XLIX. to acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her CHAP. lawful sovereign; the annual tribute of a piece of gold was fixed as the ransom of each citizen, and the sword of destruction was unsheathed to exact the penalty of her disobedience. The Romans hesitated; they entreated; they complained; and the threatening barbarians were checked by arms and negociations, till the popes had engaged the friendship of an ally and avenger beyond the Alps. verance A. D. 754. In his distress, the first Gregory had implor- Her deli ed the aid of the hero of the age, of Charles by Pepin, Martel, who governed the French monarchy with the humble title of mayor or duke; and who, by his signal victory over the Saracens, had saved his country, and perhaps Europe, from the Mahometan yoke. The ambassadors of the pope were received by Charles with decent reverence; but the greatness of his occupations, and the shortness of his life, prevented his interference in the affairs of Italy, except by a friendly and ineffectual mediation. His son Pepin, the heir of his power and virtues, assumed the office of champion of the Roman church; and the zeal of the French prince appears to have been prompted by the love of glory and religion. But the danger was on the banks of the Tiber, the succour on those of the Seine; and our sympathy The Codex Carolinus is a collection of the epistles of the popes to Charles Martel, (whom they style Subregulus), Pepin, and Charlemagne, as far as the year 791, when it was formed by the last of these princes. His original and authentic MS. (Bibliothecæ Cubicularis) is now in the imperial library of Vienna, and has been published by Lambecius and Muratori, (Script. Rerum Ital, tom. iii, pars ii, u. 75. &c.) XLIX. CHAP. is cold to the relation of distant misery. Amidst the tears of the city, Stephen III embraced the generous resolution of visiting in person the courts of Lombardy and France, to deprecate the injustice of his enemy, or to excite the pity and indignation of his friend. After soothing the public despair by litanies and orations, he undertook this laborious journey with the ambassadors of the French monarch and the Greek emperor. The king of the Lombards was inexorable; but his threats could not silence the complaints, nor retard the speed of the Roman pontiff, who traversed the Pennine Alps, reposed in the abbey of St. Maurice, and hastened to grasp the right hand of his protector, a hand which was never lifted in vain, either in war or friendship. Stephen was entertained as the visible successor of the apostle; at the next assembly, the field of March or of May, his injuries were exposed to a devout and warlike nation, and he repassed the Alps, not as a suppliant, but as a conqueror, at the head of a French army, which was led by the king in person. The Lombards, after a weak resistance, obtained an ignominious peace, and swore to restore the possessions, and to respect the sanctity, of the Roman church. But no sooner was Astolphus delivered from the presence of the French arms, than he forgot his promise and resented his disgrace. Rome was again encompassed by his arms; and Stephen, apprehensive of fatiguing the zeal of his Transalpine allies, enforced his complaint and request by an eloquent letter in the name and per XLIX. son of St. Peter himself. The apostle assures CHAP. his adoptive sons, the king, the clergy, and the nobles of France, that dead in the flesh, he is still alive in the spirit: that they now hear, and must obey, the voice of the founder and guardian of the Roman church: that the Virgin, the angels, the saints, and the martyrs, and all the host of heaven, unanimously urge the request, and will confess the obligation; that riches, victory, and paradise, will crown their pious enterprise, and that eternal damnation will be the penalty of their neglect, if they suffer his tomb, his temple, and his people, to fall into the hands of the perfidious Lombards. The second expedition of Pepin was not less rapid and fortunate than the first: St. Peter was satisfied, Rome was again saved, and Astolphus was taught the lessons of justice and sincerity by the scourge of a foreign master. After this double chastisement, the Lombards languished about twenty years in a state of langour and decay. But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition; and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they peevishly harrassed the Romans with a repetition of claims, evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection and terminated without glory. On either side, their expiring monarchy was pressed by the zeal and prudence of Pope f See this most extraordinary letter in the Codex Carolinus, Epist. iii, p. 92. The enemies of the popes have charged them with fraud and blasphemy; yet they surely meant to persuade rather than deceive. This introduction of the dead, or of immortals, was familiar to the ancient orators, though it is executed on this occasion in the rude fashiou of the age. XLIX. CHAP. Adrian I, the genius, the fortune, and greatness of Charlemagne the son of Pepin; these heroes of the church and state were united in public and domestic friendship, and while they trampled on the prostrate, they varnished their proceedings with the fairest colours of equity and moderation. The passes of the Alps, and the walls of Pavia, were the only defence of the Lombards; the former were surprised, the latter were invested, by the son of Pepin; and after a blockade of two years, Desiderius, the last of their native princes, surrendered his sceptre and his capital. Under the dominion of a foreign king, but in the possession of their national laws, the Lombards became the brethren rather than the subjects of the Franks; who derived their blood, and manners, and language from the same Germanic origin." Conquest of Lom Charle. Pepin and Charlemagne, kings of France, A. 751, 753, 768 The mutual obligations of the popes and the Carlovingian family, form the important link of ancient and modern, of civil and ecclesiastical, history. In the conquest of Italy, the cham pions of the Roman church obtained a favourable occasion, a specious title, the wishes of the people, the prayers and intrigues of the clergy. But the most essential gifts of the popes to the Except in the divorce of the daughter of Desiderius, whom Char lemagne repudiated sine aliquo crimine. Pope Stephen IV had most furiously opposed the alliance of a noble Frank-cum perfidiâ, horridà, nec dicendâ, fœtentissima natione Longobardorum-to whom he imputes the first stain of leprosy, (Cod. Cnrolin, epist. 45, p 178, 179). Another reason against the marriage was the existence of a first wife, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. vi, p. 232, 233, 236, 23 ). But Charlemague indulged himself in the freedom of poligamy or concubinage. See the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, tom, vi, and the three first dissertations of his Antiquities Italie Medii Evi, tom. i. XLIX Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of CHAP. France, and of patrician of Rome. I. Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks of the Tiber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their fate. The Franks were perplexed between the name and substance of their government. All the powers of royalty were exercised by Pepin, mayor of the palace; and nothing, except the regal title, was wanting to his ambition. His enemies were crushed by his valour; his friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the saviour of Christendom; and the claims of personal merit were repeated and ennobled in a descent of four generations. The name and image of royalty was preserved in the last descendant of Clovis, the feeble Childeric; but his obsolete right could only be used as an instrument of sedition: the nation was desirous of restoring the simplicity of the constitution; and Pepin, a subject and a prince, was ambitious to ascertain his own rank and the fortune of his family. The mayor and the nobles were bound, by an oath of fidelity, to the royal phantom: the blood of Clovis was pure and sacred in their eyes; and their common ambassadors addressed the Roman pontiff, to dispel their scruples, or to absolve their promise. The interest of Pope i Besides the common historians, three French critics, Launoy. (Opera, tom. v, pars ii, 1. vii, epist. 9, p. 477-487), Pagi, (Critica, A. D. 751, No. 1, 6; ▲. D. 752, No. 1-10), and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi Testamenti, dissertat. ii, p 96-207), have treated this subject of the deposition of Childeric with learning and attention, but with a strong bias to save the independence of the crown. Yet they are hard pressed by the text which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old annals, Laureshamensis Fuldensis, Loisielani. |