I 55. ALLIANCE OF THE PAPACY WITH THE FRANKS. 235
manded the restitution of Ravenna and its territory to the Byzantine empire, that his sole object in the war was to show his veneration for St. Peter. The new papal district embraced the Exarchate and the Peiitapolis, East of the Apennines, with the cities of Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Cesena, Sinigaglia, lesi, Forlimpopoli, Forli, Montefeltro, Aeerra, Monte di Lucano, Serra, San Marino, Bobbio, Urbiuo, Cagli, Luciolo, Gubbio, Comachio, and Narni.1
This donation of Pepin is the foundation of " the Patrimony of St. Peter." The pope was already in possession of tracts of land in Italy and elsewhere granted to the church. But by this gift of a foreign conqueror he became a temporal sovereign over a large part of Italy, while claiming to be the successor of Peter who had neither silver nor gold, and the vicar of Christ who said : " My kingdom is not of this world." The temporal power made the papacy independent in the exercise of its jurisdiction, but at the expense of its spiritual character. It provoked a long conflict with the secular power ; it involved it in the political interests, intrigues and wars of Europe, and secularized the church and the hierarchy. Dante, who shared the mediaeval error of dating the donation of Pepin back to Constantine the Great,2 gave expression to this view in the famous lines :
" Ah, Constantine ! of how much ill was mother, Not thy conversion, but that marriage-dower Which the first wealthy Father took from thee.''3
1 This is the enumeration of Baronius ad ann. 755. Others define the extent differently. Comp. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geographie und Statixtik, I. pp. 246 sqq.
2 Constantine bestowed upon the pope a portion of the Lateran palace for his residence, and upon the church the right to hold real estate and to receive be quests of landed property from individuals. This is the slender foundation for the fable of the Donalio Constantini.
* Inferno xix. 115-118:
" Ahi Costantin, di quanta malfu matre, Non la tua conversion, ma quclla dote, Che da te prese il primo ricco patre /"
236 FOURTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
Yet Dante places Constantine, who " from good intent pro duced evil fruit/7 in heaven ; where
" Now lie knows how all the ill deduced From his good action is not harmful to him, Although the world thereby may be destroyed."
And he speaks favorably of Charlemagne's intervention in be half of the pope :
" And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten The Holy Church, then underneath its wings Did Charlemagne victorious succor her." l
The policy of Pepin was followed by Charlemagne, the Ger man, and Austrian emperors, and modern French rulers who interfered in Italian affairs, now as allies, now as enemies, until the temporal power of the papacy was lost under its last pro tector, Napoleon III., who withdrew his troops from Rome to fight against Germany, and by his defeat prepared the way for Victor Emanuel to take possession of Rome, as the capital of free and united Italy (1870). Since that time the pope who a few weeks before had proclaimed to the world his own infalli bility in all matters of faith and morals, is confined to the Vati can, but with no diminution of his spiritual power as the bishop of bishops over two hundred millions of souls.
§ 56. Charles the Great. A. D. 768-814.
SOURCES.
BEATI CAROLI MAGNI Opera omnia. 2 vols. In Migne's Patrol Lat. Tom. 97 and 98. The first vol. contains the Codex Diplomatics, Capitularia, and Privilegia; the second vol., the Codex Carolinus, the Libri Carolini (on the image controversy), the Epistolse, Car mine, etc.
1. The Letters of CHARLES, of EINHARD, and of ALCUIN. Also the letters
of the POPES to Charles and his two predecessors, which he had col lected, and which are called the Codex Carolinus, ed. by Muratori, Cenni, ad Migne (Tom. 98, pp. 10 sqq.).
2. The Capitularies and Laws of Charlemagne, contained in the first vol.
of the Leges in the Mon. G&rm. , ed. by PERTZ, and in the Collections of BALUZIUS and MIGNE. 1 Paradiso XX. 57-60 ; VI. 94-97. Longfellow's translation.