726-757]

Pope Stephen crosses the Alps

695

period is almost covered by the pontificates of the two Gregories (715–741), men of great ability as popes and statesmen. Under Gregory II came the breach with the exarchate not so much on account of the Iconoclastic decrees, which were not promulgated till 726, as of the heavy taxation imposed on Italy by Leo the Isaurian.

The politics of the time are certainly perplexing. First we find the Lombards on the side of the Pope labouring to defeat the dastardly plot to murder Gregory hatched by the exarch Paulus and Marinus, duke of Rome. Next the Pope takes part with the great dukes of Spoleto and Benevento against Liutprand, who is in alliance with the Empire against his vassals. Twice we find the Lombard king advancing into the Roman duchy on the first occasion withdrawing after presenting Sutrium, which he had captured, to the Pope, on the second, in 729, marching to the very gates of Rome only to find the intrepid Gregory entering his camp in peaceful guise and himself conducted as a suppliant to the tomb of St Peter. Gregory II died in 731, and was succeeded by a Syrian of the same name who occupied the chair of St Peter for ten years. His policy was to play the Empire, Liutprand, and the Lombard dukes against one another, and he entered into an alliance with Spoleto and Benevento against their king. The duchy of Rome was invaded by Liutprand in 739, and Gregory III made the first advances towards the Frankish Charles Martel - a momentous step in the history of the Papacy.

Notwithstanding this, Liutprand was throughout subservient to the papal will, and Gregory's successor, Zacharias, obtained from him several cities which had belonged to the Empire. Thus the principle was recognised at Rome that the territory which the Byzantines had once held justly belonged to the Pope. Liutprand, the great Lombard benefactor of the Papacy, died in 744. In the Liber Pontificalis he is called "most wicked," shewing that neither gifts nor piety could avert the papal animosity if a monarch's claims were in conflict with those of St Peter.

It was under the ambitious Aistulf that the mutual hostility of Pope and Lombard came to a head. Despite oaths and treaties made by Liutprand and his successor Ratchis, whom Zacharias' exhortations had induced to exchange the crown for the cowl, the king persisted in the conquest of Ravenna. Instigated by Constantine V (Copronymus), Pope Stephen III made his famous journey first to Pavia, where he remonstrated with Aistulf, and then, when he found his protests of no avail, supported by the Frankish envoys to the Lombards, the undaunted Pope crossed the Alps and met Pepin king of the Franks face to face. By the agreement at Kiersy (754) Ravenna was secured for the Pope. Stephen returned to Rome and died in 757, Aistulf having been killed by a fall from his horse in the previous year.

Now that the Byzantine influence at Rome had almost vanished, we

696

Disorders in Rome

[755-767 begin to see that the interference of exarch and Emperor in papal affairs had not been wholly an evil. The Roman priesthood, great as were its claims, was not really capable of maintaining itself without the support of some external force. For the last century and more papal elections had been uniformly peaceful: but now that the imperial power was no longer a restraint, this peace was at an end. Paul the brother of Stephen was however elected after a contest with the archdeacon Theophylact, and reigned for ten years (757-767), occupied mainly in disputes with Desiderius the last king of the Lombards, who refused, though constantly prevaricating, to observe the agreement made between Pepin and Aistulf after the Frankish invasion of 755, and to restore (reddere propria propriis) to the Roman see the cities he had taken. Passing over the negotiations between the Papacy and Desiderius, we may take notice of some incidents which shew the weakness of the Papacy and the danger which threatened it from the Lombard supremacy. The seizure of the papal chair by Toto duke of Nepi, who placed his brother Constantine in it after the death of Paul, the ejection of Constantine by the primicerius Christophorus and his son the sacellarius Sergius, the choice of Stephen IV, and the horrors which followed-blindings, imprisonments, murders, and other cruelties - shewed the savage lawlessness of the Romans when left to themselves. Next we have Pope Stephen and Desiderius caballing together against the too powerful papal officials Christophorus and his son, their betrayal and cruel treatment, and the rise of Paulus Afiarta, the real ruler of the Church and city in the latter days of Stephen IV. This disgraceful state of things at the time of Stephen's death and the accession of Hadrian I shewed the impotence of the Romans to govern themselves and of Desiderius and his Lombards to restore order. A new act in the drama of papal history is about to begin, dominated by the majestic figure of Charles the Great.

(3) The Franks who succeeded the Lombards as controllers of the destiny of the Papacy enjoyed the distinction of having been the first of the continental Teutons to embrace the orthodox Faith and the only ones which never held any creed save that of Nicaea. Since the days of Clovis who had borne the title of "patrician" their connexion with the Empire had been particularly friendly and the Roman pontiffs had seen the wisdom of attaching this powerful and energetic nation to the see of St Peter.

One reason for the amity which existed between the Roman ecclesiastics and the Franks lay in the fact that, unlike other barbarian nations, they were not disposed to migrate from their home in northern Gaul; and widely as their conquests extended-they never contemplated making Italy the centre of their government. Aachen, Laon, Soissons, and Rheims were the cities of the Frankish monarch; and the popes felt they could safely summon so remote a nation to deliver Rome from their enemies and then to retire leaving the sacred city to its ecclesiastical rulers.

664-750]

Boniface of Crediton

697

A still more remote nation was destined to play its part in the events of the eighth century. The conversion of England, planned by Gregory the Great and begun by Augustine, had gone on apace and in it the Church of Rome had played a most honourable part. The Church of Canterbury, already acknowledged as a primatial see, was essentially a Roman outpost, though already it had been presided over by a native born archbishop in the person of Frithonas who took the name of Deusdedit. On his death in 664 another native by name Wighard was elected and sent to Rome to be consecrated by Vitalian (657-672). Wighard was presented to the Pope but died before he could be consecrated, and Vitalian sought earnestly for a suitable successor. Failing to induce the African Hadrian to undertake the office he accepted his nominee Theodore, a native of Tarsus, a man of ripe years and learning to whom the infant Church of the English owes so much. It must not however be supposed that, in thus nominating an occupant of the throne of St Augustine, Vitalian can in any way be reproached for setting a precedent for the interference of his medieval successors in the election of English primates. It was not arrogance which made Vitalian nominate, nor did avarice induce Theodore to accept the charge of the Church in a land so remote and barbarous as Britain, and the whole business is illustrative of the care taken on behalf of the most remote Churches by the Roman see of that age.

The close relation which sprang up between the Papacy and the descendants of Arnulf, a Frankish noble who became bishop of Metz (died 624), who ultimately became the famous royal family known as the Carlovingians, was fostered by our great countryman Boniface, the indefatigable missionary in Germany during the first half of the eighth century. This remarkable man combined the zeal of a missionary with complete devotion to the Roman see; and may almost be compared to some proconsul, who, in the days of Rome's secular glory, spent his life in bringing kingdoms and territories under her conquering sway. A native of Crediton and a monk of Netley near Winchester, Winfrid, for that was his original name, joined his countryman Willibrord in his missionary labours among the Frisians. Full of that zeal which makes him a worthy predecessor of Selwyn and Livingstone, he devoted his chief efforts to the conversion of the heathen. His objective was the Saxon nation beyond the Elbe, for his heart seems to have yearned towards the men of his own race; but he laboured in Thuringia and among the Hessians, and finally with his own hands struck a blow at German heathenism by felling the sacred oak at Geismar. His own country sent willing monks and nuns to aid the great missionary. Monastery after monastery was founded to secure the permanence of his labours and thus to pave the way for Frankish conquest and Roman influence. His devoted labours in the cause of the Gospel were supported by the blessings of the popes and the arms of the Franks; since he was both

698

First Appeal to the Franks

[723-755

the pioneer of the see of Rome and of the rising house of Charles Martel. Pope followed pope only to receive fresh testimonies of the loyalty of Boniface and to load him with fresh honours.

In 723 the wise and statesmanlike Gregory II recognised the merits of the ardent Englishman by making him a regionarius or bishop without a see. When we remember the perilous times of this Pope, harassed alike by the Iconoclastic emperors and by the prospect of the ruin of the imperial power in Italy, we cannot fail to compare him with his great predecessor and namesake, who when the Lombards were threatening Rome was carefully planning the conversion of England. That Gregory II could in equally anxious times find leisure to send the Englishman Winfrid, who probably then assumed the name of Bonifatius (the fair speaker), to convert Germany, proves that this Pope was no unworthy successor of St Gregory the Great.

Gregory III raised Boniface to the rank of an archbishop, still without confining his labours to any single city, but the real object in thus honouring the great missionary was to give him authority in Gaul, where the disorders of the Church, especially in Neustria, were most serious; and indeed the Roman see seems to have desired a reform of the episcopate even more than missionary extension. Boniface loyally cooperated with the Popes in this object and did his utmost to enlist the support of Charles Martel. During the pontificate of the saintly Zacharias we find Boniface at the height of his influence. Council after Council was held under his presidency: the disorders among the clergy both in Austrasia and Neustria were suppressed, and new sees were founded in far Bavaria. In 743 the see of Mogontiacum (Mainz) was raised to the dignity of an archbishopric and conferred on Boniface, who thus became primate of all Germany. Under Stephen III he won the crown of martyrdom after resigning his see in order to prosecute his missionary labours (755).

Such then is a brief outline of the life of the churchman who did more than anyone to bind together the Austrasian Franks and the Roman see. Boniface began his labours as a devoted servant of the Papacy, but he soon recognised the fact that he could neither continue the missionary labour, so dear to his own heart, nor carry out the reforms in Gaul, on which the popes were resolved, without the help of the great Mayor of the Palace, Charles Martel. But engaged as he was in warlike enterprise, Charles, despite the great victory of Tours (732) which delivered Gaul from the Muslims, has not gone down to posterity as a loyal son of the Church. His followers required rewards for their services, and his enemies kept him actively employed in Gaul. Consequently when in 739 Gregory III appealed for the first time to the Franks to enter Italy in order to deliver the Church of Rome from Liutprand, the most generous "oppressor!" of the Holy See known to history, Charles ignored his request; and he is further accused, not

741-754]

First Appeal to the Franks

699

without reason, of having laid hands on the estates of the clergy. A century after his death it was generally believed that he had incurred "that righteous damnation of him by whom the property of the Church has been unjustly taken away."

Charles Martel and Gregory III both died in 741. The next pope was, as we have seen, the saintly Zacharias (741-752), under whom Boniface rose to the summit of his influence. The successors of Charles were his sons Pepin and Carloman. The latter prince was a monk at heart and in 747 retired from the world, and Pepin himself was far more religiously disposed than his father. Consequently the reform of the Church north of the Alps went on apace under Boniface, now Archbishop of Mainz and Primate of Germany.

The time had now come for the house of Arnulf to assume the office the power of which they had so long exercised. Confident in the support of the Church, Pepin inquired of Zacharias whether it would not now be advisable for him to ascend the German throne in place of the last puppet Merovingian Childeric III. How far Boniface took part in the elevation of Pepin as king is much disputed. He had withdrawn much from public life since 747. At any rate in 751 Childeric III was deposed, tonsured and sent into a monastery, and Pepin was solemnly anointed and was more Francorum elevatus in regno. Thus at the hands of our great countryman the new Frankish dynasty came into being. It was probably owing to Boniface's influence that Pepin's brother Carloman, Mayor of the Palace in Austrasia, renounced the world and settled in Italy in a monastery on Mount Soracte. Thus the Roman see was continually entering into a closer and closer relationship with the most vigorous of the Teutonic nations of the north, the Austrasian Franks, who aided by their English kinsmen beyond the sea were spreading the Gospel eastward in Europe.

In the short but memorable pontificate of Stephen III (752–757) Pepin laid the foundation of the temporal power of the Roman see in return for his formal recognition by the Pope. Hard pressed by the Lombard Aistulf, Stephen crossed the Alps on a visit to the Frankish king. The pontiff was met by Pepin's son Charles, then a boy of eleven, who brought him to his father at Ponthion. There Pepin promised to "restore" to the Holy See the exarchate of Ravenna and the "rights and territories of the Roma Republic." On 28 July 754 Stephen solemnly anointed and blessed Pepin, his wife Bertrada, and his two sons Charles and Carloman, pronouncing an anathema on the Franks should they ever choose a king from another family. Pepin at the same time received the title of "patrician" with all its undefined liabilities as protector of Rome. In the following year Pepin held a "diet" or placitum at Carisiacum (Kiersy or Quierzy) and decided to advance into Italy to win Stephen III his rights from the Lombards. A document was drawn up, which has unfortunately perished, setting