Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

Desiderius found himself bereft of his counsellor, Paul Afiarta: he refused to listen to the Pope's request to restore his cities. He committed further outrages and assaults. He rejected repeated letters and messengers of the Pope. His reply was that, instead of restoring cities, he would march with his whole army to Rome, and force it to surrender. The Pope had several of the gates of Rome built up and others carefully closed, and sent by sea messengers to Charles, begging him to help the Roman Church as his father had done, and force Desiderius to restore what he had taken from St. Peter.

Desiderius saw that his attempt to move the Pope to crown the sons of Carloman was vain; then, with the widowed Gilberga, these sons and the duke, Autchar, he advanced his troops from Pavia, on the way to Rome, and informed the Pope of it. Adrian replied, “If the king does not give up the cities, as he has promised, and fully satisfy us, it is useless for him to take the trouble to come to us. He shall not see my face.”

Adrian, while awaiting the succour which he had asked from king Charles, had taken all measures necessary for the defence of Rome. He collected all the men of war whom he could from the Roman Tuscany, from Campania, from the duchy of Perugia, from such cities of the Pentapolis as the Lombards had not yet taken, who, with the Roman soldiers, might suffice to defend the vast circle of the walls and towers, and sustain a siege at least for a time. The two basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, being outside the walls, were defenceless. The Pope caused them to be stripped of all precious objects, which were brought for protection within the city. He had all the doors closed and barred up within: so that, if the Lombard king attempted an entrance, it would be as a burglar.

These were his acts as a sovereign prince – as pontiff, learning that the king was approaching the Roman frontiers, he sent to him the bishops of Albano, Palestrina, and Tibur, with an intimation in his own hand, adjuring him by all the divine mysteries, and under threat of excommunication, that neither he, nor any Lombard, nor the Frank Autchar should set foot on the Roman territory without his leave.

Desiderius had reached Viterbo, the last city of the Lombard Tuscany. He was, at the head of his army, about to pass the frontier. On receiving the Pope's injunction he was struck with confusion and retired back with his army to his own city, Pavia. As the Hun had listened to St. Leo, the Lombard also listened to Adrian, and Rome was once more saved by her pontiff.

When Peter, the legate of Adrian, reached France in the first months of 773, he found Charles wintering at Thionville, after his first expedition against the Saxons. He had destroyed the famous idol Irminoul. It was the beginning of his longest and fiercest war. Now, Pope Adrian called upon him, as Patricius of the Romans, to defend Rome and the State of St. Peter against Desiderius, from whom neither peace nor justice could any longer be hoped. At the same time a Lombard embassy reached him, professing that Desiderius had already restored every thing to the Pope. Charles sent three messengers of his own to Rome to ascertain the facts. They reached Rome just after its deliverance from the fear of a siege by the retreat of Desiderius from Viterbo. The Pope related to them in order all the late events: and sent with them other messengers of his own, conjuring Charles afresh to carry into effect the promises which he had formerly made with his father to St. Peter, and to fulfil the redemption of the holy Church of God by compelling the perfidious king of the Lombards to restore without contest to St. Peter, both the cities and the other rights which he had taken away. On their way to France the joint-messengers appeared at the court of Pavia, and, by instruction of Charles, urged Desiderius peacefully to restore the cities and rights. He gave an absolute refusal, which they carried to Charles.

Charles sent fresh messengers to Desiderius, and offered him 14,000 gold solidi, if he would make restitution. All was of no avail. When the messengers returned to Charles, he brought the whole matter before his dukes and chiefs, probably at the May diet, and an expedition into Italy was resolved upon for the autumn. The Frank army was summoned to meet at Geneva. One part of it Charles sent by the Mons Jovis, the St. Bernard; the other he conducted himself by the passes of Mont Cenis, the same route which Pipin had held in 754 and 756. When Charles reached the pass above Susa, he found it strongly fortified and valiantly defended by Desiderius in person, and his son, Adelchis. Here it is said the Franks were so long detained, being unable to break through the Lombard defence, that they were on the point of retiring, when a secret road was discovered to Charles, and their flank was turned. The result was a precipitate retreat of Desiderius to his fortified capital, Pavia, and of his son, Adelchis, to Verona. From that moment the chief struggle was concentred about these two cities. Other cities of Upper Italy, such as Turin, Ivrea, Vercelli, Novara, Piacenza, Milan, Parma, Tortona, and the maritime cities, with their castles, fell speedily into the hands of the Franks. Charles sat down before Pavia at the end of September or beginning of October, 773. That royal city of the Lombards, in the eighth century, was first among all the cities of Upper Italy, not only for its riches and magnificence, but for its military strength. Near the confluence of the Ticino and the Po, it was esteemed almost impregnable. It had resisted Odoacer, and Alboin required more than three years to take it, which he accomplished rather by famine than by force. Charles encamped with his army round it, and completely enclosed it with lines and trenches. He sent for the queen Hildegarde and her children. He made an attempt to take Verona, but found it too strong for anything short of a regular siege, defended, as it was, by the most valiant Adelchis. However, the widowed queen Gilberga, with her children, who were therein, surrendered themselves to him. They disappear henceforward from history, and are supposed to have been confined in Frank monasteries. Charles spent the feast of Christmas in the camp at Pavia. All we know of these months is the two words of Eginhard, that he spent them, “much employed”. We may conclude that not only the siege of Pavia, but the settlement of the numerous cities in North Italy, which yielded to him, well occupied his time.

But Charles had hitherto never seen Rome, and the feast of Easter, which fell in that year, 774, on the 3rd April, drew him with a great attraction to visit the tombs of the apostles, and he resolved to be present for the Paschal rites. He left therefore his army under the command of his chief officers and with a great train of bishops, abbots, judges, dukes, and counts, and a large escort of warriors, took the road of Tuscany, which probably had been in a great part subdued, and advanced so quickly that he reached the gates of Rome on the morning of Holy Saturday.

Great was the joy of Pope Adrian to hear of this unexpected visit of Charles, and his rapid approach. He made the utmost preparation to receive so great a king, who had likewise the special dignity of Rome's Patricius, that is, her sworn defender. He sent out all the judges of Rome to a spot thirty miles away near the lake of Bracciano, where they awaited him with banners displayed. At a mile from Rome, near Monte Mario, by order of the Pope the soldiers under their respective leaders, and the children who were learning letters, were drawn up to meet him, and bearing in their hands branches of palm and olive sang welcome to him. The standards of crosses were carried, as in the reception of an exarch or a Patricius. When the king of the Franks, Patricius of the Romans, met these crosses, he descended from horseback with his officers, and walked the rest of the way on foot to St. Peter's. There, Pope Adrian, rising early with all the clergy and people of Rome waited, to receive the king of the Franks at the top of the steps leading into the court of the Basilica.

At that time there were thirty-five steps in five series of seven each. When Charles reached these steps, he threw himself on his knees, and so ascended, kissing separately each one of the thirty-five in the fashion of a pilgrim. At the top he found Pope Adrian; they embraced each other, and the king holding the Pope's right hand they entered the church together, all the clergy and the monks singing, “Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord”. When the king with the bishops, abbots, judges, and all the Franks of his train, came to the Confession, they prostrated themselves to our almighty God, and rendered their vows to the Prince of the Apostles, glorifying the divine power in him, who had given them by his intercession such a victory.

After their prayer the king turned to the Pope and earnestly requested of him permission to enter Rome, in order to venerate the other churches of the city, and therein pay his vows. Whereupon the Pope and the king, together with Roman and Frank judges, descending to the body of St. Peter, bound themselves by oath to mutual protection. This permission to enter Rome was granted in after times by the Popes to Roman emperors themselves, as often as they approached the gates of Rome with armed force. After this permission received Charles and the Pope rode in solemn pomp from St. Peter's to the Lateran, through the whole of Rome. And Charles, in the Lateran church, witnessed the Pope's celebration of the baptismal rite to the catechumens as usual on that day.

So the Romans on that day first beheld the flower of the greatest western nation passing in the pomp of armed men by their palaces, porticoes, Capitol, forum, and colosseum, with the greatest champion of Christendom then in the glory of his manhood at the age of thirty-two years. His secretary, Eginhard, attests his stature to have been seven of his own feet, and his whole aspect was full of majesty. When he ascended on his knees the thirty-five steps leading to St. Peter's, separately kissing each, he manifested in his own person the truth of the reply which nearly fifty years before Pope St. Gregory II. had made to the eastern emperor, Leo III. Leo threatened that he would tear down the statue of St. Peter. St. Gregory said that all the nations of the West regarded him as a God upon earth.

After this Charles returned to the meadows of Nero by St. Peter's wherein foreign armies usually encamped. At the following dawn of Easter day the Pope sent his chief officers and soldiers to conduct Charles in great pomp to Santa Maria Maggiore, where, with all his Franks, he heard the Pope sing Mass. After Mass the Pope received him to a banquet at the patriarchal palace of the Lateran. On the two following feasts the Pope, according to usage, celebrated Mass on the Monday at St. Peter's, on the Tuesday at St. Paul's, in presence of the king. At the Mass in St. Peter's Anastasius mentions that the Pope caused the ceremony called Lauds to be inserted before the Epistle. It was sung before Popes and emperors at their accession. It consisted of the clergy dividing themselves in two bands before the altar, when the archdeacon on one side intoned with loud voice, “O Christ, hear us!” the other side responded, “Long life to our Lord decreed by God, Roman Pontiff and universal Pope!” This was repeated three times; a short litany followed, in which to each invocation made by the archdeacon, the other side replied, “Give him help”: and it ended with a triple Kyrie Eleison. With this rite on that Easter Monday of 774 Charles was solemnly acclaimed as Patricius of the Romans. Eginhard in his “Life” says that Charlemagne would never put on a foreign dress, however splendid: and that he broke this rule twice only, both times at Rome, the first at the request of Pope Adrian: the second at the request of his successor, Pope Leo III., when he wore the long tunic and cloak, and was shod also in Roman fashion. Now twenty years before, that is, in 754, Pope Stephen II. had crowned Pipin and his two sons Charles and Carloman kings of the Franks, and created them also Patricii of the Romans. Charles would seem to have considered this ceremony a solemn inauguration of this dignity. It was from this time, 774, that in his public acts he styled himself king of the Franks and of the Lombards, and Patricius of the Romans.

In that same week before Charles left Rome he transacted affairs of the utmost importance with the Pope.

The ecclesiastical hierarchy in France, the rights of metropolitans, and the other churches had fallen in the last eighty years under great usurpations, which all the zeal of Pipin had not been able to remedy. Adrian prevailed on Charles to work a restoration of the ancient state. He also drew from the archives of the Roman See two authentic codes, one containing the old order of the ecclesiastical provinces and dioceses in France; the other, the councils and canons of the Greek and Latin church. These were of the greatest service to Charles in the synods and capitulars and wise regulations which he made for the restoration of the Church in France.

But further, the Pope addressed himself to obtain from Charles the renewal and confirmation of the promise made in April, 754, by king Pipin and Charles himself to Pope Stephen II. The king promised not only to reconquer for the Holy See the exarchate and Pentapolis, then occupied by Aistulf, but to add to them likewise all the provinces of nearly all Italy from the Po. That promise was grounded upon the design then entertained by the Pope and the king to put an end altogether to the Lombard rule. But at the siege of Pavia, in 754, the Pope and Pipin were so far moved by the supplications and promises of Aistulf, that they left him the Lombard kingdom. Giving up that first design, they made with him the treaty of Pavia, that compact between the Franks, the Lombards, and the Romans, which during eighteen years was appealed to as the basis of their political relations. But in this interval the incorrigible perfidy and ambition of Desiderius, and his obstinate refusal of all terms of agreement, had last led Adrian and Charles to resume the original intention of Stephen and Pipin. Charles after forcing the pass above Susa resolved to pluck up by the roots the Lombard power. Thus the conditions of 754, having returned in 774, would bring back the first promise of Pipin, and the compact of Pavia in 756 having been trodden under foot by Desiderius, and torn at the sword's point, the compact of Quiersy was restored to force. It had not been annulled but suspended. Adrian therefore took the excellent opportunity of Charles's presence in Rome to complete the work so well begun by Stephen II. The fresh inauguration of Charles as Patricius helped to obtain from him a solemn confirmation of the former compact. His piety and devotion to St. Peter were not less marked than his father's, and he assented to the Pope's desire.

On Easter Wednesday, the 6th April, 774, the solemn act was completed which Anastasius has left carefully registered in the Liber Pontificalis. The Pope with all the judges of the clergy and army, that is, all the ecclesiastical and lay dignitaries of Rome, went to St. Peter's, where he was met by Charles with all his train. Here Adrian in a public speech recorded the acts of kindness and attachment which for so long had joined together France and the Holy See. He reminded Charles of the promise which, in April, 754, his father Pipin of sacred memory and he himself with his brother Carloman and all the Frank judges had made and sworn solemnly to St. Peter and Pope Stephen II. in the assembly of Quiersy. That was to assure to St. Peter and all his successors in perpetuity the possession of various cities and territories of Italy. He then earnestly exhorted and prayed the king to give entire accomplishment to that promise. Charles asked that the whole tenor of the promise of Quiersy should be read before him. Having heard it read, and greatly approved of it, with his judges, he most willingly accorded the request of the Pope, he immediately ordered his chaplain and notary Etherius to draw out another deed of promise and donation exactly similar to the first. In this he granted to St. Peter the same cities and lands and promised to give them over to Pope Adrian, marking out the limits. These are, says Anastasius, as we now read them in the text of donation, from Luni and the isle of Corsica, by Parma, Reggio, Mantua, and Monselice, embracing the whole exarchate of Ravenna as it was of old, the province of Venetia and Istria, the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento. This Charles subscribed with his own hand, and caused it to be subscribed by all his bishops, abbots, dukes, and counts. After this the king and his nobles, having placed the deed, first upon the altar of St. Peter, and then within the Confession, took a terrible oath to St. Peter and Pope Adrian, to maintain every syllable of its contents, and they placed the deed in the hands of the Pope. Further, Charles made Etherius write another copy of the same donation, placed it with his own hand on the inner altar of the Confession, under the gospels which were wont to be kissed there by the faithful, that it might remain in most secure guarantee and eternal memorial of the devotion of Charles and the Franks to the Prince of the Apostles. Other copies were afterwards made in authentic form by the proper officer of the Roman Church, which Charles carried with him into France.

Thus the original compact of Quiersy resumed its legal force, and became the foundation of political right in Italy. It is true that various reasons prevented the compact from ever receiving its entire effect, but it became, nevertheless, the standard which the Popes and the kings of the Franks kept before them, the archetype on which the public deeds and covenants renewed afterwards so often in the middle ages between the emperors and the Holy See were all framed. Adrian in thus claiming and securing the sovereign rights already acquired by the Roman Church may be called the second founder, after Stephen II., of the temporal monarchy of the Popes. Charles in crowning the work of Pipin showed himself not only worthy of the Roman Patriciate, but of that further dignity to which he was afterwards exalted by Leo III. In the twenty following years the union and cordial friendship which bound Adrian and Charles together, maintained and increased prosperity in the Church, and made closer still the old alliance of France with the Papacy. Adrian ordered a prayer for king Charles to be entered in the Roman liturgy, which thenceforward was made for the Roman emperors, who succeeded him in his office of Protector of the Church.

The Pope, in taking leave of Charles, predicted to him, in the names of St. Peter and St. Paul, a quick and complete triumph over their common enemies, and the total conquest of the Lombard kingdom: “after which,” he said, “you will render to St. Peter the gift which you have promised him, and will receive in reward greater and more signal victories”.

And Adrian ordered that in all the monasteries, and the twenty-eight titular churches, and the seven deaconries of Rome, every day perpetual prayers should be offered for victory to the Franks.

Thus Charles left Rome, and returned to his camp before Pavia. By the first days of June, Verona had fallen, notwithstanding all the valour of the prince Adelchis, and Pavia had yielded. With the submission of the capital, the few remaining cities, and Lombard lords, accepted Charles for their king. Thus, in the course of ten months, from September, 773, to June, 774, Charles effected, with great good fortune and little effusion of blood, the most brilliant of his conquests. He placed a strong Frank garrison in Pavia, he sent his counts to govern the various cities and provinces: in which, however, the chief Lombard dukes were comprised. Charles did not change the constitution of the kingdom: he did not make it a province of France. He left its integrity and autonomy. He became himself king of the Lombards, as before he had been king of the Franks.

One of his first deeds was to restore to the Holy See all the cities and territories which, in his last years, Desiderius had invaded in the exarchate, the Pentapolis, or the duchy of Rome. He thus gave back to Pope Adrian full and pacific possession of the whole State of St. Peter, such as it was after the donation of Pipin. This was the chief, if not the sole, occasion of the war. It would be the first fruit of the victory. That he performed what he had promised is attested by his secretary, Eginhard: “Charles did not rest from the war which he had begun until he had restored to the Romans all which had been taken away from them. ‘The end of this war was the subjection of Italy: and the restitution to Adrian, ruler of the Roman Church, of the things which had been seized by the Lombard kings.’ ” Other contemporary annals of the year 774 say: “This year Pavia was surrendered to the Franks: and Desiderius was carried into France, and the lord king Charles sent his counts through all Italy: he joyfully restored to St. Peter the cities owed to him, and having arranged everything, came speedily into France”. His return filled France with triumph.

“The Lombards had been governed by their kings with good laws and exact justice, but they afterwards received better treatment under Charlemagne, a monarch who, in loftiness of mind, in power and rectitude of judgment, surpassed all Frank and Lombard kings.” But this encomium on the good laws and exact justice of the Lombards belongs only to their treatment of themselves, for the Romans looked with horror upon the ignominious servitude with which Aistulf and Desiderius threatened them. These kings sought to crown that semi-barbarous occupation of North Italy during two centuries by throning themselves in Rome, and making the Pope their vassal. Aistulf sank before Pipin, and Desiderius before Charles. The oppressors of the Pope were swept away: his champion and protector, Charles, went on henceforth from victory to victory.

That the transition of the lands secured to the Pope into the relation of vassals to a sovereign was a matter of time is explained by the insufficient material force at the command of the Pope, the love of independence in the population, their power to resist, and the general conditions of the time. Thus, from a letter of Adrian to Charles, in 787 or 788, we learn that he announced to the king how he had received the cities of Toscanella. Bagnorea, and Viterbo, and requested from him the tradition of Populania, and Rosella, near Piombino. Later, he shows him that he had not yet received them, though two messengers of Charles had been charged with their delivery. Thus it required fresh efforts on the part of the Franks, and fresh reminders on the part of the Pope, to obtain the complete execution of the gift. This does not show that Charles was unwilling to keep his word: but it does show the difficulty of the matter. It was a great undertaking to pacify the population in a number of cities, and to subject the great and the small proprietors in them to the papal lordship. Adrian had reason sometimes to express the wish to the king that it might be accomplished in their life-time. Sometimes Charles's own Commissioners were not trustworthy, were disinclined to the Pope, were liable to be corrupted or deceived, or made mistakes in executing their commission. In March, 781, Charles came again to Italy, celebrated Easter on the 15th of April at Rome, treated with the Pope, had his little son, Pipin, four years old, baptised, and made him, after the Pope had anointed him, king of the Lombards. The duchies of Spoleto and Benevento were to be vassal lands of the Pope. The distance of the latter from the Franks, the connection of the Duke Arichis with Desiderius, and the nearness to the Greeks, who occupied Gaicta, and other parts of Campania, caused special difficulties here. This gradual acquisition of the territories promised by Charles in 774 occupied a number of years; but in them Adrian had every reason to praise the good faith of Charles and the Franks.

From the time that all dependence on Constantinople was broken off, the sovereign authority of the Pope appears entire. In all dealings with Pipin and the Franks, in the compact of alliance at Quiersy, in the two peaces of Pavia, in 754 and 756, between the Franks, the Romans, and the Lombards, the Pope appears as the sole actor and supreme arbiter of Rome's fortunes. He alone confers on Pipin and his sons the dignity of Patriciate of the Romans, thereby binding him to an armed defence of Rome and its State. To the Pope alone Fulrad consigns at St. Peter's the keys and the hostages of the cities of the exarchate. The Pope covenants with Desiderius the conditions for his elevation to the Lombard throne; demands of him the surrender of the cities not yet restored: guards against the schemes of the Lombards and the Greeks to take away the sovereignty of the Holy See; treats with the king of the Franks to frustrate them. He continually sends his ambassadors into France, usually prelates, sometimes dukes and Roman magnates. The kings of France send to him their messengers; treat with him of all public affairs of Italy. The people of Spoleto, Reate, and elsewhere, when at the fall of Desiderius they voluntarily became subjects of the Roman State, swear fealty to St. Peter and the Pope. In a word, in all political acts, in all concerning the government and defence of the State, the Pope alone speaks and acts in his own name with supreme and independent authority. No representative of the Senate or Roman people is seen at his side, clothed with proper and distinct authority. On the contrary, in the very gravest questions of State, no decree of the Senate, no plebiscite, no form of citizen suffrage is so much as hinted at. This is inexplicable had Rome been governed as a republic, or if its citizens had had any part of sovereign authority.