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

by T. W. Allies

When Peter,[238] 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 [pg 447] the promises which he had formerly made with his father to St. Peter, and to fulfil the redemption of the holy Church of God[239] 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. [pg 448] 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”.[240] We may conclude that not only the siege of Pavia, but the settlement of the [pg 449] 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, [pg 450] 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,[241] 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 [pg 451] 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 [pg 452] 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.