memorable æra, two maxims of public jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time. I. That the prince, who was elected in the German diet, acquired, from that instant, the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II. But that he might not legally assume the titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman pontiff.11 : Per The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by the alteration of his style; and instead of salut. ing his fathers, the Greek emperors, he presumed to adopt the more equal and familiar appellation of brother.120 haps in his connection with Irene he aspired to the name of husband his embassy to Constantinople spoke the language of peace and friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious princess, who had renounced the most sacred duties of a mother. The nature, the duration, the probable consequences of such a union between two distant and dissonant empires, it is impossible to conjecture; but the unanimous silence of the Latins may teach us to suspect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene, to charge her with the guilt of betraying the church and state to the strangers of the West. 121 The French ambassadors were the spectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the conspiracy of Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Constantinople was exasperated by the treason and sacrilege of ancient Rome: a proverb, "That the Franks were good friends and bad neighbors," was in every one's mouth; but it was dangerous to provoke a neighbor who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of St. Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious journey of circuit and 119 The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I. and Henry I., the Fowler, in the list of emperors, a title which was never assumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians, Muratori for instance, are more scrupulous and correct, and only reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome. 120 Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P. imperatoribus super hoc Indignantibus) magnâ tulit patientià, vicitque corum contumaciam .. mittendo ad eos crebras legationes, et in epistolis fratres éos appellando. Eginhard, c. 28, p. 128. Perhaps it was on their account that, like Augustus, he affected some reluctance to receive the empire. 121 Theophanes speaks of the coronation and unction of Charles, Kagovikos, (Chronograph. p. 399,) and of his treaty of marriage with Irene, (p. 402,) which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates his transactions with the Greek empire, (tom. ii p. 445–468.) delay, the ambassadors of Nicephorus found hi in hs camp, on the banks of the River Sala; and Charlemagne affected to confound their vanity by displaying, in a Franconian village the pomp, or at least the pride, of the Byzantine palace. The Greeks were successively led through four halls of audience in the first they were ready to fall prostrate before a splendid personage in a chair of state, till he informed them hat he was only a servant, the constable, or master of the hose, of the emperor. The same mistake, and the same answer, were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine the steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually heightened, till the doors of the presence-chamber were thrown open, and they beheld the genuine monarch, on his throne, enriched with the foreign luxury which he despised, and encircled with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded be tween the two empires, and the limits of the East and West were defined by the right of present possession. But the Greeks 123 soon forgot this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it was extorted. Dur ing the short union of virtue and power, they respectfully saluted the august Charlemagne, with the acclamations of basileus, and emperor of the Romans. As soon as these qualities were separated in the person of his pious son, the Byzantine letters were inscribed, "To the king, or, as he styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and Lombards." When both power and virtue were extinct, they despoiled Lewis the Second of his hereditary title, and with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin princes. His reply 124 is expressive of his weakness: he proves, with some learning, that, both in sacred 182 Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant was a farce suitable to children only; but that it was indeed represented in the presence, and for the benefit, of children of a larger growth. 123 Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi, (tom. iii. A. D. 812, No. 7, A. D. 824, No. 10, &c.,) the contrast of Charlemagne and his son; to the former the ambassadors of Michael (who were indeed disavowed) more suo, id est linguâ Græca laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et Radieu appellantes; to the later, locato imperatori Francorum, &c. 124 See the epistle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous writer of Salerno, (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254, c 93-107,) whom Baronius (A. D. 871, No. 51-71) mistook for Erchenpert, when ho transcribed it in his Annals. and profane history, the name of king is sync ymc us with the Greek word basil us: if, at Constantinople. it were assumed in a more cxclusive and imperial sense, he claims from his ancestors, and from the pope, a just participation of the honors of the Roman purple. The same controversy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their ambassador escribes, in lively colors, the insolence of the Byzantine. court, 125 The Greeks affected to despise the poverty and ignorate. of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the title of Ro. man emperors. These emperors, in the election of the popes, continued to exercise the powers which had been assumed by the Gothic and Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative increased with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction of the Román church. In the Christian aristocracy, the prin cipal members of the clergy still formed a senate to assist the administration, and to supply the vacancy, of the bishop. Rome was divided into twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal priest, or presbyter, a title which, however common and modest in its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their number was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons of the most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of the Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclesiastical senate was directed by the seven cardinal-bishops of the Roman province, who were less occupied in the suburb dioceses of Ostia, Porto, Velitræ, Tusculum, Præneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the honors and authority of the apostolic see. On the death of the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the suffrage of the college of cardinals,126 and their ... 123 Ipse enim vos, non imperatorem, id est Baoilea suâ linguâ, sed ob indignationem Piya, id est regem nostra vocabat, Liutprand, in Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. iii. pars i. p. 479. The pope had exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with Otho, the august emperor of the Romans quæ inscriptio secundum Græcos peccatoria et temeraria imperatorem inquiunt, universalem, Romanorum, Augustum, magnum, solum, Nicephorum, (p. 486.) 128 The origin and progress of the title of cardinal may be found in Thomassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1261-1298,) Muratori. (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. vi. Dissert. lxi. p. 159-182,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles p. 345-347,) who accurately remarks the forms and changes of the election. The cardinal-bis'ìopa choice was ratified or rejected by he applause or clamor of the Roman people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the pontiff be legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. The royal commissioner examined, on the spot, the form and freedom of the proceedings; nor was it till after a previous scrutiny into the qualifications of the can. didates, that he accepted an oath of fidelity, and confirmed the donations which had successively enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. In the frequent schisms, the rival claims were subinitted to the sentence of the emperor; and in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, to condemn, and to punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. Otho the First imposed a treaty on the senate and people, who engaged to prefer the candidate most acceptable to his majesty: 127 his successors anticipated or prevented their choice: they bestowed the Roman benefice, like the bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their chancellors or preceptors; and whatever might be the merit of a Frank or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition of foreign power. These acts of prerogative were most speciously excused by the vices of a popular election. The competitor who had been excluded by the cardinals appealed to the passions or avarice of the multitude; the Vatican and the Lateran were stained with blood; and the most powerful senators, the marquises of Tuscany and the counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in a long and disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of the ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, imprisoned, and murdered, by their tyrants; and such was their indigence, after the loss and usurpation of the ecclesiastical patrimonies, that they could neither support the state of a prince, nor exercise the charity of a priest. 128 The influence of two sister prostitutes, Maro so highly exalted by Peter Damianus, are sunk to a level with the rest of the sacred college. 17 Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut audinaturos, præter consensum et electionem Othonis et filii sui, (Liutprand, 1. vi. c. 6, p. 472.) This important concession may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and people of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muratori, (A. D. 964,) and so well defended and explained by St. Marc, (Abrégé, tom. ii. p. 808-816, tom. iv. p. 1167 -1185.) Consult that historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for the election and confirmation of each pope. 123 The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in the xth cen tury, are strongly painted in the history and legation of Liutprand 129 zia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of heir lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have suggested to the darker ages 130 the fable 131 of a female pope.132 The bastard son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the second of these became the head of the Latin church.❤ (see p. 440, 450, 471-476, 479, &c. ;) and it is whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invectives of Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not by the cardinals, but by lay-patrons. 129 The time of Pope Joan (papissa Joanna) is placed somewhat earlier than Theodora or Marozia; and the two years of her imaginary reign are forcibly inserted between Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius indissolubly links the death of Leo and the elevation of Benedict, (illico, mox, p. 247;) and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz, fixes both events to the year 857. 130 The advocates for Pope Joan produce one hundred and fifty wit nesses, or rather echoes, of the xivth, xvth, and xvith centuries. They bear testimony against themselves and the legend, by multiplying the proof that so curious a story must have been repeated by writers of every description to whom it was known. On those of the ixth and xth conturies, the recent event would have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared such a reproach? Could Liutprand have missed such scandal? It is scarcely worth while to discuss the various readings of Martinus Polonus, Sigeber of Gamblours, or even Marianus Scotus; but a most palpable forgery is the passage of Pope Joan, which has been foisted into some MSS. and editions of the Roman Anastasius. 131 As false, it deserves that name; but I would not pronounce it incredible. Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own times to have been born in Italy, and educated in the church, instead of the army: her merit or fortune might have raised her to St. Peter's chair; her amours would have been natural: her delivery in the streets unlucky, but not improbable. : 132 Till the reformation the tale was repeated and believed without offence and Joan's female statue long occupied her place among the popes in the cathedral of Sienna, (Pagi, Critica, tom. iii. p. 624-626.) She has been annihilated by two learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, PAPESSE, POLONUS, BLONDEL;) but their brethren were scandalized by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and Lenfant attempt to save this poor engine of ⚫ controversy; and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion, (p. 289.) • John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not of ber lover, Pope Bergius III., as Mɩ atori has distinctly proved, Ann. ad ann 911, tem. • |