THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
in the fifteenth century. Nicholas of Cusa came (1432-33) to the conclusion that Constantine never made any such donation; Lauren tins Valla gave a brilUant demonstration of its spuriousness in 1440, and Reginald Pecock came independently to the same conclusion in 1450. For a century longer, however, in spite of their arguments, the general belief in its authenticity continued to prevail among the great body both of ecclesiastics and lawyers, so that it is not surprising that Luther first learned of its spuriousness from Hutten's edition of Valla's treatise. The defense of the authenticity ceased on the Roman Catholic side when Baronius abandoned it, as far as the external form went, in 1592 — though he and his successors attempted, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, to maintain the accuracy of its substance.
Since the admission of the spuriousness of the document, the most diverse views have prevailed as to its real origin. The Roman Catholic writers
thought it Greek (Baronius) or Frank- 3- Origin, ish (Thomassin, Zaccaria, Cenni); the
Protestants (Freher, Schroekh) believed that it originated in Rome. The dates assigned to its composition ranged from the pontificate of Stephen II. (757-767) to c. 963. In the first edition of his Papstfabeln des Mittelalters (Munich, 1863) Dollinger demonstrated conclusively that it was not Greek, but Western. Between 1882 and 1884 Grauert subjected the structure and vocabulary to a more searching examination than it had ever received, concluding that it originated on Prankish soil soon after 840. In the course of the vigorous discussion aroused by this theory Friedrich propounded a new view in 1889, that the document consists of an older part, written before 653, and a later, added by Paul I. not later than 754.
The net result of all these modern examinations, including that of Loening in 1890 and of Martens still more recently, gives a substantial agreement
on certain propositions: (1) The 4. Present Donation is a forgery. (2) It is the State of the work of one man or period. (3) The Discussion, forger has, however, made use of
older material, including, for chaps, vi.-x., a version of the Sylvester legend not now extant, but current in Rome in the eighth century; for iii.-iv., an ancient confession of faith; and for the opening and closing chapters, genuine Byzantine imperial documents. (4) The forgery originated in Rome, between 752 and 778; whether under Paul I., Stephen II., or Adrian I. is still disputed. As to the purpose of its composition, Scheffer-Boichorst believes it to have been the exaltation of St Sylvester; but for this a new legend, not a legal document, would have been the natural means to employ. The form adopted shows that the forger had in mind to confirm or make possible certain legal claims of the Roman Church. The recognition of the pope as a potentate equal in rank to the emperor, the attribution of senatorial rank to the Roman clergy, dominion over all the provinces of Italy or of " the occidental regions " — these were not things seriously claimed or contended for by the Roman Church of the eighth and ninth centuries. The probabihty is that the
forger, as happened in other cases, not venturing clearly to designate the object aimed at, enveloped it in sufficiently vague circumlocution. In this case it would seem obvious that the tendency of the forgery is visible in the seventeenth and following chapters, relating to the donation of territory. But since the popes of that period made no pretensions to sovereignty over the whole of Italy, the special design would have been to provide a firm basis for their claims to the part which they did desire, the exarchate of Ravenna. It is accordingly probable that the document was meant to serve as a weapon in their conflict for the possession of this, and specifically to be laid before the Prankish court. Reasoning from this, the simplest solution of the date problem is the view that it was composed shortly before Stephen II. 's departure from Rome on Oct. 14, 753. This date offers the least difficulty in regard to both external and internal evidence, and is consonant with the history of the document, which makes its first appearance in the abbey of Saint Denis, where Stephen spent the winter of 754, and is found there between two letters (whose authenticity is, indeed, questioned) from Zacharias, Stephen's predecessor, and Stephen himself.