Ravenna, a Study

by Edward Hutton

[Footnote 1: Cf. Hodgkin, op, cit. vii. p. 217.]

Pepin marched on; Pavia was besieged, Aistulf was beaten to the dust. A treaty was drawn up in which the Lombard gave to "S. Peter, the Holy Roman Church, and all the popes of the Apostolic See forever" the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, and Comacchio. An officer was commissioned to receive the submission of every city, and their keys and the deed of Pepin's donation were placed upon the tomb of S. Peter in Rome. The papal state was founded; where the empire had ruled so long there appeared the heir of the empire, the papacy "sitting crowned upon the grave thereof."

The cities that with their contadi and dependencies thus formed the temporal dominion of the pope were, according to the papal biographer, twenty-three in number; Ravenna first and foremost, then Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia (but not Ancona) that had formed the old Pentapolis. To them was added La Cattolica. The whole of the inland Pentapolis—though Fossombrone is not mentioned—Urbino, Jesi, Cagli, Gubbio—passed to the pope as well as the following places: Cesena and the Mons Lucatium, Forlimpopoli, Forli, Castro, Caro, S. Leo, Arcevia, Serra dei Conti, the Republic of S. Marino, Sarsina, and Cantiano together with Comacchio and Narni. A few months after all this was accomplished, in December 756, Aistulf, "that follower of the devil," as the pope called him, died.

Every state that is nearing dissolution is the prey of civil discord. So it was with the Lombards. Ratchis, who had more than seven years before become a monk, claimed the throne; so did Desiderius, "mildest of men." Pope Stephen supported the latter on condition that Ancona, that last city of the Pentapolis, Osimo which dominated it, and Umana, together with Faenza, Imola, and Ferrara, were "restored" to the papacy. Desiderius agreed and became king, but failed, as the Lombards always failed, to keep his promise, for though he handed over Faenza, Bagnacavallo, and Gavello, he withheld Imola, Bologna, Ancona, Osimo, and Umana; this was in 757, the year of Stephen's death.

In the same year Pope Paul I. seems to have visited the chief city of his new state, Ravenna, mainly perhaps on ecclesiastical business, for the archbishop Sergius was by no means a loyal subject and had only been brought to heel when nothing but submission was left open to him. He had then, according to Agnellus, promised to deliver to the pope all the "gold, silver, vessels of price, hoards of money," and so forth stored up in Ravenna. Agnellus tells a long and incoherent tale of the way the pope obtained this treasure and of certain plots to murder him therefor. All that seems fairly certain is that in the first year of his reign pope Paul I. visited Ravenna. Indeed the chief difficulty of the papacy at this time must have been the occupation of the state it had won so consummately. How were the popes to make good their somewhat shadowy hold upon Ravenna, and the Pentapolis, and those other strongholds in central Italy and Aemilia?

That they were not to hold them easily was soon evident. The empire was plotting to win Pepin to its side, and when that failed again, rumours of an imperial invasion reached Rome. Politically all relations ceased between Constantinople and Rome about this time; for though the pope in reality had long ceased to be a subject of the emperor, when he had possessed himself of the exarchate even theory had to give way to fact. Nor was the papacy more fortunate in its relations with Desiderius. The pope's object was doubtless to keep the Lombard kingdom weak, if not to destroy it. The first step to that end was obviously to encourage the achievement of a real independence by the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, which, again, bordering as they did upon the duchy of Rome, would be easier to deal with if they stood alone. There can be little doubt that the pope fostered the sleepless disaffection of the dukes, but when their revolt matured Desiderius was able to crush it, laying waste the Pentapolis on his way. He was then wise enough to visit Rome and to arrange a peace which was only once broken during pope Paul's pontificate: in 761 when Desiderius attacked Sinigaglia.

It was easier, however, for the pope to arrange successfully a foreign policy than to administer his new state. No machinery existed for the secular government by the Holy See of a country so considerable; nor was this easy to invent. The pope was forced to fall back upon his representative in Ravenna, namely, the archbishop. Now the archbishops of Ravenna had always been lacking in loyalty. Ravenna and the exarchate were governed in the name of the pope by the archbishop, assisted by three tribunes who were elected by the people. This government was never very successful, for at every opportunity, and especially after the resurrection of the empire in the West, the archbishops were eager to consider themselves as feudatories of the empire. This was natural and it may be worth while briefly to inquire why.

Because Ravenna had for so long, ever since the year 404, been the seat of the empire in Italy, the bishops of that city had acquired extraordinary privileges and even a unique position among the bishops of the West. As early as the time of Galla Placidia, the bishop of Ravenna had obtained from the Augusta the title and rights of metropolitan of the fourteen cities of Aemilia and Flaminia. It is true that the bishop continued to be confirmed and consecrated by the pope—S. Peter Chrysologus was so confirmed and consecrated—but the presence of the imperial court and later of the exarch encouraged in the minds of the bishops a sense of their unique importance and a certain spirit of independence in regard to Rome. Of course the Holy See was not prepared to cede any of its rights; but the spirit of disloyalty remained, and presently the bishop of Ravenna at the time of his consecration was forced to sign a declaration of loyalty, in which was set forth his chief duties and a definition of his rights.

After the Byzantine conquest the church of Ravenna, which the empire regarded as a bulwark against the papal claims, received important privileges and its importance in the ecclesiastical hierarchy was greatly increased. Like the bishop of Rome, the bishop of Ravenna had a special envoy at Constantinople and was represented, again like Rome, in a special manner in the councils of the Orient. In religions ceremonies the bishops of Ravenna took a place immediately behind the pope, and in ecclesiastical assemblies they sat at the right hand of the pontiff. There can be little doubt indeed of the Erastianism of Justinian nor of his encouragement of the bishop of Ravenna.

The declaration that the bishops were forced to sign upon their consecration by the pope by no means settled matters. In 648 this declaration itself was in dispute as to its interpretation, for Constans II. had conferred upon the See of Ravenna the privilege of autonomy, and at this time the bishop did not go to Rome for consecration. The Iconoclastic heresy of Constantinople, however, indirectly brought about peace between the pope and his suffragan, for Ravenna was in this whole heartedly Roman.