THEY COME A BEGGING TO PEPIN.

249

Ravenna and the

and dispossess the invaders.
Pentapolis were beyond all question lost to them,
before ever Pepin had set foot in Italy. So far as
the Greek emperors were concerned, these provinces
were, to all intents and purposes, "bona derelicta,"
possessions abandoned by them through impotence
or apathy; they had also been placed by the gene-
ral and spontaneous act of their inhabitants, several
years previously, under the secular government of
the Popes. So true is this, that in all the original
originalta
muniments connected with the act of Pepin, he is
said, not to have made a gift of the States, but to
have restored them to the see of St. Peter.

by the t nations/... had a right

Surely the Greeks had no claim upon the mili-hat he find

tary services of the Frank King! When, therefore,

that valiant warrior drove out the tyrannical in

t

vaders of those provinces, at the prayer of the othe aboriginal possessors, what pretension had the Byzantines to step in and claim the hard-earned fruits of victory, or to prevent the Pontiffs from being formally invested, by the victor, with a sovereignty, the duties of which they had proved themselves son Gu Emprese. -eminently qualified to discharge, and to which they had been called by the entreaties of a much injured

and misgoverned people.

Long prior to the final expedition of Pepin, we find the King of the Lombards surrendering the entire province of the Ravennate and two parts of Cesena, to Pope Zachary, as by act of restitution.*

* Ab eodem rige nimis honorificè susceptus (Zacharias) salutaribus monitis eum allocutus est, obsecrans. . . ut ablatas Ravenna

250

PEPIN'S DONATION A RESTITUTION.

Before he crosses the Alps to seek aid from King Pepin, it is to restitution Pope Stephen makes every effort to incline the ruthless Astolfus by rich presents, by many entreaties, and even with floods of tears; and it is to oblige the Lombard to restore to the see of St. Peter the exarchate of Ravenna, with the other cities and territories of which he had deprived it, that Pepin solemnly pledges himself in the general assembly, at Quierzy-sur-oise, of the Frankish clergy and nobles.*

tûm urbes sibi redonaret, Qui præedictus rex, post multam duritiam inclinatus est, et duas partes territorii Cesenae Castri ad partem reipublicæ restituit." Anast. Bib. in Vit. Zach.

*Ib. Vita Stephani II.

CHAPTER III.

It is observed by Ranke, in his Introduction to the History of the Popes, that "at certain stages of history, we feel peculiarly disposed, if we may so express it, to investigate the divine plan of the world's government and the forces at work for the education of the human race." And, certainly, in pausing to take a retrospective glance from the point which we have at present arrived at, it is impossible not to be struck with the uniformity with which secular influence continued to be forced upon the Pontiffs, as if by some overruling necessity-a necessity that warps and constrains events the most unpromising to bring about this result. Even Gibbon confesses that the Popes were compelled to reign. We find them constantly battling against the tide which bore them into temporal power. They, no doubt, like their contemporaries of every class, were inclined to view the removal of the seat of empire from the "Seven Hills" to the Bosphorus as a most grievous calamity; yet that step was indispensable for their independence, as the supreme pastors of the Church; and according to the language of a very ancient document, was de

252 THE SOVEREIGNTY FORCED ON THE POPES.

signedly brought about by the intervention of Pro-
vidence. "Because it was not meet," it observes,
"that the emperor of the earth should hold his
in that place, where the prince of the hierarchy,
sway
and the capital of the Christian religion were con-
stituted by heaven's eternal Emperor."

Surely those disasters which forced Pope Gregory
the Great, as we have seen, into a political impor-
tance, from which his successors were never after-
wards able to recede, were not of his own choosing.
Did St. Gregory II court those outrageous
attempts of the Isaurian upon his own life, and
upon the religious liberties of the Italians, in
consequence of which he was forced into the position
of an independent temporal prince? Look again
to the next stride in power made under Pope
Stephen. The Pontiff seems to battle with might
and main against the destiny which pushes him
perforce towards the throne. First, he strives, by
the sacrifice of immense treasures, to buy off the
invader; he next implores assistance from Constan-
tinople. Disappointed of all earthly succour, bare-
footed, and carrying a heavy cross, in imitation of
his divine Master, he endeavours by public pro-
cessions and penitential austerities to propitiate the
help of Heaven. He exposes his venerable person
to the fury of the raging and perfidious Lombard
in Pavia, and humbling his hoary head to the very
dust, beseeches Astolfus to spare his people, and to
desist from invading and usurping the patrimony

THE POPE AT THE LOMBARD'S FEET. 253

of St. Peter, or to speak more correctly, the patrimony of the poor. Nor is it until this last effort proves fruitless, that the aged Pontiff, at the risk of his life from the Lombards, who pursue and hem him in on every side, and in spite of the Alpine storms of mid-winter, hastens (the first Pope that ever crossed the Alps) to supplicate the King of the Franks for assistance. And, when at length the cause of the Church is espoused by Pepin, the Pope will not hear of an appeal to arms, until every effort that could suggest itself in order to adjust matters by negotiation had been resorted to

in vain.

"To the letters sent by King Pepin to Astolfus others were united from Pope Stephen himself," says Muratori, "conjuring that prince to spare the shedding of Christian blood; but all was to no purpose; words of menace and of defiance were the only answer that either of them received from the rancorous and exasperated Lombard."*

Astolfus assumed a milder tone, however, after his defeat; "and well for him," says Muratori, "that the merciful Pontiff, although eager for his conversion, had no wish for his ruin. At his instance, the victorious Pepin withdrew his forces again across the Alps; but Astolfus, instead of

"Infellonito Astolfo," is the expression of Muratori, a most impassioned admirer and apologist of the Lombard Kings. An. 754.