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taine made war, could give away, in Italy, states which already belonged to the emperor, resident at Constantinople.

Thirdly. Pope Zacharias recognised the RomanGreek emperor for the sovereign of those lands, disputed by the Lombards, and had administered the oath to him; as may be seen by the letters of this bishop, Zacharias of Rome to bishop Boniface of Mayence. Pepin could not give to the pope the imperial territories.

Fourthly. When pope Stephen II. produced a letter from heaven, written in the hand of St. Peter, to Pepin, to complain of the grievances of the king of the Lombards, Astolphus, St. Peter does not mention in his letter that Pepin had made a present of the exarchate of Ravenna to the pope; and certainly St. Peter would not have failed to do so, even if the thing had been only equivocal: he understands his interest too well.

Finally, the deed of this donation has never been produced; and what is still stronger, the fabrication of a false one cannot be ventured. The only proofs are vague recitals, mixed up with fables. Instead of certainty, there are only the absurd writings of monks, copied from age to age, from one another.

The Italian advocate, who wrote in 1722 to prove that Parma and Placentia had been conceded to the holy see as a dependency of the exarchate,* asserts that the Greek emperors were justly despoiled of their rights, because they had excited the people against God. Can lawyers write thus in our days? Yes, it appears, but only at Rome. Cardinal Bellarmine goes still farther. "The first Christians," says he, supported the emperors only because they were not the strongest." The avowal is frank, and I am persuaded that Bellarmine is right.

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The Donation of Charlemagne.

At a time when the court of Rome believed itself deficient in titles, it pretended that Charlemagne had

* Page 120, second part.

confirmed the donation of the exarchate, and that he added to it Sicily, Venice, Benevento, Corsica, and Sardinia. But as Charlemagne did not possess any of these states, he could not give them away; and as to the town of Ravenna, it is very clear that he kept it, since in his will he made a legacy to his city of Ravenna as well as to his city of Rome. It is surprising enough that the popes have obtained Ravenna and Rome; but as to Venice, it is not likely that the diploma which granted them the sovereignty will be found in the palace of St. Mark.

All these acts, instruments, and diplomas, have been subjects of dispute for ages. But it is a confirmed opinion, says Giannoni, that martyr to truth, that all these pieces were forged in the time of Gregory VII.* "Ecostante opinione presso i più gravi scrittori che tutti questi istromenti e diplomi furono supposti nè tempi d'Ildebrando."

Donation of Benevento by the Emperor Henry III.

Leo IX.

The first well attested donation which was made to the see of Rome was that of Benevento, and that was an exchange of the emperor Henry III. with pope It only wanted one formality, which was, that the emperor, who gave away Benevento, was not the owner of it. It belonged to the dukes of Benevento, and the Roman-Greek emperors reclaimed their rights on this duchy. But history supplies little beyond a list of those who have accommodated themselves with the property of others.

Donation of the Countess Matilda.

The most authentic and considerable of these donations was that of all the possessions of the famous countess Matilda to Gregory VII. She was a young widow, who gave all to her spiritual director. It is supposed that the deed was twice executed, and afterwards confirmed by her will.

Book ix. chap. iii.

However, there still remains some difficulty. It was always believed at Rome that Matilda had given all her states, all her possessions, present and to come, to her friend Gregory VII. by a solemn deed in her castle of Canossa, in 1077, for the relief of her own soul and that of her parents. And to corroborate this precious instrument, a second is shown to us, dated in the year 1102, in which it is said, that it is to Rome that she made this donation; that she recalled it, and that she afterwards renews it; and always for the good of her soul.

How could so important a deed be recalled? Was the court of Rome so negligent? How could an instrument written at Canossa have been written at Rome? What do these contradictions mean? All that is clear is, that the souls of the receivers fared better than the soul of the giver, who to save it was. obliged to deprive herself of all she possessed in favour of her physicians.

In short, in 1102 a sovereign was deprived of the power of disposing of an acre of land; yet after this deed, and to the time of her death, in 1115, there are still found considerable donations of lands made by this same Matilda to canons and monks. She had not, therefore, given all. Finally, this deed was very likely made by some ingenious person after her death.

The court of Rome still includes among its titles the testament of Matilda, which confirmed her donations. The popes, however, never produce this tes

tament.

It should also be known whether this rich countess had the power to dispose of her possessions, which were most of them fiefs of the empire.

The emperor Henry V. her heir, possessed himself of all, and recognised neither testament, donation, deed, nor right. The popes, in temporising, gained more than the emperors in exerting their authority; and in time these Caesars became so weak, that the popes finally obtained the succession of Matilda, which is now called the patrimony of St. Peter.

Donation of the Sovereignty of Naples to the Popes.

The Norman gentlemen who were the first instruments of the conquest of Naples and Sicily, achieved the finest exploit of chivalry that was ever heard of. From forty to fifty men only delivered Salerno at the moment it was taken by an army of Saracens. Seven other Norman gentlemen, all brothers, sufficed to chase these same Saracens from all the country, and to take prisoner the Greek emperor, who had treated them ungratefully. It was very natural that the people, whom these heroes had inspired with valour, should be led to obey them through admiration and gratitude.

Such were the first rights to the crown of the two Sicilies. The bishops of Rome could no more give those states in fief than the kingdoms of Boutan or Cachemire.

They could not even grant the investiture which would have been demanded of them; for, in the time of the anarchy of the fiefs, when a lord would hold his free land as a fief for his protection, he could only address himself to the sovereign or the chief of the country in which it was situated. And certainly the pope was neither the sovereign of Naples, Apulia, nor Calabria.

Much has been written about this pretended vassalage, but the source has never been discovered. I dare say that it is as much the fault of the lawyers as of the theologians. Every one deduces from a received principle consequences the most favourable to himself or his party. But is the principle true? Is the first fact by which it is supported incontestible? It is this which should be well examined. It resembles our ancient romance-writers, who all take it for granted that Francus brought the helmet of Hector to France. This casque was impenetrable, no doubt; but had Hector really worn it? The holy Virgin's milk is also very respectable; but do the twenty sacristies, who boast of having a gill of it, really possess it?

Men of the present time, as wicked as foolish, do not shrink from the greatest crimes, and yet fear an

excommunication, which would render them execrable to people still more wicked and foolish than themselves.

Robert and Richard Guiscard, the conquerors of Apulia and Calabria, were excommunicated by pope Leo IX. They were declared vassals of the empire; but the emperor Henry III., discontented with these feudatory conquerors, engaged Leo IX. to launch the excommunication at the head of an army of Germans. The Normans, who did not fear these thunderbolts like the princes of Italy, beat the Germans, and took the pope prisoner. But to prevent the popes and emperors hereafter from coming to trouble them in their possessions, they offered their conquests to the church under the name of oblata. It was thus that England paid the Peter's pence; that the first kings of Spain and Portugal, on recovering their states from the Saracens, promised two pounds of gold a year to the church of Rome. But England, Spain, or Portugal, never regarded the pope as their sovereign master.

Duke Robert oblat of the church, was therefore no feudatory of the pope: he could not be so, since the popes were not the sovereigns of Rome. This city was then governed by its senate, and the bishop only possessed influence. The pope was, at Rome, precisely what the elector is at Cologne. There is a prodigious difference between the oblat of a saint and the feudatory of a bishop.

Baronius, in his Acts, relates the pretended homage done by Robert duke of Apulia and Calabria to Nicholas II.; but this deed is suspected like many others it has never been seen, it has never been found in any archives. Robert entitled himself duke by the grace of God and St. Peter; but certainly St. Peter had given him nothing, nor was that saint king of Rome.

The other popes, who were kings no more than St. Peter, received without difficulty the homage of all the princes who presented themselves to reign over Naples, particularly when these princes were the most powerful.

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