Showing posts with label Papal States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Papal States. Show all posts

Sunday, March 5, 2023

Pepin's Godfather

Liutprand was King of the Lombards from 712 - 744. During his reign he conquered much of the Italian Peninsula, made an agreement with Pope Gregory (pictured) that donated lands that began the Papal States, established several sets of laws, and raised the first Carolingian king.

One of Liutprand's important law reforms was the Notitia de actoribus regis ("Notice concerning royal administrators"). It significantly prevented local administrators from illegally appropriating lands of the lower classes. It required the administrator to swear on the Gospels that any irregularity in ownership would be reported to the king, and that a royal charter 

Liutprand had been allied with Charles Martel, King of the Franks. They had enough respect for each other that, prior to Pope Gregory negotiating a peace with Liutprand, Gregory had sent to Martel for aid. Martel refused to fight his former ally, forcing Gregory to have the meeting at Sutri in which he allowed Liutprand to go through Italy at will, so long as the papacy in Rome was spared.

Martel's son Pepin the Short, when he achieved his majority, was sent to Lombardy to be presented with arms by Liutprand. I have mentioned before that a king might send his bastard children to be raised at some removed but noble household. It was also common to have legitimate royal children exposed to other courts. The ritual investing of a prince with his first arms and welcoming him into manhood made him symbolically Liutprand's adopted son. It also meant closer ties between the two kingdoms. Pepin did eventually turn on Lombardy, but that was after Liutprand's death when one of his successors, Aistulf, declared himself King of the Romans and reneged on Liutprand's promise to leave Rome alone. You can read the result here.

Aistulf's thirst for more power led to conflict with the Franks, and ultimately led to the end of an independent Lombardy when Pepin's son Charlemagne conquered them. Next time we'll see how that went.

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Liutprand of the Lombards

In order to preserve Western Europe for Christendom and repel the Muslim invasions, Charles Martel enlisted the aid of Liutprand, King of the Lombards (c.680 - 744). His reign from 712 until his death in 744 was one of the longer and more productive reigns in Lombardy.

He almost didn't make it. Due to political intrigue, his family was destroyed by rivals: the usurper Aripert II exiled his father King Ansprand to Bavaria, blinded his brother, and cut off the ears and noses of his mother and sister. Liutprand was young enough to be considered harmless, and so was spared and sent to Bavaria with his father.

King Ansprand returned with an army of Bavarians and Austrians. Aripert fled towards Gaul, but drowned crossing a river. On Ansprand's deathbed, the Lombard nobles called Liutprand and declared him his father's co-ruler. This practice—declaring a co-ruler—made succession clear and ensured there would always be a functioning ruler. Liutprand did the same with his own son in later years when Liutprand was ill. Ansprand died the next day.

The illustration shows a large part of the Italian Peninsula under Lombard rule, and Liutprand can take credit for that by taking advantage of local hostilities. Byzantine Emperor Leo III made edicts against icons in 726. Pope Gregory II, however, rejected iconoclasm. Some parts of the peninsula (remember that at this time "Italy" is not a country but a large number of independent states) accepted Leo's edicts; some did not. The clash was serious: for example, the Byzantine Duke of Naples was killed by a mob while trying to destroy religious icons.

Liutprand took advantage of the civil discord to take his armies south and conquer much of the peninsula. On approach to Rome, he was met by Pope Gregory at the ancient city of Sutri, where the two negotiated a deal by which the papacy would get control of Sutri and some other towns as a donation to the pope (the start of establishing the Papal States), and Liutprand was allowed to take as much other territory as he was able.

As the longest-reigning Lombard king, it would be inappropriate to try to summarize his rule in one brief post. His later relationships with popes and the Carolingians and his legal reforms deserve their own attention. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Lorenzo Valla--Early Modern Scholar

Lorenzo Valla was born about 1407 in Rome. His father was a lawyer for the pope. Lorenzo studied under Leonardo Bruni (sometimes called the first modern historian) and Giovanni Aurispa (who is credited with the revival of Greek in Italy).

Lorenzo entered the priesthood in 1431, seeking a position as a secretary in the Vatican's diplomatic office. Failing to secure that position, he went to Pavia to lecture, but he got himself in trouble there by offending the greatest jurist and expert on Roman law, Bartolus de Saxoferrato, by criticizing his Latin style. He had to leave Pavia, and became essentially an itinerant lecturer, traveling from city to city seeking opportunities at universities, until he was invited to Rome by Pope Nicholas V to work in Nicholas' new Vatican Library.

With steady employment, he could devote his spare time to writing. He had published in 1433 his first literary work, De Voluptate ("On Pleasure"), in which he argued for the benefit of Epicurus' embracing of natural appetites over the principles of the Stoics. He now produced a text on logic, Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie ("Re-digging dialectic and philosophy"). There are more: Notes on the New Testament, De Elegantis which examined Latin grammar and style, a work on Free Will that argued against Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.

The truly ground-breaking work, however, was De falso credita et ementita Constantini Donatione declamatio, ("Declamation of the falsely believed and falsified Donation of Constantine") in 1440. The Donation of Constantine was largely believed (argued against, but still believed) as the foundation for papal authority over temporal lords.

Lorenzo took a close look at the text of the document that purported to be a formal imperial decree from the 4th century. His extensive familiarity with the development of Latin over the centuries helped him realize it was written in a style more appropriate to a less-educated writer from the 8th century.

Not only was the language wrong for the premise, he argued three other points:

1. There was no legal authority by which Emperor Constantine could have given Pope Sylvester I the powers claimed in the document.

2. There was no historical evidence in any records that there were administrative changes in the Western Roman Empire.

3. His own doubt that Constantine cared enough about the pope to give him anything.

The Church, understandably, rejected this theory. 

Lorenzo was put on trial by the Inquisition in 1444, ostensibly for supporting Alfonso V of Aragon in a territorial dispute over the Papal States.

Lorenzo Valla died 1 August 1457. It did not get formally published until 1517 and became popular among Protestants. Thomas Cromwell had it translated into English in 1534. The Donation eventually became recognized by all as a fake.

So why did I title this with the phrase "Early Modern Scholar"? Shouldn't he be labeled "Renaissance Scholar"? Many historians refer to the Renaissance as "Early Modern" now; the reasons why I look forward to explaining tomorrow.

Monday, September 26, 2022

The Donation of Pepin

The idea of actual Papal States giving the pope serious temporal power really took off in 756 when Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, gave to Pope Stephen II several territories and towns in the Italian peninsula.

To be fair, the territories were not Pepin's to give, not originally anyway. They were under control of Aistulf, king of the Lombards. A few years earlier, in 751, Aistulf conquered the exarchate of Ravenna. The exarchate of Ravenna was the last piece of Italy considered to be part of the Roman Empire, having been established by Byzantine Emperor Justinian as part of his plan to administer the western part of the fading empire.

Aistulf decided that his conquest of Ravenna and killing of the last ruler of it, the exarch Eutychius, meant he was now the nearest thing to a Roman Emperor. He therefore demanded that Rome itself submit to him and send him a tribute of one gold solidus per person.

Pope Stephen II could not negotiate with Aistulf to back down, so he sent a request to Pepin to come to his aid. The Franks and Lombards were on friendly terms, so Stephen thought Pepin would have better luck. Pepin promised the pope he would arrange the return of the Exarchate of Ravenna. The pope in return anointed Pepin and his sons Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman as kings of the Franks (they did not need this to be kings, but it was a nice piece of recognition from a figure who was seen as the head of the Christian faith). He also named them patricians of the Romans, an honorary title suggesting they were Roman elite. The pope also pronounced a blessing on Pepin's wife, Bertrada.

So Pepin took his army to Lombardy, surrounded Aistulf's forces, defeated any military opposition, and made Aistulf promise to return Ravenna. A treaty was signed, Pepin turned around to go home, and once he had left Lombardy, Aistulf ignored the treaty. Aistulf besieged Rome. Word went to Pepin. The Frankish army came and forced Aistulf to abandon the siege.

So more than Ravenna became part of the Papal states, because Pepin turned over Lombardy as well and several other cities. Emissaries of the Roman Empire entreated Pepin to give the land to the political empire, not the spiritual papacy, but Pepin would not. The pope would now be a temporal ruler for centuries to come.

You may have heard that there was an earlier gift of land to the pope, called the Donation of Constantine. We will talk about this hoax tomorrow.

Sunday, September 25, 2022

The Papal States

Although the early popes had no temporal power or property, as the Roman Catholic Church grew in popularity and influence, they accrued territory. It started simply, when Constantine gave the Lateran Palace for the pope's use, but the Renaissance saw a significant expansion and increase in the papacy's temporal and political influence.

As the Church grew post-Edict of Milan, donations of and (or buildings to be used as churches) followed from well-to-do Christins. These were all initially treated as property privately held, not as property of a political entity. This may have helped when the Roman Empire crumbled under attacks: Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustus in 476, and the later rule by the Ostrogoths, would have made the Church's position more precarious if it were seen as a political rival. At this time, however, it was just a private "corporation," so to speak. The pope could be a dutiful subject under the new (and potentially hostile) administrations, while still professing spiritual authority.

When the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, headquartered in Constantinople, decided to reconquer the Western Roman Empire from the Goths, it set in motion a chain that would pass more temporal power to the popes. True, the East managed to regain much territory in Italy between 535 and 554, but the fighting left the economy in disarray. This made it easier for the Lombards to enter from the north and proceed to conquer most—not all—of the territory held by Constantinople.

The remaining strip of land stretching diagonally from coast to coast and including Rome. As the Eastern Empire's ability to manage these lands from far away waned, they increasingly left the popes in charge, since by this time the popes were the single largest landowner. At some point, these lands and others became known s the Duchy of Rome.

As their temporal power grew, of course, it led to severe clashes with other rulers. But then, it was other rulers' generosity that contributed to the papal increase in power. One such example was the Donation of Pepin, which I'll tell you about next time.