Temporal power of the Holy See

Last updated October 25, 2024

The Holy See exercised sovereign and secular power, as distinguished from its spiritual and pastoral activity, while the pope ruled the Papal States in central Italy.

The Papal States ceased to exist following the capture of Rome in 1870 by the Royal Italian Army, after which its remaining territories were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. The Lateran Treaty of 1929 later established the Vatican City, a small city-state where the Holy See currently exercises temporal powers.

Origins

Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) in his papal tiara, which he claimed as signifying both his spiritual and (indirect) temporal power. Innozenz3.jpg — Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) in his papal tiara, which he claimed as signifying both his spiritual and (indirect) temporal power.

Patrimony of Saint Peter

The Lateran Palace was the first significant acquisition of the Holy See, most probably a gift from Constantine the Great. The example of Constantine was followed by wealthy families of the Roman nobility,^[2] and the residences and estates that were acquired in turn were designated the Patrimonium Sancti Petri. After the deposition of the last Roman emperor in the West in 476, the popes were subjects, first of Odoacer, then Arian Ostrogothic kings, then of the Byzantine emperors, who ruled their Italian territories via a governor called an exarch, stationed in Ravenna.

Pope Gregory II's defiance of the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian as a result of the first iconoclastic controversy (726 AD) in the Byzantine Empire, widened the growing divergence between the Byzantine and Carolingian traditions in what was still a unified European Church. This, combined with Lombard military pressure to which the embattled empire could not respond effectively, eventually led to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes. The Duchy of Rome was an imperial territory under the Exarchate of Ravenna. With the waning of Byzantine control in the Italian peninsula, more of the management of the area fell to the popes.

Donation of Pepin

In 751 the Exarchate of Ravenna fell to Lombard King Aistulf. Five years later, Pepin the Short of the Franks defeated the Lombards and granted the lands of the Duchy of Rome as well as territory ceded by the Lombards to the Papacy in what is referred to as the Donation of Pepin, marking the true beginning of the Papal States. The area conferred upon the pope included the territory 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.^[3] However, the medieval Popes were unable to exercise effective sovereignty over these extensive and mountainous territories, given the recalcitrance of their vassals.

For over a thousand years popes ruled as sovereign over an amalgam of territories on the Italian peninsula known as the Papal States, from the capital, Rome.^[4] In 1274 the Comtat Venaissin came under Papal control, followed by Avignon in 1348.^[5]

Early modern period

Theologian Robert Bellarmine, in his 16th-century dogmatic work Disputationes , strongly affirmed the authority of the pope as the vicar of Christ. However, he reasoned that since Christ did not exercise his temporal power, neither may the pope.^[6]

In 1590, Pope Sixtus V had, of his own initiative, placed the first volume of the Disputationes on a new edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for denying that the pope had direct temporal authority over the whole world. The entry concerning Bellarmin reads: "Roberti Bellarmini Disputationes de Controversiis Christianae fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos. Nisi prius ex superioribus regulis recognitae fuerint."^{[ needs translation ]} Sixtus V died before he could promulgate the bull which would have made this new edition of the Index enter into force. Sixtus' successor, Urban VII, asked for an examination and after it was done Bellarmine was exonerated and the book removed from the Index.^[7]^[8]

Concerning the pastoral and spiritual power of the pope, Bellarmine's Disputationes (1586–1593) and De potestate summi pontificis in rebus temporalibus (1610; Concerning the Power of the Supreme Pontiff in Temporal Matters) "gave definite form to the theory of papal supremacy".^[9]

19th century

The secular revolutionary movements of the 1800s posed a serious threat to the pope's temporal power. Avignon was seized by revolutionaries during the French Revolution in 1791, ending 450 years of papal sovereignty there. Between 1798 and 1814, the revolutionary French government invaded Italy several times and annexed the Papal States (though the papacy was restored between 1800 and 1809). Napoleon Bonaparte abolished the pope's temporal power in 1809, incorporating Rome and Latium into his First French Empire. Pope Pius VII himself was even taken prisoner by Napoleon. However, the pope's temporal power was restored by the Great powers at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars in the 1815 Congress of Vienna. The civil laws of the Napoleonic Code were abolished, and most civil servants were removed from office. In the coming years, rising liberal and nationalist sentiment created popular opposition to the reconstituted clerical government. This led to numerous revolts, which were suppressed by the intervention of the Austrian army.^[10]

In November 1848, during the revolutions that swept Europe in that year, the assassination of his minister Pellegrino Rossi led Pope Pius IX to flee Rome. During a political rally in February 1849, a young heretic, the Abbé Arduini, described the temporal power of the popes as a "historical lie, a political imposture, and a religious immorality".^[11]

On 9 February 1849, a revolutionary Roman Assembly proclaimed the Roman Republic. Subsequently, the Constitution of the Roman Republic abolished papal temporal power, although the independence of the pope as head of the Catholic Church was guaranteed by article 8 of the Principi fondamentali.^[12] Like the other revolutionary movements of 1848, the Republic was short-lived; Rome was eventually conquered by the French Second Republic, which restored the papacy's temporal power in the region once again.^[13]

In 1859–60, the Papal States were invaded by various republican forces seeking a unified Italian state, and lost the provinces of Romagna, Marche and Umbria. These regions were incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia (which thereafter became the Kingdom of Italy), and the papacy's temporal power was reduced to Rome and the region of Lazio. At this point, some ultramontane groups proposed that the temporal power be elevated into a dogma. According to Raffaele De Cesare:

The first idea of convening an Ecumenical Council in Rome to elevate the temporal power into a dogma, originated in the third centenary of the Council of Trent, which took place in that city in December, 1863, and was attended by a number of Austrian and Hungarian prelates.^[14]

However, following the Austro-Prussian War, Austria was forced to recognize the newly-formed Kingdom of Italy. As a result, most clerics lost hope of a return of the former temporal power of the Bishop of Rome. Some, primarily Italian, clergy suggested an ecumenical council to dogmatically define papal infallibility as an article of faith, binding upon the consciences of all Catholic faithful. This doctrinal view, however, initially proposed by Franciscan partisans in opposition to the prerogative of popes to contradict the more favorable decrees of their predecessors, faced significant resistance outside of Italy prior to and during the First Vatican Council.^[15]

For practical purposes, the temporal power of the popes ended on 20 September 1870, when the Italian Army breached the Aurelian Walls at Porta Pia and entered Rome. This completed the Unification of Italy (Risorgimento).

Related Research Articles

Pope Adrian I was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 772 until 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 Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the Pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the Unification of Italy, which took place between 1859 and 1870, and culminated in their demise.

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.

The Exarchate of Ravenna, also known as the Exarchate of Italy, was an administrative district of the Byzantine Empire comprising, between the 6th and 8th centuries, the territories under the jurisdiction of the exarch of Italy resident in Ravenna. The term is used in historiography in a double sense: "exarchate" in the strict sense denotes the territory under the direct jurisdiction of the exarch, i.e. the area of the capital Ravenna, but the term is mainly used to designate all the Byzantine territories in continental and peninsular Italy. According to the legal sources of the time, these territories constituted the so-called Provincia Italiae, on the basis of the fact that they too, until at least the end of the 7th century, fell under the jurisdiction of the exarch and were governed by duces or magistri militum under him.

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 Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald. Its capital was the city of Spoleto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the papacy</span>

According to Roman Catholicism, the history of the papacy, the office held by the pope as head of the Catholic Church, spans from the time of Peter to the present day.

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.

The Papal Mint is the pope's institute for the production of hard cash. Papal Mint also refers to the buildings in Avignon, Rome, and elsewhere that used to house the mint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duchy of Rome</span> Duchy in Byzantine Empire

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renaissance Papacy</span> Period of papal history

The Renaissance Papacy was a period of papal history between the Western Schism and the Reformation. From the election of Pope Martin V of the Council of Constance in 1417 to the Reformation in the 16th century, Western Christianity was largely free from schism as well as significant disputed papal claimants. There were many important divisions over the direction of the religion, but these were resolved through the then-settled procedures of the papal conclave.

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.

Emilia is a historical region of northern Italy, which approximately corresponds to the western and the north-eastern portions of the modern region of Emilia-Romagna, with the area of Romagna forming the remainder of the modern region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duchy of the Pentapolis</span> Duchy within the Byzantine Empire

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.

The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced many modern legal systems. Roman history can be divided into the following periods:

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 papal nobility are the aristocracy of the Holy See, composed of persons holding titles bestowed by the Pope. From the Middle Ages into the nineteenth century, the papacy held direct temporal power in the Papal States, and many titles of papal nobility were derived from fiefs with territorial privileges attached. During this time, the Pope also bestowed ancient civic titles such as patrician. Today, the Pope still exercises authority to grant titles with territorial designations, although these are purely nominal and the privileges enjoyed by the holders pertain to styles of address and heraldry. Additionally, the Pope grants personal and familial titles that carry no territorial designation. Their titles being merely honorific, the modern papal nobility includes descendants of ancient Roman families as well as notable Catholics from many countries. All pontifical noble titles are within the personal gift of the pontiff, and are not recorded in the Official Acts of the Holy See.

References

↑ Pope Innocent III. Epistolæ, IV, 17, 13. "We do not exercise any temporal jurisdiction except indirectly". From: Jarrett, B. (1911). Papal Arbitration Archived 30 July 2022 at the Wayback Machine . In the Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
↑ Schnürer, Gustav. "States of the Church." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 29 December 2022 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
↑ Noble, Thomas F. X., The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 1984, .p. 93
↑ "Papal States | historical region, Italy | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
↑ "Avignon papacy | Summary, History, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
↑ Springborg, Patricia. "Thomas Hobbes and Cardinal Bellarmine: Leviathan and 'the ghost of the Roman empire'". Archived 7 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine . History of Political Thought. XVI:4 (January 1995), pp. 503–531 [516–517].
↑ Blackwell, Richard J. (1991). "Chapter 2: Bellarmine's Views Before the Galileo Affair". Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible. University of Notre Dame Press. p. 30. doi:10.2307/j.ctvpg847x. ISBN 978-0-268-15893-4. Bellarmine himself was not a stranger to theological condemnation. In August 1590 Pope Sixtus V decided to place the first volume of the Controversies on the Index because Bellarmine had argued that the pope is not the temporal ruler of the whole world and that temporal rulers do not derive their authority to rule from God through the pope but through the consent of the people governed. However Sixtus died before the revised Index was published, and the next pope, Urban VII, who reigned for only twelve days before his own death, removed Bellarmine's book from the list during that brief period. The times were precarious.
↑ Vacant, Alfred; Mangenot, Eugene; Amann, Emile (1908). "Bellarmin". Dictionnaire de théologie catholique : contenant l'exposé des doctrines de la théologie catholique, leurs preuves et leur histoire (in French). Vol. 2. University of Ottawa (2nd ed.). Paris: Letouzey et Ané. p. 563–564.
↑ "France – Political ideology". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
↑ "Papal States – The 15th century to the French Revolution". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
↑ Jasper Ridley, Garibaldi, Viking Press (1976) p. 268
↑ "Costituzione Della Repubblica Romana, 1849". Archived from the original on 27 September 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
↑ "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic, 1848–1850". Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
↑ De Cesare (1909), p. 422.
↑ De Cesare (1909), p. 423.

Sources

De Cesare, Raffaele (1909). The Last Days of Papal Rome. Archibald Constable & Co. ISBN 9780790554624.