[800 A.D.]
Within the twelvemonth of the reinstatement of the pope, Charlemagne held a great diet of the realm at Mainz. “There,” says the annalist,[m] “he assembled his great nobles, his bishops, and his abbots all; and having reported to them that there was now peace in all his borders, he called to their minds the evils which the Romans had done to the apostolic Leo; and he set his face to go into the parts of Rome, and thither he accordingly proceeded.” This simple notice of the annalist of Moissac is the only passage in any original chronicle in which a motive for this fifth expedition of Charlemagne to Rome is assigned. The king arrived at the gates of the city on the 24th of November, 800, and was received by the pontiff under the porch of St. Peter’s church, outside the walls, with all due devotion and honour. Seven days afterwards a solemn assembly of the citizens was convoked, at which the king acquainted them with the cause of his visit.
His next proceeding is not very intelligible. He assembled, we are told, a solemn synod, still in the basilica of St. Peter, to inquire into the crimes imputed to the pope; but whether the old or fresh inculpations is not said. On this occasion the king and the pope sat beside each other, surrounded by the nobility, the bishops, and the abbots of France and Italy. The spiritual lords alone were seated; the inferior priests and the laity of all ranks remained standing. Proclamation was then made for the accusers to come forward and make their complaint; but no one answered to the call. It is not apparent why this formality should have been observed at all, inasmuch as the clergy had unanimously declared themselves incompetent to sit in judgment upon a pontiff of the holy see. The pope, however, intimated his intention to purge himself of all the offences laid to his charge in the form established in like cases by his predecessors. On the following day, therefore, he in full synod took the books of the Gospels in his hands, and upon them he solemnly protested his innocence; whereupon “the prelates and all the clergy burst simultaneously into a hymn of thanksgiving, devoutly praising God, the holy Virgin, St. Peter, and all the saints.”
Within the first month of the residence of Charlemagne in Rome nothing took place indicative of any ulterior purpose. During all that time the king had appeared to be absorbed in regulating the political affairs of the church and city. But on Christmas Day of the year 800, while he and the pope devoutly knelt together at the altar of St. Peter’s church, engaged in the preliminary prayer before mass, the pontiff, as if moved by a sudden impulse of inspiration, placed upon his head an elaborately wrought and very costly imperial crown. At the same time the people, as if prepared for the incident, simultaneously and as with one voice exclaimed, “Long life to Charles, augustus, the great and peace-giving emperor of the Romans, whom the hand of God hath crowned!” The salutation was twice repeated; after which, according to imperial custom, he was enthroned and anointed with holy oil, and worshipped by the pope. “Whereby,” says the annalist,[m] “he was unanimously constituted emperor; and dropping the title of patrician, he was thenceforth called ‘imperator augustus.’”
Whether the crown was placed on his head with or without his consent, the mode of conferring it was intended to imply that the king was a passive party, that he accepted it as a boon or gift at the hands of the pope without claim or pretence of right on his own part. The material crown itself was of papal procurement and fabrication; the act of coronation was that of the pontiff; he gave the crown, the Roman people ratified the act and proclaimed the emperor. The transaction bears the character of a joint act, in which Leo and the Romans performed the part of spontaneous electors and sovereign depositaries of imperial power. The adoration was a simple ceremony of recognition; it was unaccompanied with any new oath of allegiance; the rights of the new emperor still resting upon the oath of obedience to him as patrician. Ultimately the participation of the people was no doubt considered as wholly accessory to the papal decision; and the pope might well hold himself out to the world as the sole depositary and dispenser of imperial authority. Upon this ground, indeed, the papacy cast anchor, and for all future ages held on with amazing pertinacity and success.
[800-824 A.D.]
On the other hand, Charlemagne and his subjects did not concern themselves with any curious inquiry into the origin of the powers which the imperial crown brought along with it. Yet, in conformity with their general notion of government, they believed that Rome and her pontiff had taken upon them the relation of subjects to the emperor whom they had crowned and anointed. It is certain that Charlemagne regarded himself as the sovereign of Rome, if not of the pope; he was emperor in his own right as fully as if he had placed the crown upon his own head. In conformity with the opinion and practice of his age, he grounded that right upon possession. In the mind of the warrior there was no place for any other derivation of title; and Charlemagne and his successors took as little distinction between the possession and the sovereignty of Rome and its appurtenant territories as they did in the case of his newly acquired dominions in Germany, Lombardy, or Spain.
A few days after the coronation of Charlemagne, he directed the persons implicated in the plot of the preceding year against the life and government of the pope to be brought before him for judgment; and, as supreme judge, he condemned them to the death of traitors. This exercise of supreme criminal judicature indicates at least the assumption of a power understood in that age to be a distinguishing attribute of sovereign authority. The condemned criminals were indeed respited at the intercession of the pope, and their punishment was commuted for exile; but nothing occurred to indicate any jealous feeling on the part of the pontiff; and throughout the winter of the year 801 Charlemagne continued to exercise every prerogative of imperial power in Rome with as free a hand as when he set up his migratory throne upon the banks of the Seine, the Rhine, or the Elbe.
In the year 806 he executed a provisional settlement of the succession to his vast dominions among his then surviving sons. During the whole course of his life Charlemagne was anxious to invest his more important acts with the sanction of religion. The settlement of 806, though provisional only, was solemnly enacted and sworn to by his sons and the estates of the realm assembled in diet at Thionville; and was soon afterwards sent by the hand of the emperor’s secretary to Rome for the approval and signature of the pope—a step which lay open to a construction probably far beyond the intent of Charlemagne.[d]