If from the West we extend our view to Charlemagne's effect on the East, we find the new order of things which his empire introduced, present him as the temporal head of the Christian faith in union with its spiritual head over against the powerless Byzantine emperor. The Pope had ceased to be a subject, and his word had set [pg 517] a Teuton sovereign on full equality with the power which had so grievously maltreated Italy during two hundred years. Never could he have taken such a step had he been still a vassal of the Greek court, which had not only tyrannised itself, but left the Apostolic See defenceless to the Lombard aggression for many generations. The emperor Zeno had made Odoacer Roman Patricius for the subjugation of Italy and of Rome itself. Stephen II. had made Pipin Patricius for its delivery and defence of the Holy See. Leo III. had exalted the Patricius to be emperor for fuller defence. No Roman noble or bandit could resist the power thus created. The Greek influence in Italy was all but extinguished; the Roman Church was protected from that violation of its rights, that plundering of its property, which Cæsar and Exarch had so often inflicted. For the patrimonies which the Isaurian had confiscated, the Roman See was thus in another form compensated. The Pope had received a domain in central Italy, and was in the possession of full independence. Over against that free life and mounting sap of the West, the East presented but an image of decay and stagnation.
Harun al Raschid was reigning as chalif at Bagdad when Charles was made emperor at Rome. His troops advanced to Ephesus and compelled the empress Irene to pay tribute during a four years' suspension of hostilities. Again and again had Moslem armies polluted the Christian cities from Antioch to the Bosphorus with every iniquity. In 726, they took possession of St. [pg 518] Basil's Cæsarea, in the year when the Isaurian was trying to force his Mohammedan hatred of images on Pope St. Gregory II., and seven years before he was stripping the Roman Church of its patrimony, and transferring ten provinces of the Papal patriarchate to the bishop of the eastern capital. From the death of Mohammed in 632 to the creation of Charles as emperor of the Romans in 800, was a time of scarcely interrupted disaster inflicted by the Saracen on the Christian through the East and the South. The outburst began as we have seen, by the betrayal of the faith on the part of Heraclius, the sole Roman emperor: Constans II., Leo III., and Kopronymus continued this betrayal. Mohammed waxed greater and greater through this whole period. The Christian successes consisted in not losing Constantinople, and in saving the south of France after the loss of Spain. In the reign of Harun al Raschid, that most terrible of destructions was at its greatest expansion and intensity. Then an emperor of the Romans was created by the Pope for the special defence of the Church. Exactly as Harun in his character of chalif was bound to lay waste and destroy the Christian Church and Faith, Charles was bound to watch over it. This was the tenure by which he held the empire, and his successors after him.[269] It was given, not for the glory and distinction of the wearer, but its true and proper significance lay in the fulfilment of the duties which the emperor was to discharge as protector of the Church. [pg 519] All imperial grandeur was an attribute of this duty. Exactly because the Greek emperor had not fulfilled this duty, the Pope undertook the renovation of the western Roman empire. It would be an entirely erroneous view of Leo's act to suppose that he could have done nothing else, that he must have made Charlemagne emperor, and by this single crowning bound himself and his successors to accept every succeeding emperor. Things in the East had come to that pass, but in the West the whole empire, in conception and in fact, was the Pope's work. The office thus created was a spiritual office, to which the spiritual head of Christendom should consecrate, anoint, and crown its temporal head. When there was a new king of the Franks, he was to come to Rome for consecration as emperor of the Romans: the Pope did not elect the new king, neither of the Franks then, nor of the Germans afterwards, but he, and he alone, invested the man chosen king with the title and power of the Roman emperor.
The chalifate, set up in the false pretension of succeeding a man whose whole claim to rule was founded on a falsehood, had become the most terrible despotism which human history had witnessed. It had taken possession of a very large part of what was Christian territory when it appeared in the world. Heraclius and his line trembled before it. At the time when a soldier of fortune closed seven revolutions at Byzantium Christian Spain was overwhelmed by it. And presently the Isaurian line helped its onward march [pg 520] by arrogating to itself that intrusion into spiritual government, which was the very basis of the chalifate. Then the action of Leo III., on Christmas Day, 800, created in the West a power adequate to resist the further advance of Mohammedan rule. As long continued dissension in the faith, decline in Christian morals, and an ever advancing despotism had given entrance to Saracen conquest, so from the very tomb of St. Peter, and at the voice of his Successor, arose that Christian king and Roman prince whom Pope Felix and his successors sought in vain from the heirs of Constantine. The vileness of oriental despotism was to meet in conflict Christian monarchy: the union of nations in the faith to give one spirit to the West: the flood which had almost overflowed the earth to stop before the Rock of Peter.
Index.
Abu Bekr, elected the first chalif, [118].
Adrian I., Pope, his accession and character, [441];
replies to the embassy of king Desiderius, [442];
his cities seized by Desiderius, [443];