History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0170/01709.txt

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$Title{History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Part III.}
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$Author{Gibbon, Edward}
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$Date{1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)}
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Title:       History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Book:        Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.
Author:      Gibbon, Edward
Date:        1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

Part III.

     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 champions of the Roman church obtained a
favorable 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
Carlovingian race were the dignities of king of France, ^55 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 Tyber, 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 valor; his
friends were multiplied by his liberality; his father had been the savior 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 still
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 Zachary, the
successor of the two Gregories, prompted him to decide, and to decide in their
favor: he pronounced that the nation might lawfully unite in the same person
the title and authority of king; and that the unfortunate Childeric, a victim
of the public safety, should be degraded, shaved, and confined in a monastery
for the remainder of his days.  An answer so agreeable to their wishes was
accepted by the Franks as the opinion of a casuist, the sentence of a judge,
or the oracle of a prophet: the Merovingian race disappeared from the earth;
and Pepin was exalted on a buckler by the suffrage of a free people,
accustomed to obey his laws and to march under his standard. His coronation
was twice performed, with the sanction of the popes, by their most faithful
servant St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and by the grateful hands of
Stephen the Third, who, in the monastery of St. Denys placed the diadem on the
head of his benefactor.  The royal unction of the kings of Israel was
dexterously applied: ^56 the successor of St. Peter assumed the character of a
divine ambassador: a German chieftain was transformed into the Lord's
anointed; and this Jewish rite has been diffused and maintained by the
superstition and vanity of modern Europe. The Franks were absolved from their
ancient oath; but a dire anathema was thundered against them and their
posterity, if they should dare to renew the same freedom of choice, or to
elect a king, except in the holy and meritorious race of the Carlovingian
princes.  Without apprehending the future danger, these princes gloried in
their present security: the secretary of Charlemagne affirms, that the French
sceptre was transferred by the authority of the popes; ^57 and in their
boldest enterprises, they insist, with confidence, on this signal and
successful act of temporal jurisdiction.

[Footnote 55: Besides the common historians, three French critics, Launoy,
(Opera, tom. v. pars ii. l. vii. epist. 9, p. 477-487,) Pagi, (Critica, A.D.
751, No. 1-6, A.D. 752, No. 1-10,) and Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Novi
Testamenti, dissertat, ii. p. 96-107,) 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 texts
which they produce of Eginhard, Theophanes, and the old annals,
Laureshamenses, Fuldenses, Loisielani]

[Footnote 56: Not absolutely for the first time.  On a less conspicuous
theatre it had been used, in the vith and viith centuries, by the provincial
bishops of Britain and Spain.  The royal unction of Constantinople was
borrowed from the Latins in the last age of the empire. Constantine Manasses
mentions that of Charlemagne as a foreign, Jewish, incomprehensible ceremony.
See Selden's Titles of Honor, in his Works, vol. iii. part i. p. 234-249.]

[Footnote 57: See Eginhard, in Vita Caroli Magni, c. i. p. 9, &c., c. iii. p.
24.  Childeric was deposed - jussu, the Carlovingians were established -
auctoritate, Pontificis Romani.  Launoy, &c., pretend that these strong words
are susceptible of a very soft interpretation.  Be it so; yet Eginhard
understood the world, the court, and the Latin language.]

     II.  In the change of manners and language the patricians of Rome ^58
were far removed from the senate of Romulus, on the palace of Constantine,
from the free nobles of the republic, or the fictitious parents of the
emperor.  After the recovery of Italy and Africa by the arms of Justinian, the
importance and danger of those remote provinces required the presence of a
supreme magistrate; he was indifferently styled the exarch or the patrician;
and these governors of Ravenna, who fill their place in the chronology of
princes, extended their jurisdiction over the Roman city. Since the revolt of
Italy and the loss of the Exarchate, the distress of the Romans had exacted
some sacrifice of their independence.  Yet, even in this act, they exercised
the right of disposing of themselves; and the decrees of the senate and people
successively invested Charles Martel and his posterity with the honors of
patrician of Rome.  The leaders of a powerful nation would have disdained a
servile title and subordinate office; but the reign of the Greek emperors was
suspended; and, in the vacancy of the empire, they derived a more glorious
commission from the pope and the republic.  The Roman ambassadors presented
these patricians with the keys of the shrine of St. Peter, as a pledge and
symbol of sovereignty; with a holy banner which it was their right and duty to
unfurl in the defence of the church and city. ^59 In the time of Charles
Martel and of Pepin, the interposition of the Lombard kingdom covered the
freedom, while it threatened the safety, of Rome; and the patriciate
represented only the title, the service, the alliance, of these distant
protectors. The power and policy of Charlemagne annihilated an enemy, and
imposed a master.  In his first visit to the capital, he was received with all
the honors which had formerly been paid to the exarch, the representative of
the emperor; and these honors obtained some new decorations from the joy and
gratitude of Pope Adrian the First. ^60 No sooner was he informed of the
sudden approach of the monarch, than he despatched the magistrates and nobles
of Rome to meet him, with the banner, about thirty miles from the city.  At
the distance of one mile, the Flaminian way was lined with the schools, or
national communities, of Greeks, Lombards, Saxons, &c.: the Roman youth were
under arms; and the children of a more tender age, with palms and olive
branches in their hands, chanted the praises of their great deliverer.  At the
aspect of the holy crosses, and ensigns of the saints, he dismounted from his
horse, led the procession of his nobles to the Vatican, and, as he ascended
the stairs, devoutly kissed each step of the threshold of the apostles.  In
the portico, Adrian expected him at the head of his clergy: they embraced, as
friends and equals; but in their march to the altar, the king or patrician
assumed the right hand of the pope.  Nor was the Frank content with these vain
and empty demonstrations of respect. In the twenty-six years that elapsed
between the conquest of Lombardy and his Imperial coronation, Rome, which had
been delivered by the sword, was subject, as his own, to the sceptre of
Charlemagne.  The people swore allegiance to his person and family: in his
name money was coined, and justice was administered; and the election of the
popes was examined and confirmed by his authority.  Except an original and
self-inherent claim of sovereignty, there was not any prerogative remaining,
which the title of emperor could add to the patrician of Rome. ^61

[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.]