consequences, both to the future relations of the Church and State in France, and to the international relations of every State with the See of Rome : he invoked the aid of religious sanction to secure his throne, and, first of the Frank Kings, caused himself to be crowned in the Cathedral of Soissons, by St. Boniface, the first Archbishop of Mayence.

St. Boniface, himself an Anglo-Saxon, was devoted to the Roman See. He persuaded the bishops, not only in Germany, but in Gaul, where they appear to have been previously independent, to acknowledge submission to the successors of St. Peter at Rome.

At the time of Pépin's coronation, the Roman See was in the deepest distress. The King of the Lombards (u) had seized upon the Exarchate of Ravenna, where the last remnant of the authority of the Greek Emperor remained, and threatened Rome with destruction.

Stephen II., the then Bishop of Rome, appears to have first endeavoured to renew his relations, long practically severed, with the Greek Emperor(x); but, as the danger became more and more pressing, he resolved to implore the assistance of the Franks, then renowned throughout Europe for their victories over the enemies of the Christian faith, and whose King, as St. Boniface had written, alone enabled him to execute his apostolical mission in Germany with safety or effect (y).

CCXCI. The consequences of this resolution have ever since affected the destinies of the world. The compact between the spiritual and secular Powers of Western Europe (2) was soon adjusted; the necessities of both arranged without difficulty the terms. Stephen II. consecrated Pépin anew in the Church of St. Denis, and at the same time also his two sons Charles and Carloman; he absolved the consecrated usurper from the oath of allegiance which he had

(u) Astolphus.
(x) A.D. 751.

(y) Ranke, b. i. c. i.

(z) Koch, Tableau des Rév. i. 32.

sworn to Childeric, the remaining phantom of the Merovingian dynasty; and adjured the Frank lords, in the name of Christ and St. Peter, to be faithful to their new Sovereign; and, lastly, he conferred on Pépin and his two sons the dignity of Patricians of Rome.

Pépin was not wanting in substantial marks of gratitude for the aid which the spiritual power had rendered to his new-made throne. He drove the Lombards out of the Exarchate (a), and conferred the fertile provinces comprised under that name, not upon the Greek Emperor, to whom by strict right they appertained, but upon the Bishop of Rome; declaring, with an oath, that he had embarked in the contest, not for the favour of many, but "pro amore Petri et venia "delictorum" (b).

CCXCII. Grotius, in that part of his great work, De Jure Belli et Pacis, in which he argues that Kings who do not hold their sovereignties pleno jure cannot alienate any part of them, deals, among other supposed instances to the contrary, with the story that Louis, the successor of Charlemagne, restored the City of Rome to Pope Paschal (A.D. 817); and his language is remarkable respecting the character and status of the Pope and of the Roman people at this period: "Nec quod idem ille Ludovicus urbem "Romam Paschali Pontifici reddidisse legitur ad rem facit, "cum Franci imperium in urbem Romam a populo Romano acceptum reddere populo eidem recte potuerint, cujus populi personam sustinebat is qui primi ordinis princeps "erat" (c).

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CCXCIII. What Pépin began, Charlemagne completed (d). That mighty monarch, while engaged in the

(a) The Archbishop of Ravenna, while the war of the Lombards with Pépin and Charlemagne lasted, seized every opportunity of defying the authority, spiritual and temporal, of the Roman See.

Muratori, Annali, t. iv. pp. 347, 371.

Savigny, Geschichte des Römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, i. 359. (b) Ranke, b. i. c. i.

(c) L. ii. 3, xiii.

(d) A.D. 768.

work of exterminating the Lombard dominion, repaired to Rome, and ratified the endowments of Pépin (e). Charlemagne was received at Rome with the honours due to an Exarch and Patrician (ƒ), and under these titles he began to put in force that jurisdiction over the Ecclesiastical State which the Greek Emperors and Exarchs had exercised before him.

It was not, however, till after a quarter of a century had passed away that Charlemagne was fully installed in the dignity of his Imperial predecessors. The Pope again invited his all-powerful ally to Rome; but this time it was against a domestic and not a foreign foe. Leo III., like Pius IX. in our time, could no longer resist the contending factions which, in Rome itself, set at nought his authority. The victor of Western Europe reinstated the Pope in his authority, who, in return, placed upon his head (g), while he knelt at the altar of St. Peter's, upon Christmas Day, A.D. 800, the crown of the Western Empire, and proclaimed him Emperor of the Romans.

This was one of the rare conjunctures-the reigns of Constantine and Justinian alone furnish similar instancesin which the Church and State were thoroughly incorporated. Certain it is, that these Emperors exercised, whether with or without the consent of the Church (h), functions and jurisdictions which partook largely of a spiritual character. Nor can it be denied that a new kind of power over religion was now conferred upon the Governor of the State. As a civil magistrate, heathen or Christian, he had always had control over all that concerned the welfare of society, and therefore, incidentally, some power over the subject of religion; but now he was constituted its protector (¿).

(e) A.D. 774.

(f) Koch, Tableau des Rév. i. 42.

(g) The Pope seems to have considered the coronation as a necessary confirmation of the act of the civil or constitutional law.

(h) Phillipps, Kirchenrecht, iii. 60, 61.

(i) See some remarks of Portalis (as cited in Lequeux, iv. 535) upon the fifth article of the Organic Articles of Napoleon,

Phillipps, K. R. iii. 382.

CCXCIV. But the Papacy, thus placed under the protection of the Frank Emperor, remained, more or less, in the same relation to his successors, the Emperors of Germany, until the 1st of August, 1806 (k); they then became the Emperors of Austria, and this relation, long practically disused, nominally, as well as really, ceased.

The hands of Charlemagne's successor were too feeble to hold the sceptre of his vast dominions, from the divisions of which sprung the distinct nationalities of States and, in some measure, of Churches, which afterwards composed the commonwealth of Europe.

It should be observed that, by the Constitution of Charlemagne, the German and French clergy were under the control of the Bishop, the Bishop of the Metropolitan, the Metropolitan not of the Pope, but of the Emperor.

(k) In a little pamphlet published at Vienna, 1849, entitled Deutsch oder Russisch, will be found some striking remarks on the consequence of this change:-"Die Deutsche Kaiserstellung war die Grundlage, auf welcher die österreichische Monarchie emporgewachsen. Ungeachtet des unglücklichen politischen und kirchlichen Systems, durch welches sich Oesterreich mehr und mehr von Deutschland absonderte, war die historische Kaiseridee, doch nach innen und aussen mächtiger, als die habsburgischen Fürsten einsahen," u.s.w. Pp. 6, 7.

CHAPTER III.

THE GROWTH OF THE AUTHORITY AND PRETENSIONS OF THE POPE.

CCXCV. FOR a while after the death of Charlemagne, the Papal power seems to have been greater than the Imperial; but soon after the German Emperors were seated on the throne, the political subjection of the Popes is, as a matter of history, unquestionable. They were content for a time to countenance with their authority a new political system which sprung up about this period in Europe, according to which all Christians belonged to a great Republic, of which the Spiritual chief was the Pope, and the Temporal chief the Emperor (a).

For a time this doctrine was a formidable instrument in the hands of the Emperor. The great Protector of the Church, in the exercise of his office, watched over the interests of the Roman See, convened general councils, and claimed the prerogative of nominating, or at least confirming, the Pope. Such a prerogative was exercised from the time of Otho the Great to that of Henry IV. Henry III. deposed three schismatical Popes, and nominated more than one German Pope.

CCXCVI. Otho and his successors created the great ecclesiastical princes of Germany (b), thereby weakening the empire, but unintentionally constituting, perhaps, a defence for the German National Church against Rome, such as at

(a) Koch, i. 78-81.

(b) German canonists contend that the Roman cardinalate was formed on the model of these ecclesiastical princedoms.