DONATION OF CONSTANTINE.
Contents of the Document (§ 1). Its History (§ 2). Origin (§ 3).
Present State of the Discussion (§ 4). The " Donation of Constantino " is the name traditionally ajjplicd, since the later Middle Ages, to a document purporting to have been addressed \)y Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester I.,
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Dominus
Donation of Constantine
which is found first in a Parisian manuscript {Codex lat. 2777) of probably the beginning of the ninth century. Since the eleventh century it has been used as a powerful argument in favor of the papal claims, and consequently since the twelfth it has been the subject of a vigorous controversy. At the same time, by rendering it possible to regard the papacy as a middle term between the original and the medieval Roman Empire, and thus to form a theoretical basis of continuity for the reception of the Roman law in the Middle Ages, it has had no small influence upon secular history.
After a remarkable introduction (chap, i.), the emperor promises a " clear narration " of the marvels which the apostles Peter and Paul have wrought through the " supreme pontiff and universal pope" Sylvester (ii.); but
I. Contents before proceeding to this he gives of the (iii.-iv.) the confession of faith which
Document. Sylvester has taught him, and admonishes all nations to accept it and adore the Christ whom "our universal father" Sylvester preaches. He goes on (vi.-x.) to give the history of his conversion, baptism, and deliverance from leprosy by Sylvester, in terms which agree substantially with the Sylvester legend (see Sylvester I., Pope), and asserts his desire to show his gratitude for the benefits of Peter. Accordingly, in agreement with his " satraps," the senate, and the Roman people, he recognizes the primacy of the vicar of the Prince of the Apostles, and intends to raise his see above all earthly thrones (xi.). Accordingly he sanctions (xii. ) the precedence of the " see of Peter " over Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and decrees (xiii.) that the church founded by himself near the Lateran palace shall be honored as the " head and summit of all the churches in the whole world," stating at the same time that he has built churches to Peter and Paul, and endowed them with his possessions in Judea, Greece, Asia [Minor], Thrace, Africa, and Italy. He hands over (xiv.) the Lateran palace to the pope, and allows him to use the imperial diadem and the other insignia of empire. The Roman clergy (xv.) are also distinguished by senatorial rank and eligibility to the patriciate and consulate; he gives the pope the exclusive right to confer holy orders upon senators. He asserts (xvi.) that Sylvester has refused to wear the imperial diadem over the tonsure, and therefore he himself has set the white miter with his own hand upon the pope's holy brow. In order (xvii.) that the papal throne may not be of low esteem, he leaves to the pope the power and jurisdiction, " in imitation of our sovereignty," over the city of Rome and " all provinces, places, and cities of Italy or of the western regions," confining his own sovereignty to the East, where he intends to build up a capital for himself at Byzantium. He lays (xix.) a solemn obligation upon his successors, " satraps," the senate, and all peoples of the earth to leave these provisions intact, and invokes an eternal curse upon those who violate them. He proclaims (xx.) that he has signed the decree with his own hand and laid it upon the body of St. Peter, closing with the imperial signature and the date.
It is a controverted question whether Adrian I., in his letter of May, 778, to Charlemagne (Jaff6, Regesta, 2423) refers to this document. The passage (line 9) in which he alludes to Constantine and Sylvester seems to imply a knowledge 2. Its of it, but lines 18 sqq. more easily bear
History, the opposite construction. The Codex Parisinus, however, is positive evidence that it was known at Saint Denis early in the ninth century, perhaps before 793. The next oldest testimonies to it also belong to the Prankish kingdom — the pseudo-Isidore, Ado of Vienne, and Hincmar of Reims. On the other hand, no Roman references to it during the ninth or tenth century are met. Two Prankish popes, Gregory V. and Sylvester II., are the first to base certain territorial claims upon it. These excited such vigorous imperial opposition that the chancellor of Otto III., Leo of Vercelli, boldly asserts that the document is a Roman forgery. Another Prankish pope, Leo IX., brought it up half a century later, using it in a controversy with Byzantium so energetically that it was not again forgotten. Peter Damian cites it against the antipope Cadalus of Parma, and Gregory VII. alludes to it in the oath which he tenders to Herman of Salm, a claimant of the empire (1081). Anselm of Lucca and Cardinal Deusdedit include it in their collections of canons. The publicists of the early twelfth century use it as the basis for far-reaching conclusions; in a word, by this period it is known everywhere and employed as a valuable weapon in the strife with the civil power, whose representatives were forced to take it into account. As a rule, they contented themselves with denying, not its authenticity, but the conclusions drawn from it. This line of argument was inconclusive. The first to attack the validity of the document itself was the republican party in Rome, under Arnold of Brescia's influence; one of his adherents, a jurist, maintained in 1151, in a disputation with Gerhoh of Reichersberg, that it was invalid because Constantine was baptized or rebaptized in the Arian heresy, and a year later they went further, declaring the whole thing a lie and a heretical fable, and supporting their contention by historical arguments, as that Constantine, according to the pseudo-Isidore, had already been baptized before he came to Rome. But these utterances made little impression. Frederick Barbarossa and his partizans did not attack the authenticity of the document; and the popes of the later twelfth and the thirteenth centuries appealed with increasing confidence to it. The Waldenses, Cathari, and Apostolic Brethren, on the other hand, stoutly maintained that the Donation had marked a step away from the original purity of the Church, in the direction of Antichrist, with whom some of them even identified Sylvester. At the end of the thirteenth century the lawyers of Philip the Fair took up once more the Arnoldist hne, and denied its legal vahdity. Their theory found considerable approbation in the University of Paris, and soon spread throughout Western Europe. Their arguments, however, were of a scholastic type, and the possibihty of the document being a mere forgery is not mentioned until the rise of historical criticism
Donation of Constantine Donatism