whole contested territory. Ambassadors from the East were present at the conclusion of the treaty, and demanded the restitution of Ravenna and its territory to the Byzantine Empire. Pepin declared that his sole object in the war was to show his veneration for St. Peter; and he bestowed, as it seems, by the right of conquest, the whole upon the Pope. The representatives of the Pope, who however always speak of the republic of Rome, passed through the land, receiving the homage of the authorities and the keys of the cities. The district comprehended Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, Iesi, Forlimpopoli, Forli with the Castle Sussibio, Montefeltro, Acerra, Monte di Lucano, Serra, San Marino, Bobbio, Urbino, Cagli, Luciolo, Gubbio, Comachio, and Narni which was severed from the dukedom of Spoleto." Thus the successor, as he was declared, of the fisherman of the Galilean lake, the apostle of Him whose kingdom was not of this world, became a temporal sovereign. By the gift of a foreign potentate, this large part of Italy became the kingdom of the Bishop of Rome. A.D. 756. King Astolph did not long survive this humiliation • he was accidentally killed when hunting. The adherents of the Pope beheld the hand of God in his death; they heap on him every appellation of scorn and hatred; the Pope has no doubt of his damna m It is not quite clear how Stephen tiary, commissioned to assert the rights himself eluded the claims of the Greek Emperor-probably by the Emperor's heresy. In Stephen's letter of thanks for his deliverance to the King of the Franks, he desires to know what answer had been given to the Silen of his master. He reminds Pepin that he must protect the Catholic Church against pestilent wickedness (malitia), (no doubt the iconoclastic opinions of the Emperor), and keep her property secure (omnia proprietatis suæ. Desiderius tion." The Lombards of Tuscany favoured the pretensions of their Duke Desiderius to the throne. In the north of Italy, Rachis, the brother of Astolph, who had retired to a monastery, appeared at the head of a powerful faction, and reclaimed the throne. Desiderius endeavoured to secure the influence of the pope. Stephen extorted, as the price of his interference, Faenza, Imola, with some other castles, and the whole duchy of Ferrara. Stephen no doubt felt a holy horror of the return of a monk to worldly cares, even those of a crown. This would be rank apostasy with him who was thus secularising the papacy itself. A.D. 757. During the later years of Stephen's pontificate, a strong faction had designated his brother Paul as successor to the see. Another party, opposed April 26. perhaps to this family transmission of the papacy, which was thus assimilating itself more and more to a temporal sovereignty, set up the claims of the Archdeacon Theophylact. On the vacancy the partisans of Paul prevailed. The brother of Stephen was Paul I. Pope. raised to the throne of St. Peter. Paul has the fame of a mild and peace-loving prelate. He loved to wander at night among the hovels of the poor, and to visit the prisons, relieving misery and occasionally releasing the captives from their bondage. Yet is Paul not less involved in the ambitious designs of the advancing papacy. His first act is to announce his election to the King of the Franks, who had now the title, probably bestowed by Stephen, of Patrician of Rome. His letter does not allude to any further ratification of his "Divino ictu percussus est et in in- Perhaps also Osimo, Ancona, and rni voraginem demersus."-Epist. ad he even demanded Bologna. vi.; Gretser, 60; Mansi, sub ann. election, made by the free choice of the clergy and people of Rome; there is no recognition whatever of supremacy. Desiderius, till he had secured his throne in Lombardy, remained on terms of amity with the Pope; but the old irreconcileable hostility broke out again soon. after the accession of Paul. Among the causes of the weakness of the Lombard kingdom, and the easy triumph of the Franks, was the disunion of the nation. The Dukes of Spoleto and Benevento renounced their allegiance to the King of Pavia, and declared their fealty to the King of the Franks. The chastisement of their revolt gave Desiderius a pretext for war. He marched, ravaging as he went with fire and sword, through the cities of the exarchate, surprised and imprisoned the Duke of Spoleto, forced the Duke of Benevento to take refuge in Otranto, and set up another duke in his place. He then proceeded to Naples, still occupied by the Greeks, and endeavoured to negotiate a dangerous alliance with the Eastern emperor. On his return he passed through Rome; and when the Pope demanded the surrender of the stipulated cities-Imola, Osimo, Ancona, and Bologna-Desiderius eluded the demand by requiring the previous restitution of the Lombard hostages carried by Pepin into France; but dreading perhaps a new Frankish invasion, Desiderius gradually submitted to the fulfilment of the treaty. Disputes arose concerning certain patrimony of the Church in some of the Lombard cities, but even these were amicably adjusted. The adulation of Paul to the King of the Franks passes bounds. He is another Moses; as Moses rescued Israel P Gretser, p. 81; Mansi, sub ann. 758. from the bondage of Egypt, so Pepin the Catholic Church; as Moses confounded idolatry, so Pepin heresy. The rapturous expressions of the Psalms about the Messiah are scarcely too fervent to be applied to Pepin. All his acts are under divine inspiration. The only apprehensions of Paul seemed to be on the side of the Greeks. On one occasion he writes that six Byzantine ships menaced a descent on Rome; on another he dreads an attack by sea on Ravenna. He entreats the King of the Franks to urge Desiderius to make common cause against the enemy; but he represents the hostility of the Greeks as arising not from their desire to recover their rights in Italy, but solely from the impious design of destroying the images, of subverting the Catholic faith and the traditions of the holy fathers. They are odious iconoclastic heretics, not the Imperial armies warring to regain their lost dominions in Italy. The Greeks have now succeeded to the appellation of "the most wicked," a term hitherto appropriated to the Lombards; but hereafter the epithet of all those who resisted the temporal or spiritual interest of the Papal See." The Greek empire. Such was the singular position of Rome and of the Roman territory. In theory they were still part of "Novus giver of all Pepin's victories over the 9 Gretser, Epist. xvi. quippe Moses, novusque David in omnibus operibus suis effectus est Christianissimus et a Deo protectus filius et spiritalis compater Dominus Pepinus."-Epist. xxii. Thou, after God, art our defender and aider; if all the hairs of our head were tongues, we could not give you thanks equal to your deserts.-Epist. xxxvi. Throughout it is St. Peter who has anointed in king; St. Peter who is the Barbarians; St. Peter whom he protects; St. Peter whose gratitude he has a right to command; and St. Peter is all powerful in heaven. "Non ob aliud nefandissimi nos persequuntur Græci, nisi propter sanctam et orthodoxam fidem, et venerandorum patrum piam traditionem, quam cupiunt destruere et conculcare." -Epist. ad Pepin. the Roman Empire, of which the Greek emperor, had he been orthodox, would have been the acknowledged sovereign; but his iconoclasm released the members of the true church from their allegiance: he was virtually or actually under excommunication. In the mean time the right of conquest, and the indefinite title of Patrician, assigned by the Pope, acting in behalf and with the consent of the Roman republic, to Pepin—a title which might be merely honorary, or might justify any authority which he might have power to exercise-gave a kind of supremacy to the King of the Franks in Rome and her domain. The Pope, tacitly at least, admitted as the representative of the Roman people, awarded this title to Pepin, which gave him a right to demand protection, while himself, by the donation of Pepin, possessed the actual property and the real power. In the Exarchate he ruled by the direct grant of Pepin, who had conquered this territory from the Lombards, they having previously dispossessed the Greeks. Popes of this time kept up the pious fiction that the donations even of sovereigns, though extending to cities and provinces, were given for holy uses, the keeping up the lights in the churches, and the maintenance of the poor. But who was to demand account of the uses to which these revenues were applied? The Pope took possession as lord and master; he received the homage of the authorities and the keys of the cities. The local or municipal institutions remained; but the revenue, which had before been received by the Byzantine crown, be The Greeks still retained Naples | perum, egenorum, vel peregrinorum and the South of Italy. nihilominus relevetur, et ad veram t 66 Unde pro animæ vestræ salute saturitatem perveniant."-Steph. II. indefessa luminarium concinnatio Dei ad Pepin. Epist. ecclesiis permaneat, et esuries pau |