The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 58: For the title and powers of patrician of Rome, see
Ducange, (Gloss. Latin. tom. v. p. 149-151,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D.
740, No. 6-11,) Muratori, (Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 308-329,)
and St. Marc, (Abrege Chronologique d'Italie, tom. i. p.
379-382.) Of these the Franciscan Pagi is the most disposed to
make the patrician a lieutenant of the church, rather than of the
empire.]

[Footnote 59: The papal advocates can soften the symbolic meaning
of the banner and the keys; but the style of ad regnum dimisimus,
or direximus, (Codex Carolin. epist. i. tom. iii. pars ii. p.
76,) seems to allow of no palliation or escape. In the Ms. of
the Vienna library, they read, instead of regnum, rogum, prayer
or request (see Ducange;) and the royalty of Charles Martel is
subverted by this important correction, (Catalani, in his
Critical Prefaces, Annali d'Italia, tom. xvii. p. 95-99.)]

[Footnote 60: In the authentic narrative of this reception, the
Liber Pontificalis observes - obviam illi ejus sanctitas dirigens
venerabiles cruces, id est signa; sicut mos est ad exarchum, aut
patricium suscipiendum, sum cum ingenti honore suscipi fecit,
(tom. iii. pars i. p. 185.)]

[Footnote 61: Paulus Diaconus, who wrote before the empire of
Charlemagne describes Rome as his subject city - vestrae
civitates (ad Pompeium Festum) suis addidit sceptris, (de
Metensis Ecclesiae Episcopis.) Some Carlovingian medals, struck
at Rome, have engaged Le Blanc to write an elaborate, though
partial, dissertation on their authority at Rome, both as
patricians and emperors, (Amsterdam, 1692, in 4to.)]

The gratitude of the Carlovingians was adequate to these
obligations, and their names are consecrated, as the saviors and
benefactors of the Roman church. Her ancient patrimony of farms
and houses was transformed by their bounty into the temporal
dominion of cities and provinces; and the donation of the
Exarchate was the first-fruits of the conquests of Pepin. ^62
Astolphus with a sigh relinquished his prey; the keys and the
hostages of the principal cities were delivered to the French
ambassador; and, in his master's name, he presented them before
the tomb of St. Peter. The ample measure of the Exarchate ^63
might comprise all the provinces of Italy which had obeyed the
emperor and his vicegerent; but its strict and proper limits were
included in the territories of Ravenna, Bologna, and Ferrara: its
inseparable dependency was the Pentapolis, which stretched along
the Adriatic from Rimini to Ancona, and advanced into the
midland- country as far as the ridges of the Apennine. In this
transaction, the ambition and avarice of the popes have been
severely condemned. Perhaps the humility of a Christian priest
should have rejected an earthly kingdom, which it was not easy
for him to govern without renouncing the virtues of his
profession. Perhaps a faithful subject, or even a generous
enemy, would have been less impatient to divide the spoils of the
Barbarian; and if the emperor had intrusted Stephen to solicit in
his name the restitution of the Exarchate, I will not absolve the
pope from the reproach of treachery and falsehood. But in the
rigid interpretation of the laws, every one may accept, without
injury, whatever his benefactor can bestow without injustice.
The Greek emperor had abdicated, or forfeited, his right to the
Exarchate; and the sword of Astolphus was broken by the stronger
sword of the Carlovingian. It was not in the cause of the
Iconoclast that Pepin has exposed his person and army in a double
expedition beyond the Alps: he possessed, and might lawfully
alienate, his conquests: and to the importunities of the Greeks
he piously replied that no human consideration should tempt him
to resume the gift which he had conferred on the Roman Pontiff
for the remission of his sins, and the salvation of his soul.
The splendid donation was granted in supreme and absolute
dominion, and the world beheld for the first time a Christian
bishop invested with the prerogatives of a temporal prince; the
choice of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of
taxes, and the wealth of the palace of Ravenna. In the
dissolution of the Lombard kingdom, the inhabitants of the duchy
of Spoleto ^64 sought a refuge from the storm, shaved their heads
after the Roman fashion, declared themselves the servants and
subjects of St. Peter, and completed, by this voluntary
surrender, the present circle of the ecclesiastical state. That
mysterious circle was enlarged to an indefinite extent, by the
verbal or written donation of Charlemagne, ^65 who, in the first
transports of his victory, despoiled himself and the Greek
emperor of the cities and islands which had formerly been annexed
to the Exarchate. But, in the cooler moments of absence and
reflection, he viewed, with an eye of jealousy and envy, the
recent greatness of his ecclesiastical ally. The execution of
his own and his father's promises was respectfully eluded: the
king of the Franks and Lombards asserted the inalienable rights
of the empire; and, in his life and death, Ravenna, ^66 as well
as Rome, was numbered in the list of his metropolitan cities.
The sovereignty of the Exarchate melted away in the hands of the
popes; they found in the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and
domestic rival: ^67 the nobles and people disdained the yoke of a
priest; and in the disorders of the times, they could only retain
the memory of an ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age,
they have revived and realized.

[Footnote 62: Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs
this donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original
act has never been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis
represents, (p. 171,) and the Codex Carolinus supposes, this
ample gift. Both are contemporary records and the latter is the
more authentic, since it has been preserved, not in the Papal,
but the Imperial, library.]

[Footnote 63: Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow
concessions, of interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori
(Antiquitat. tom. i. p. 63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided,
in the limits of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio
Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi, tom. x. p. 160-180.]

[Footnote 64: Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B.
Petri receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius,
p. 185.) Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own
persons or their country.]

[Footnote 65: The policy and donations of Charlemagne are
carefully examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who
has well studied the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that
they were only verbal. The most ancient act of donation that
pretends to be extant, is that of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
(Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera, tom. ii. p. 267-270.)
Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are much questioned,
(Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom. vi. p. 432,
&c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no
reasonable objection to these princes so freely disposing of what
was not their own.]

[Footnote 66: Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the
proprietor, Hadrian I., the mosaics of the palace of Ravenna, for
the decoration of Aix-la-Chapelle, (Cod. Carolin. epist. 67, p.
223.)]

[Footnote 67: The popes often complain of the usurpations of Leo
of Ravenna, (Codex Carolin, epist. 51, 52, 53, p. 200-205.) Sir
corpus St. Andreae fratris germani St. Petri hic humasset,
nequaquam nos Romani pontifices sic subjugassent, (Agnellus,
Liber Pontificalis, in Scriptores Rerum Ital. tom. ii. pars. i.
p. 107.)]

Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the
strong, though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net
of sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and
manufacture, which, according to the occasion, have produced or
concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or
suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the
Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the
decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of
Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the
liberality, and revive the name, of the great Constantine. ^68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was
healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by
St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more
gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the
seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes the
free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces
of the West. ^69 This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the
guilt of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of
his lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt
of gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no
more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty
portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the
ignorance and credulity of the times, that the most absurd of
fables was received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in
France, and is still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law.
^70 The emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a
forgery, that subverted their rights and freedom; and the only
opposition proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the
beginning of the twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity
of the donation of Constantine. ^71 In the revival of letters and
liberty, this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of
Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman
patriot. ^72 His contemporaries of the fifteenth century were
astonished at his sacrilegious boldness; yet such is the silent
and irresistible progress of reason, that, before the end of the
next age, the fable was rejected by the contempt of historians
^73 and poets, ^74 and the tacit or modest censure of the
advocates of the Roman church. ^75 The popes themselves have
indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar; ^76 but a false
and obsolete title still sanctifies their reign; and, by the same
fortune which has attended the decretals and the Sibylline
oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the foundations have
been undermined.

[Footnote 68: Piissimo Constantino magno, per ejus largitatem S.
R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his
Hesperiae partibus largiri olignatus est .... Quia ecce novus
Constantinus his temporibus, &c., (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in
tom. iii. part ii. p. 195.) Pagi (Critica, A.D. 324, No. 16)
ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed
the name of St. Isidore: his humble title of Peccator was
ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator: his merchandise was
indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much
wealth and power.]

[Footnote 69: Fabricius (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p. 4-7) has
enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin.
The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and refutes, appears to
be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from
Gratian's Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has
been surreptitiously tacked.]

[Footnote 70: In the year 1059, it was believed (was it
believed?) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori
places (Annali d'Italia, tom. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious
donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c., de Donatione
Constantini. See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum
iv. diss. 25, p. 335-350.]

[Footnote 71: See a large account of the controversy (A.D. 1105)
which arose from a private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsense,
(Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 637, &c.,) a
copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine abbey.
They were formerly accessible to curious foreigners, (Le Blanc
and Mabillon,) and would have enriched the first volume of the
Historia Monastica Italiae of Quirini. But they are now
imprisoned (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 269)
by the timid policy of the court of Rome; and the future cardinal
yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition,
(Quirini, Comment. pars ii. p. 123-136.)]

[Footnote 72: I have read in the collection of Schardius (de
Potestate Imperiali Ecclesiastica, p. 734-780) this animated
discourse, which was composed by the author, A.D. 1440, six years
after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement
party pamphlet: Valla justifies and animates the revolt of the
Romans, and would even approve the use of a dagger against their
sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic might expect the persecution of
the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried in the Lateran,
(Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis
Latinis, p. 580.)]

[Footnote 73: See Guicciardini, a servant of the popes, in that
long and valuable digression, which has resumed its place in the
last edition, correctly published from the author's Ms. and
printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo,
1775, (Istoria d'Italia, tom. i. p. 385-395.)]

[Footnote 74: The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among
the things that were lost upon earth, (Orlando Furioso, xxxiv.
80.)

Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa,
Ch'ebbe gia buono odore, or puzza forte:
Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece)
Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.

Yet this incomparable poem has been approved by a bull of Leo X.]

[Footnote 75: See Baronius, A.D. 324, No. 117-123, A.D. 1191, No.
51, &c. The cardinal wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by
Constantine, and refused by Silvester. The act of donation he
considers strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 76: Baronius n'en dit guerres contre; encore en a-t'il
trop dit, et l'on vouloit sans moi, (Cardinal du Perron,) qui
l'empechai, censurer cette partie de son histoire. J'en devisai
un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose "che
volete? i Canonici la tengono," il le disoit en riant,
(Perroniana, p. 77.)]

While the popes established in Italy their freedom and
dominion, the images, the first cause of their revolt, were
restored in the Eastern empire. ^77 Under the reign of
Constantine the Fifth, the union of civil and ecclesiastical
power had overthrown the tree, without extirpating the root, of
superstition. The idols (for such they were now held) were
secretly cherished by the order and the sex most prone to
devotion; and the fond alliance of the monks and females obtained
a final victory over the reason and authority of man. Leo the
Fourth maintained with less rigor the religion of his father and
grandfather; but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had
imbibed the zeal of the Athenians, the heirs of the Idolatry,
rather than the philosophy, of their ancestors. During the life
of her husband, these sentiments were inflamed by danger and
dissimulation, and she could only labor to protect and promote
some favorite monks whom she drew from their caverns, and seated
on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But as soon as she
reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene more seriously
undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the first step of her
future persecution was a general edict for liberty of conscience.

In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed
to the public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of
their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of death or
removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously filled the most
eager competitors for earthly or celestial favor anticipated and
flattered the judgment of their sovereign; and the promotion of
her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the patriarch of
Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church. But the
decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a similar
assembly: ^78 the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the
bishops was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the
soldiers and people of Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of
a year, the separation of the disaffected troops, and the choice
of Nice for a second orthodox synod, removed these obstacles; and
the episcopal conscience was again, after the Greek fashion, in
the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen days were allowed
for the consummation of this important work: the Iconoclasts
appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents: the scene
was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarchs, ^79 the decrees were framed by the president
Taracius, and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions of
three hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously pronounced,
that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason,
to the fathers and councils of the church: but they hesitate
whether that worship be relative or direct; whether the Godhead,
and the figure of Christ, be entitled to the same mode of
adoration. Of this second Nicene council the acts are still
extant; a curious monument of superstition and ignorance, of
falsehood and folly. I shall only notice the judgment of the
bishops on the comparative merit of image-worship and morality.
A monk had concluded a truce with the daemon of fornication, on
condition of interrupting his daily prayers to a picture that
hung in his cell. His scruples prompted him to consult the
abbot. "Rather than abstain from adoring Christ and his Mother
in their holy images, it would be better for you," replied the
casuist, "to enter every brothel, and visit every prostitute, in
the city." ^80 For the honor of orthodoxy, at least the orthodoxy
of the Roman church, it is somewhat unfortunate, that the two
princes who convened the two councils of Nice are both stained
with the blood of their sons. The second of these assemblies was
approved and rigorously executed by the despotism of Irene, and
she refused her adversaries the toleration which at first she had
granted to her friends. During the five succeeding reigns, a
period of thirty-eight years, the contest was maintained, with
unabated rage and various success, between the worshippers and
the breakers of the images; but I am not inclined to pursue with
minute diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus
allowed a general liberty of speech and practice; and the only
virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the cause of his
temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition and weakness formed
the character of Michael the First, but the saints and images
were incapable of supporting their votary on the throne. In the
purple, Leo the Fifth asserted the name and religion of an
Armenian; and the idols, with their seditious adherents, were
condemned to a second exile. Their applause would have
sanctified the murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin and
successor, the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with
the Phrygian heresies: he attempted to mediate between the
contending parties; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics
insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation was
guarded by timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of
fear and pity, was the last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts.
The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly against them; and the
emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated and punished by
the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, the final
victory of the images was achieved by a second female, his widow
Theodora, whom he left the guardian of the empire. Her measures
were bold and decisive. The fiction of a tardy repentance
absolved the fame and the soul of her deceased husband; the
sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch was commuted from the loss
of his eyes to a whipping of two hundred lashes: the bishops
trembled, the monks shouted, and the festival of orthodoxy
preserves the annual memory of the triumph of the images. A
single question yet remained, whether they are endowed with any
proper and inherent sanctity; it was agitated by the Greeks of
the eleventh century; ^81 and as this opinion has the strongest
recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it was not more
explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West, Pope Adrian
the First accepted and announced the decrees of the Nicene
assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as the seventh in
rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were docile to the
voice of their father; but the greatest part of the Latin
Christians were far behind in the race of superstition. The
churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle
course between the adoration and the destruction of images, which
they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship, but
as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry
book of controversy was composed and published in the name of
Charlemagne: ^82 under his authority a synod of three hundred
bishops was assembled at Frankfort: ^83 they blamed the fury of
the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure
against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their
pretended council, which was long despised by the Barbarians of
the West. ^84 Among them the worship of images advanced with a
silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for
their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages
which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in
Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of
superstition.

[Footnote 77: The remaining history of images, from Irene to
Theodora, is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi,
(A.D. 780-840.) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii.
Panoplia adversus Haereticos p. 118- 178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim,
(Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.) Basnage, (Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i. p.
556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The Protestants, except Mosheim, are
soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin, are
inflamed by the fury and superstition of the monks; and even Le
Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a scholar, is
infected by the odious contagion.]

[Footnote 78: See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second
Council of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith
volume of the Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with
some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a sigh
or a smile.]

[Footnote 79: The pope's legates were casual messengers, two
priests without any special commission, and who were disavowed on
their return. Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics
to represent the Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is
revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp.
tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]

[Footnote 80: These visits could not be innocent since the daemon
of fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]

[Footnote 81: See an account of this controversy in the Alexius
of Anna Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist.
Eccles. p. 371, 372.)]

[Footnote 82: The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443 - 529,)
composed in the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at
Worms, A.D. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who
answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom.
vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose 120 objections against the
Nicene synod and such words as these are the flowers of their
rhetoric - Dementiam .... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum errorem
.... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima .... derisione dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 83: The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as
well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat.
Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort,
must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even the
principal laymen.]

[Footnote 84: Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et
sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes
contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom.
ix. p. 101, Canon. ii. Franckfurd.) A polemic must be
hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius,
Pagi, Alexander, Maimbourg, &c., to elude this unlucky sentence.]

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.

Part IV.

It was after the Nycene synod, and under the reign of the
pious Irene, that the popes consummated the separation of Rome
and Italy, by the translation of the empire to the less orthodox
Charlemagne. They were compelled to choose between the rival
nations: religion was not the sole motive of their choice; and
while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld,
with reluctance and suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their
foes. The difference of language and manners had perpetuated the
enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated from each
other by the hostile opposition of seventy years. In that schism
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty:
their submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a
jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the
impotence, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The
Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored
the Calabrian estates ^85 and the Illyrian diocese, ^86 which the
Iconociasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter; and
Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication
unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. ^87 The Greeks
were now orthodox; but their religion might be tainted by the
breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were now contumacious;
but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion,
from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of
Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes;
but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a
statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his
four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes
in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb,
and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined,
without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman
liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to
renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift
of the Exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of
Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness
of Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the Western empire
that they could pay their obligations or secure their
establishment. By this decisive measure they would finally
eradicate the claims of the Greeks; from the debasement of a
provincial town, the majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin
Christians would be united, under a supreme head, in their
ancient metropolis; and the conquerors of the West would receive
their crown from the successors of St. Peter. The Roman church
would acquire a zealous and respectable advocate; and, under the
shadow of the Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with
honor and safety, the government of the city. ^88