TWENTY-SEVENTH LECTURE.

History of papacy-Peculiar situation of the city of Rome-Relations of tu popes about the middle of the eighth century, with the Italian, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, Gallo-Frankish, and Germanic churches-Their alliance with the early Carlovingians-Advantages which they drew from itDonation of Pepin and of Charlemagne-Sovereignty of the Carlovingian emperors over the popes-Uncertainty of the ideas, and incoherency of the facts concerning the rights of papacy-It increases more and more in minds-It apparently acquires a legal title-False decretals-Nicholas I. His character-Affair of the marriage of Lothaire and of Teutberge Affair of Rhotarde, bishop of Soissons-Triumph of papacy: 1. Over temporal sovereigns; 2. Over national churches-Its decided preponderance in the west.

I HAVE shown that the Gallo-Frankish church was raised by the first Carlovingians, from the state of impotence and anarchy into which it had fallen. We have seen it re-enter into order and activity; we have seen this revolution brought about by the concurrence and under the authority of the temporal power. Pepin, Charlemagne, and even Louis le Debonnaire, on his accession, actually governed the GalloFrankish church. This state of things was of short duration. I have pointed out with what rapidity the spiritual power passed from docility to independence, from independence to sovereignty; I have shown its pretensions already acknowledged by the temporal power itself, particularly by Charles le Chauve. It was to the profit of the Gallo-Frankish episcopacy that this change was brought about. I announced that it would not long enjoy it, that a third power, the рарасу, would soon take their scarcely acquired supremacy from the national bishops. It is with this fact-that is to say, with the history of papacy, from the eighth to the tenth century, especially in

its relations with the Gallo-Frankish church, that we have to occupy ourselves at present.

There is a primitive fact with regard to the development of papacy in Europe, which, I think, has never been taken sufficiently into account. Not only was Rome always the most important city in the west; not only did the recollections of its ancient grandeur tend to the good of the bishop, who, without as yet reigning, was already the chief of its people; but Rome also had a particular advantage in the west, that of never remaining in the hands of the Barbarians, Heruli, Goths, Vandals, or others: they had many times taken and pillaged it—they never long retained possession of it. Alone, among all the great western cities, and whether as united to the empire of the west, or as independent, it never passed under the German yoke: alone it remained Roman, after the ruin of the Roman empire.

It happened, without premeditation, without labour, by the sole nature of its situation, that Rome found herself, morally at least, at the head of the ancient population disseminated throughout the new Western States. In this struggle, at first public, afterwards secret, but for a long period so active— this struggle of the conquered against the conquerors-the attention of the Gallo-Romans, of the Hispano-Romans, of all the cities desolated by their barbarous conquerors, naturally turned towards Rome, so long their sovereign, and now the only living wreck of the ancient society, alone exempt from new masters, alone capable of still preserving the respected traditions of the people that they still governed. For this reason, Rome was a name dear to the whole mass of the population in the west, the centre of recollections and ideas, the image of all which remained of the Roman world. It was under the influence of this fact that papacy took rise; it was, so to speak, its cradle; it placed it in its very origin at the head of nations; it rendered it a kind of national power for the race of the conquered.

Let us now see what was its situation with regard to the principal churches of the west, at the middle of the eighth century.

At this epoch, there were in the west five great national churches: the Italian church, or rather the Lombard-for I only speak of the north of Italy, then in the power of the

Lombards--the Spanish church; the Anglo-Saxon church; the Gallo-Frankish church, and the rising Germanic church.

1. It was in Italy, in the Lombard church, that papacy was the least powerful. The bishop of Rome had never been, either as metropolitan or by any other title, the superior of the bishops of the north of Italy: the Lombard kings, who had long been Arians, and incessantly applied themselves to drive their conquests into the territory which they administered, were its natural enemies. "The perfidy of the Lombards," wrote pope Pelagius I., in 584, "has caused us, despite their own oaths, so many tribulations and evils, that no one can recount them." The correspondence between the Lombard bishops and the popes, became, therefore, difficult and rare; and that church, which reached almost to the gates of Rome, was stranger to them than any other.

2. For a long time, on the contrary, their influence over the Spanish church was great and progressive. Under the domination of the Arian Visigoths, the catholic and persecuted clergy of Spain maintained frequent and intimate relations with the bishop of Rome, who, in the name of the catholic church, supported it in its resistance. It happened, moreover, that in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, two illustrious Spanish bishops, Torribius, bishop of Astorga, and Leandro, bishop of Seville, were the secretaries and friends the one of Leo the Great, (440-461,) the other of Gregory the Great, (590-604,) and established habitual relations between their church and that of Rome. Accordingly, it is on the subject of the Spanish church that the pretensions of papacy are the most openly manifested at this epoch. In 538, pope Vigilius writes to Profuturus, bishop of Braga:

"As the holy Roman church possesses the primacy over all churches, it is to her, as the chief of the church, that all important affairs are to be sent, the judgments and complaints of bishops, as well as great questions of ecclesiastical matters.. For that church, which is the first, in confiding her functions to the other churches, called upon them to share in her labours, not in her plenitude of power."

There was, at that time, no other church in the west to which the bishop of Rome addressed language like this.

Accordingly, some doubts have been raised as to the authenticity of this letter; still it seems to me probable. The power of the papacy in Spain was so real, that in 603 two Spanish bishops, Januario of Malaga, and Stephen, having been irregularly deposed, Gregory the Great sent an envoy, named John, with orders to inquire into the affair: and without convoking any council, without seeking the adhesion of the Spanish clergy, John declared that the deposition was illegal, annulled it, and reinstated the two bishops, thus exercising the rights of the most extended ecclesiastical supremacy.

It was not, however, so well established as one would suppose. The Visigoth kings, dating from Ricared (586-601), had become catholics. At first, the papacy profited by it; the fact which I have related proves it. But the struggle between the national clergy and the temporal government having ceased, the clergy grew more closely connected with the government, and less so with the foreign bishop, whom they had taken for a chief. Accordingly, we see the power of papacy a little weakened in Spain during the course of the seventh century, and the national church acting with more independence. At the commencement of the eighth century king Witiza quarrelled with the pope, interdicted all recourse to Rome, rejected the Roman discipline, and, it is said, even authorized the marriage of priests. Some years afterwards, the invasion of the Arabs took place, and the greater part of Spain was lost both for papacy as well as for Christianity. In the middle of the eighth century, it preserved power only among the Christian refugees in the north of the Peninsula, or at the foot of the Pyrenees; and there even the disorder was such, and society so agitated or weak, that there was scarcely anything for a distant and systematic influence to do.

3. With regard to the Anglo-Saxon church, you know, that, founded by the popes themselves, it was placed, from its very origin, under their most direct influence; it was still in the middle of the eighth century in the same situation.'

4. The situation of the Gallo-Frankish church was different. You have seen that during the course of the seventh century her relations with Rome had become very rare.2 It was

in the middle of the eighth century, precisely at the opening of the epoch with which we are about to occupy ourselves, that they again became more frequent and efficacious. I will resume this history presently.

5. The Germanic church, as you know, owed its success to the labours of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries, of Saint Boniface, more especially; and her founders, in creating her, gave her, as it were, to the papacy.1

Such was the situation of the popes with regard to the great national churches in the West, when, about the middle of the eighth century, the first Carlovingians closely allied themselves with them. It is easy to recognise the happy effects upon the papacy of this alliance.

And, first, it acquired an ascendancy in the Italian church which it had never before possessed. After the defeat of the Lombards by the Franks, the bishop of Rome did not become the metropolitan of the Lombard bishops; he did not receive the title of patriarch; but he was invested with a superiority without example, indefinite, and so much the greater.

The Lombard clergy saw him respected by the Frankconquerors, who in general looked upon him as their representative and minister beyond the Alps, and it was through him accordingly that the clergy treated with the conquerors. No one in the Lombard church could think of equalling it; and the church itself rapidly fell under his authority.

He also acquired fresh authority in the Gallo-Frankish church. It was with his aid, and by supporting themselves with his name and opinions, that the first Carlovingians laboured to reform her. Even before their elevation, Saint Boniface wrote to pope Zachary, that Carloman, brother of Pepin le Bref, asked him to repair to Gaul: "Protesting that he wished to amend and reform the state of religion and the church, which, for at least seventy or eighty years, had been abandoned to disorder, and crushed under foot."2

It was under the presidence and influence of Saint Boniface, in his character as legate of the pope, that councils were held, formerly so rare, but now again become frequent. The acts of the council of 742, called Germanicum, commence in the following terms: