PAPAL STATES.
Church Estates Prior to Pippin (§ 1). The Donation of Pippin (§ 2). The Donation of Charlemagne (§ 3). Curtailment of Papal Domains (§ 4). The Final Stages (§ 5).
The original meaning of patrimonium was " patrimonial estate," and patrimonium beati Petri meant the possessions of the Church until at least the twelfth century, at which time the pope as-
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pantheism. Papal States
sumed or claimed sovereign rights over the region known in the eighth century as the ducatus Romanus, and in the ninth to the eleventh as the terra (territorium) Petri, to which the term in question was then applied. In the thirteenth century the term covered all which became the " States of the Church." By Constantine's Edict
i. Church of Milan of 321 the Church was en- Estates Prior abled to hold property, and from that
to Pippin, time its possessions rapidly increased, the estates being in all Italy, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Dalmatia, Gaul, and Africa, each estate being administered by a Roman cleric as rector. Through these estates the Church was the principal landowner and the chief financial force in Italy. But in the eighth century, through political misfortunes, a great part of these possessions were lost, and out of what remained in central Italy the patrimonium Petri was constituted. The political situation of the papacy was critical. With the Byzantine emperor the Church was at odds both on account of the Monothelitic and the image controversies (see Monothelites; Images and Image Worship, II.), and through this very disagreement the Church had lost its most valuable possession. The result was that the Church managed its estates near Rome with the greater care as a sure source of income. In this patrimony the pope was already master in the eighth century, though the emperor remained for some time nominal sovereign. Such popes as Gregory II. and III. (qq.v.) not only admitted but emphasized this on occasion, as when they were assailed by the Lombards. At the beginning of the eighth century Liutprand as king of the Lombards had overthrown the duchies and had formed a strong foreign policy; the popes then found themselves in a difficult situation, and the spiritual means employed by them had but transient results. When Gregory III. stirred up the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento against Liutprand, the latter beat them both and assailed Rome; the appeal to Charles Martel had no results; but the effects of the diplomacy of Pope Zacharias (741-752) were not only the recovery of many estates but the acquisition of four places in Tuscany. The pope received these as " donations," and no account was taken of the Byzantine emperor as sovereign; the former assumed the rights which formerly had belonged to the emperor. This is recognized as the time when the pope was first regarded as a temporal sovereign and political power; this is the prime significance of the " donation " of Liutprand. Of course the action of Liutprand was not inspired by love of the pope. His attack on Ravenna may be taken to indicate that he supposed that Zacharias had been obligated to give him a free hand against that city; but he must have seen that he had deceived himself as soon as he undertook a campaign against the exarchs, upon which Zacharias remonstrated in the name of the emperor. When Aistulf succeeded Liutprand in 749 as king of the Lombards, the papal diplomacy ceased to be effective, and Aistulf took Ravenna and essayed to annex the whole ducatus Romanus.
When Aistulf stretched out his hand against the Roman duchy, in 752, Stephen (II.) III. (q.v.)
turned to Pippin, and there followed the celebrated meeting at Ponthion and Kiersy, the result of which, according to the papal claims, was not merely protection from Aistulf and restitution of
the property wrested from the Church,
2. The Do- but the so-called donation of Pippin,
nation of the documentary proofs for which are
Pippin. practically confined to the Liber porir-
tificalis in the Vitas of Stephen II. and Hadrian I. The " life " of Stephen reports an oath by Pippin to restore the exarchy of Ravenna and accompanying rights to the pope, the nobles being obligated to carry out this arrangement. Indefiniteness characterizes the terms used, and the Byzantine emperor is ignored; practically the engagement was for Pippin to help the pope to win back his rights. The " life " of Hadrian adds a special promise given at Kiersy to the same purport as that by Charlemagne in 774. The comprehensiveness of this engagement has long made the account of it the object of attack as spurious, though in modern times it has been stoutly defended. The defenders assume an agreement to divide, in case of victory over the Lombards, the territory thus gained between the pope and Pippin; but no direct evidence is given that such an arrangement was made to divide a yet unconquered territory, and the matter must remain under suspicion. The pope had other cares than the increase of property; he was concerned with salvation from external danger, and it is doubtful whether Pippin thought of the overthrow of the kingdom of the Lombards, since the era of French world politics began with Charlemagne. The complaints of the pope (in the Codex Carolinus) are specific, and look to the restitution of certain definite domains, namely, the cities of Faenza, Imola, Ferrara, and Bologna in the north, and Osimo, Ancona, and Umana in the south. The region affected by the treaty of peace of 754-756 and given over to the Roman Church included apparently four districts: Rome with its ducatus, Southern Tuscany, the duchy of Perugia, and Northern Campania (L. Duchesne, Liber pontificalis, i. 478, 493, Paris, 1886). Here the popes appear as sovereign, indicate the policies, name office-holders and judges, call out the armed forces; but there is a sort of recognition of Pippin and his successors as overlords, who are called at Ponthion patricii of the new republic, though the meaning of this title is debated. It was borne by the exarch of Ravenna, at Rome it conveyed the idea of supreme rights, also of the deputy of the emperor; Hadrian I. welcomed Charlemagne by this title. Moreover, the popes regarded the emperor as their overlord, and dated their documents by the regnal year of the emperor. Yet the title took on a different content, and came to convey the idea rather of duties than of rights, especially the duty of protecting the popes against the Lombards.
Pippin died 768; in the ensuing contest between Charlemagne and the Lombard Desiderius Hadrian I. took the side of Charlemagne; Desiderius assailed the exarch, took a number of cities, and marched on Rome. The pope bade the Frankish king come to the help of the oppressed Church of
Papal States Papebroch