperial power in the West.

Elated by his conquest, Aistulphus despatched a messenger to Rome, demanding the submission of the inhabitants, asserting that as the exarchate was his by right of conquest, so also were all the cities and other places that had heretofore been subject to the exarchs in Italy; that is, all Italian dominions of the Emperor. At the same time he threatened to march with his army to Rome, and to put all the inhabitants to the sword, unless they acknowledged his government, and paid him a yearly tribute of a piece of gold for each person.

§ 49. In these perilous circumstances, Stephen ventured to inform the Emperor, who was still nominally the sovereign of Rome, and solicit his succor. Constantine, however, was too busy in pursuing his victories over the Saracens in the East to do more than send an ambassador to make the best terms he could with Aistulphus. The ambassador John bore with him commands to the Pope

* The oldest account of this is in Annalibus Loiselianus ad ann. 749 (751). See a quotation from this ancient writing in Gieseler, iii., 14, note 5. "Zacharias Papa, mandavit Pipino ut melius esset illum regem vocari qui potestatem haberet, quam illum qui sine regali potestate manebat. Per auctoritatem ergo apostolicam jussit Pipinum regem fieri.”

+ Anastasius de vitis Pontificum, in Stephen II.

Aistulphus, the Lombard king, threatens Rome.

Pope Stephen applies for succor to king Pepin

to unite his persuasions with his own, to induce the Lombard king to send a minister to Constantinople to treat of an accommodation, and in the mean time to forbear hostilities. This Aistulphus absolutely refused, and John was soon despatched to his master at Constantinople, to inform him that nothing but a powerful army sent immediately into Italy, could save the remnant of the ancient Roman empire in that country. As another expedient, two abbots were sent to the camp of the conqueror, to plead with him the cause of St. Peter. The King admitted them to his presence, but only to reproach them for meddling in worldly affairs, and commanded them to return immediately to their monasteries. Failing in this, the Pope tried processions, in which were solemnly carried the images of the Virgin Mary, of St. Peter, and St. Paul, and a host of other saints; but these saints too, or their images, appeared deaf to their entreaties, and their condition was daily becoming more critical.

§ 50. In this extremity, pope Stephen resolved to apply in person for succor to Pepin, king of France, whom we have already seen encouraged by the Pope in usurping the throne of his master, Childeric. Stephen, upon his arrival in France, was received with the highest honor, and "entertained as the visible successor of the apostles." After a short delay, he recrossed the Alps, at the head of a victorious army, which was led by the King in person. The ambitious Pope, while an honored guest at the court of Pepin, anxious to see himself elevated to the rank of an earthly monarch, had been cunning enough to obtain from him a promise that he would restore the places that might be captured from Aistulphus (not to the Emperor, but) to be freely possessed by St. Peter and his successors. After a feeble resistance to the arms of Pepin, the Lombards were compelled to submit, their King was besieged in his metropolis, Pavia, and as the price of peace was compelled to sign a treaty to deliver up to the Pope the exarchate," with all the cities, castles, and territories thereto belonging, to be for ever held and possessed, BY THE MOST HOLY POPE STEPHEN AND HIS SUCCESSORS in the Apostolic See of St. Peter."

§ 51. No sooner had Pepin returned into France, than Aistulphus, who had signed this treaty, resolved not to fulfil it. The Pope had frequently reminded the Lombard king of the dishonesty and injustice of keeping those territories which belonged, of right, to the Emperor; and it was very natural for him to conclude, that if he had no right to keep what belonged to another, neither had king Pepin any right to bestow it, or pope Stephen to receive it; and that of the three, he himself had as much right to it as any one of them. Aistulphus accordingly laid siege to Rome, burning with rage against the Pope; first, for bringing the French to invade his dominions; and second, for claiming the exarchate for himself, after having so frequently threatened him with the vengeance of heaven for his injustice in not restoring that territory to his "most