Solte ich den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min,
So spræche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din,
Ir zunge sünge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin,
Gedæhten daz ouch si dur Got wæren almuosenære.
Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin,
Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik wære,
So het er wol underkomen des riches swære,
Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete lære.
Hagen, Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, 1838, bd. i. p. 270.
Ariosto, in a passage rollicking with satire, makes his itinerant paladin find the "stinking" Donation in the course of his journey upon the moon:—
Di varii fiori ad un gran monte passa,
Ch' ebber già buono odore, or puzzan forte,
Questo era il dono, se però dir lece,
Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.
Orlando Furioso, xxxiv. 80.
The Donation was finally proved to be a forgery by Laurentius Valla in 1440, in his De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione declamatio (afterward spread far and wide by Ulrich von Hutten), and independently by the noble Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, in his Repressor, written about 1447.—During the preceding century the theory of Gregory VII. and Innocent IV. had been carried to its uttermost extreme by the Franciscan monk Alvaro Pelayo, in his De Planctu Ecclesiæ, written at Avignon during the "Babylonish Captivity," about 1350 (printed at Venice in 1560), and by Agostino Trionfi, in his Summa de potestate ecclesiastica, Augsburg, 1473, an excessively rare book, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. These writers maintained that the popes were suzerains of the whole earth and had absolute power to dispose not only of all Christian kingdoms, but also of all heathen lands and powers. It was upon this theory that Eugenius IV. seems to have acted with reference to Portugal and Alexander VI. with reference to Spain. Of course there was never a time when such claims for the papacy were not denied by a large party within the Church. The Spanish sovereigns in appealing to Alexander VI. took care to hint that some of their advisers regarded them as already entitled to enjoy the fruits of their discoveries, even before obtaining the papal permission, but they did not choose to act upon that opinion (Herrera, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 4). The kings of Portugal were less reserved in their submission. In Valasci Ferdinandi ad Innocentium octauum de obedientia oratio, a small quarto printed at Rome about 1488, John II. did homage to the pope for the countries just discovered by Bartholomew Dias. His successor Emanuel did the same after the voyages of Gama and Vespucius. In a small quarto, Obedientia potentissimi Emanuelis Lusitaniæ regis &c. per clarissimum juris consultum Dieghum Pacettū oratorem ad Iuliū Pont. Max., Rome, 1505, all the newly found lands are laid at the feet of Julius II. in a passage that ends with words worth noting: "Accipe tandem orbem ipsum terrarum, Deus enim noster es," i. e. "Accept in fine the earth itself, for thou art our God." Similar homage was rendered to Leo X. in 1513, on account of Albuquerque's conquests in Asia.—We may suspect that if the papacy had retained, at the end of the fifteenth century, anything like the overshadowing power which it possessed at the end of the twelfth, the kings of Portugal would not have been quite so unstinted in their homage. As it came to be less of a reality and more of a flourish of words, it cost less to offer it. Among some modern Catholics I have observed a disposition to imagine that in the famous bull of partition Alexander VI. acted not as supreme pontiff but merely as an arbiter, in the modern sense, between the crowns of Spain and Portugal; but such an interpretation is hardly compatible with Alexander's own words. An arbiter, as such, does not make awards by virtue of "the authority of Omnipotent God granted to us in St. Peter, and of the Vicarship of Jesus Christ which we administer upon the earth."
Since writing this note my attention has been called to Dr. Ignaz von Döllinger's Fables respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, London, 1871; and I find in it a chapter on the Donation of Constantine, in which the subject is treated with a wealth of learning. Some of my brief references are there discussed at considerable length. To the references to Dante there is added a still more striking passage, where Constantine is admitted into Heaven in spite of his Donation (Paradiso, xx. 55).[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 547: The language of the bull is even more vague than my version in the text. His Holiness describes the lands to be given to the Spaniards as lying "to the west and south" (versus occidentem et meridiem) of his dividing meridian. Land to the south of a meridian would be in a queer position! Probably it was meant to say that the Spaniards, once west of the papal meridian, might go south as well as north. For the king of Portugal had suggested that they ought to confine themselves to northern waters.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 548: For the original Spanish text of the treaty of Tordesillas, see Navarrete, tom. ii. pp. 116-130.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 549: See below, vol. ii. pp. 98-154.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 550: History of the Spanish Conquest, vol. i. p. 487.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 551: Irving calls him a Benedictine, but he is addressed as "fratri ordinis Minorum" in the bull clothing him with apostolic authority in the Indies, June 25, 1493. See Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici, tom. xi. p. 216. I cannot imagine what M. Harrisse means by calling him "religieux de Saint-Vincent de Paule" (Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. p. 55). Vincent de Paul was not born till 1576.[Back to Main Text]