A few days later, once more standing in St. Peter’s, Charlemagne affixed his seal to the donation Pepin had given to the Church. The document was entered amongst the papal archives; but it has long since disappeared, and with it exact information as to the territories concerned.
Donation of Constantine
About this time the papal court produced another document, the so-called ‘Donation of Constantine’, in which the first of the Christian emperors apparently granted to the Popes the western half of the Roman Empire. Centuries later this was proved to be a forgery, but for a long while people accepted it as genuine, and the power of the Popes was greatly increased. We do not know how much Charles believed in papal supremacy in temporal matters; but throughout his reign his attitude to the Pope over Italian affairs was rather that of master to servant than the reverse. It was only when spiritual questions were under discussion that he was prepared to yield as if to a higher authority.
When he had reduced Pavia Charlemagne left Lombardy to be ruled by one of his sons and returned to France; but it was not very long before he was called back to Italy, as fresh trouble had arisen there. The cause was the unpopularity of Pope Leo III in Rome and the surrounding country, where turbulent nobles rebelled as often as they could against the papal government. One day, as Leo was riding through the city at the head of a religious procession, a band of armed men rushed out from a side street, separated him from his attendants, dragged him from his horse, and beat him mercilessly, leaving him half dead. It was even said that they put out his eyes and cut off his tongue, but that these were later restored by a miracle.
Leo, at any rate, whole though shaken, succeeded in reaching Charlemagne’s presence, and the King was faced by the problem of going to Rome to restore order. Had it been merely a matter of exacting vengeance, he would have found little difficulty with his army of stalwart Franks behind him; but Leo’s enemies were not slow in bringing forward accusations against their victim that they claimed justified their assault. Charlemagne was thus in an awkward position, for he was too honest a ruler to refuse to hear both sides, and his respect for the papal office could not blind him to the possibility of evil in the acts of the person who held it, especially in the case of an ambitious statesman like Leo III.
He felt that it was his duty to sift the matter to the bottom; and yet by what law could the King of France or even of Italy put Christ’s vice-regent upon his trial and cross-examine him?
One way of dealing with this problem would have been to seek judgement at Constantinople as the seat of Empire, a final ‘appeal unto Caesar’ such as St. Paul had made in classical times: but, ever since Pepin the Short had given the Exarchate of Ravenna to the Pope instead of restoring it to Byzantine Emperors, relations with the East, never cordial, had grown more strained. Now they were at breaking point. The late Emperor, a mere boy, had been thrown into a dungeon and blinded by his mother, the Empress Irene, in order that she might usurp his throne; and the Western Empire recoiled from the idea of accepting such a woman as arbiter of their destinies.
Thus Charlemagne, forced to act on his own responsibility, examined the evidence laid before him and declared Leo innocent of the crimes of which he had been accused. In one sense it was a complete triumph for the Pope; but Leo was a clear-sighted statesman and knew that the power to which he had been restored rested on a weak foundation. The very fact that he had been compelled to appeal for justice to a temporal sovereign lowered the office that he held in the eyes of the world; and he possessed no guarantee that, once the Franks had left Rome, his enemies would not again attack him. Without a recognized champion, always ready to enforce her will, the Papacy remained at the mercy of those who chose to oppose or hinder her.
In the dramatic scene that took place in St. Peter’s Cathedral on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, Leo found a way out of his difficulties. Arrayed in gorgeous vestments, he said Mass before the High Altar, lit by a thousand candles hanging at the arched entrance to the chancel. In the half-gloom beyond knelt Charlemagne and his sons; and at the end of the service Leo, approaching them with a golden crown in his hands, placed it upon the King’s head. Instantly the congregation burst into the cry with which Roman emperors of old had been acclaimed at their accession. ‘To Charles Augustus, crowned of God, the great and pacific Emperor, long life and victory!’ ‘From that time’, says a Frankish chronicle, commenting on this scene, ‘there was no more a Roman Empire at Constantinople.’
Foundation of Western Empire