The Donation of Pepin in 756 provided a legal basis for the creation of the Papal States, thus extending the temporal rule of the popes beyond the duchy of Rome.
The Donation of Pepin in 756 provided a legal basis for the creation of the Papal States, thus extending the temporal rule of the popes beyond the duchy of Rome.
In 751, Aistulf, king of the Lombards, conquered what remained of the exarchate of Ravenna, the last vestige of the Roman Empire in northern Italy. In 752, Aistulf demanded the submission of Rome and a tribute of one gold solidus per capita. Pope Stephen II and a Roman envoy, the silentiary John, tried through negotiations and bribes to convince Aistulf to back down. When this failed, Stephen led a solemn procession through the streets of Rome and nailed the treaty which Aistulf had violated to a crucifix. He then sent envoys to Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, with a letter requesting his support and the provision of a Frankish escort so that Stephen could go to Pepin to confer. At the time, the Franks were on good terms with the Lombards. [1] [2]
In 753, John the Silentiary returned from Constantinople to Rome with an imperial order (iussio) that Pope Stephen accompany him to meet Aistulf in the Lombard capital of Pavia. The pope duly requested and received a letter of transit from the Lombards. With the Frankish envoys who had by then arrived, the pope and the imperial envoy set out for Pavia on 14 October 753. The Roman magnates did not accompany them past the border of the duchy of Rome. At Pavia, Aistulf denied the requests of Stephen and John to return the conquered exarchate to the empire, but he did not prevent Stephen from continuing with the Frankish envoys to the court of Pepin. They left Pavia on 15 November 753. John the Silentiary did not accompany them. This was the first time a pope had crossed the Alps. [1] [2] The decision to act independently of the imperial envoy was of the immense moment. It is likely that the pope saw himself as acting on behalf of the Italian province subjugated and threatened by Aistulf. [1]
Pope Stephen met Pepin the Short at the royal estate at Ponthion on 6 January 754. The king led the Pope's horse, while the pope in sackcloth and ashes bowed down and asked Pepin "that in accordance with the peace treaties [between Rome and the Lombards] he would support the suit of St Peter and of the republic of the Romans". Pepin responded by promising "to restore the exarchate of Ravenna and the rights and territories of the republic". The exact nature of this commitment cannot be known, but it is unlikely that Pepin had in mind the Roman Empire. It has been suggested that the two parties exchanged oaths on this occasion, but that is unlikely. [1]
Over the next two years, Pepin dispatched three embassies to Aistulf demanding that he honour his treaties with the Romans. In April 754, he held a general assembly at Quierzy-sur-Oise. Some noblemen left the proceedings in opposition to the policy, but Pepin restated publicly his promise to the Pope and enumerated the territories that he would restore. Afterwards, this promise was put into writing. On 28 July in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, the Pope anointed Pepin and his sons Charles and Carloman as kings of the Franks and patricians of the Romans. He also pronounced a blessing on Queen Bertrada and the assembled nobility. The pope's right to grant the patrician title is doubtful. [1]
In the spring of 755, Pepin summoned the army to muster at Braisne-sur-Vesle. He sent envoys ahead to offer Aistulf an indemnity if he restored the Roman territories he had taken in violation of his treaties. The Frankish army crossed the Mont Cénis and defeated the Lombard army near Susa. Defeated, Aistulf submitted to some form of Frankish overlordship and promised under oath to return Ravenna and the other cities he had occupied to the Pope. The peace treaty was signed by the "Romans, Franks, and Lombards" without direct reference to the Empire. [3]
As soon as the Frankish army left Italy, Aistulf disregarded the treaty. On 1 January 756, he put Rome under siege. The Pope appealed to the Franks. After three months, Aistulf abandoned the blockade. In April, a Frankish army invaded Italy again and defeated the Lombards. Aistulf was forced to give hostages and pay annual tribute to the Franks. He also had to promise in writing to return the occupied territories to the Pope. [3]
The treaty officially conferred upon the pope the territories belonging to Ravenna, even cities such as Forlì with their hinterlands, the Lombard conquests in the Romagna and in the Duchy of Spoleto and Benevento, and the Pentapolis (the "five cities" of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Senigallia and Ancona). Narni and Ceccano were former papal territories. [4] The territories specified in the treaty of 756 had belonged to the Roman Empire. Envoys of the Empire met Pepin in Pavia and offered him a large sum of money to restore the lands to the Empire, but he refused, saying that they belonged to St Peter and the Roman church. The boundaries of the grant to the Pope can only be approximated, since the text of the treaty has not survived. It is possible that the boundaries were the same as those in a previous Imperial–Lombard treaty. Abbot Fulrad was charged with collecting the keys of the cities to be handed over and depositing them along with the written agreement on the tomb of St Peter. [3]
The Donations made the Pope a temporal ruler for the first time. This strip of territory extended diagonally across Italy from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic. Over these extensive and mountainous territories the medieval Popes were unable to exercise effective sovereignty, given the pressures of the times.[ clarification needed ]
In 774 Pepin's son Charlemagne visited Rome and again confirmed and reasserted the Donation. Some later chronicles falsely claimed that he also expanded them, granting Tuscany, Emilia, Venice and Corsica.[ citation needed ]
Pope Adrian I was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 to his death. He was the son of Theodore, a Roman nobleman.
Pope Stephen II was born a Roman aristocrat and member of the Orsini family. Stephen was the bishop of Rome from 26 March 752 to his death. Stephen II marks the historical delineation between the Byzantine Papacy and the Frankish Papacy. During Stephen's pontificate, Rome was facing invasion by the Lombards when Stephen II went to Paris to seek assistance from Pepin the Short. Pepin defeated the Lombards and made a gift of land to the pope, eventually leading to the establishment of the Papal States.
Pope Zachary was the bishop of Rome from 28 November 741 to his death. He was the last pope of the Byzantine Papacy. Zachary built the original church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, forbade the traffic of slaves in Rome, negotiated peace with the Lombards, and sanctioned Pepin the Short's usurpation of the Frankish throne from Childeric III. Zachary is regarded as a capable administrator and a skillful and subtle diplomat in a dangerous time.
The 750s decade ran from January 1, 750, to December 31, 759.
Year 753 (DCCLIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 753 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Apennine Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 until 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the Unification of Italy, between 1859 and 1870.
The Holy See exercised political and secular influence, as distinguished from its spiritual and pastoral activity, while the pope ruled the Papal States in central Italy.
Aistulf was the Duke of Friuli from 744, King of the Lombards from 749, and Duke of Spoleto from 751. His reign was characterized by ruthless and ambitious efforts to conquer Roman territory to the extent that in the Liber Pontificalis, he is described as a "shameless" Lombard given to "pernicious savagery" and cruelty.
King of Italy was the title given to the ruler of the Kingdom of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The first to take the title was Odoacer, a barbarian military leader, in the late 5th century, followed by the Ostrogothic kings up to the mid-6th century. With the Frankish conquest of Italy in the 8th century, the Carolingians assumed the title, which was maintained by subsequent Holy Roman Emperors throughout the Middle Ages. The last Emperor to claim the title was Charles V in the 16th century. During this period, the holders of the title were crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
The Exarchate of Ravenna, also known as the Exarchate of Italy, was a lordship of the Eastern Roman Empire in Italy, from 584 to 751, when the last exarch was put to death by the Lombards. It was one of two exarchates established following the western reconquests under Emperor Justinian to more effectively administer the territories, along with the Exarchate of Africa.
Liutprand was the king of the Lombards from 712 to 744 and is chiefly remembered for his multiple phases of law-giving, in fifteen separate sessions from 713 to 735 inclusive, and his long reign, which brought him into a series of conflicts, mostly successful, with most of Italy. He is often regarded as the most successful Lombard monarch, notable for the Donation of Sutri in 728, which was the first accolade of sovereign territory to the Papacy.
Ratchis was the Duke of Friuli (739–744) and then King of the Lombards (744–749).
The Donation of Sutri was an agreement reached at Sutri by Liutprand, King of the Lombards and Pope Gregory II in 728. At Sutri, the two reached an agreement by which the city and some hill towns in Latium were given to the Papacy, "as a gift to the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul" according to the Liber Pontificalis. The pact formed the first extension of papal territory beyond the confines of the Duchy of Rome and was the first of two land transfers from Liutprand to the Church of Rome.
The Patrimony of Saint Peter originally designated the landed possessions and revenues of various kinds that belonged to the apostolic Holy See. Until the middle of the 8th century this consisted wholly of private property; later, it corresponded to the territories under Papal sovereignty, but from the early 13th century the term was applied to one of the four provinces of the States of the Church.
Ponthion is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France.
The Duchy of Rome was a state within the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. Like other Byzantine states in Italy, it was ruled by an imperial functionary with the title of dux. The duchy often came into conflict with the Papacy over supremacy within Rome. After the founding of the Papal States in 756, the Duchy of Rome ceased to be an administrative unit and 'dukes of Rome', appointed by the popes rather than emperors, are only rarely attested.
The Kingdom of the Lombards, also known as the Lombard Kingdom and later as the Kingdom of all Italy, was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part of the 6th century. The king was traditionally elected by the very highest-ranking aristocrats, the dukes, as several attempts to establish a hereditary dynasty failed. The kingdom was subdivided into a varying number of duchies, ruled by semi-autonomous dukes, which were in turn subdivided into gastaldates at the municipal level. The capital of the kingdom and the center of its political life was Pavia in the modern northern Italian region of Lombardy.
In the Byzantine Empire, the Duchy of the Pentapolis was a duchy, a territory ruled by a duke (dux) appointed by and under the Exarch of Ravenna. The Pentapolis consisted of the cities of Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, Rimini and Sinigaglia. It lay along the Adriatic coast between the rivers Marecchia and Misco immediately south of the core territory of the exarchate ruled directly by the exarch, east of the Duchy of Perugia, another Byzantine territory, and north of the Duchy of Spoleto, which was part of the Lombard Kingdom of Italy. The duchy probably extended inland as far as the Apennine Mountains, perhaps beyond, and its southernmost town was Humana (Numera) on the northern bank of the Misco. The capital of the Pentapolis was Rimini and the duke was both the civil and military authority in the duchy.
From 756 to 857, the papacy shifted from the influence of the Byzantine Empire to that of the kings of the Franks. Pepin the Short, Charlemagne, and Louis the Pious had considerable influence in the selection and administration of popes. The "Donation of Pepin" (756) ratified a new period of papal rule in central Italy, which became known as the Papal States.
The Byzantine–Lombard wars were a protracted series of conflicts which occurred from AD 568 to 750 between the Byzantine Empire and a Germanic tribe known as the Lombards. The wars began primarily because of the imperialistic inclinations of the Lombard king Alboin, as he sought to take possession of Northern Italy. The conflicts ended in a Byzantine defeat, as the Lombards were able to secure large parts of Northern Italy at first, eventually conquering the Exarchate of Ravenna in 750.
