Donation of Constantine

J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia

Donation of Constantine, The.
None of the journalistic writers of Great Britain who are wont to illumine contemporary events with historical reminiscences ventured to recall the origin of the Pope's royal power in Italy or the corrupt administration of the Papal States [see] at the time of the Concordat with Mussolini, when the Vatican received a consolation prize of £18,000,000 for the loss of its territory. The first charter of this territory is one of the most fraudulent in history, and the preliminary developments are painful reading. Gregory I [see], a Pope of great piety and still greater business capacity, won the first extensive domains for the Papacy by persuading the rich that (as he believed) the end of the world was at hand. These scattered estates were lost in the dark age that followed, and the Lombards, who soon developed the best culture in Europe and despised Rome, settled in Central Italy. Pope Zachary (741-52) then secured a powerful patron by urging the majordomo of the Frank palace to seize the throne, and Zachary's successor, Stephen II, demanded that, in return, Pippin the Frank should conquer the Lombards for him. A curious document, the Fantuzzian Fragment, then appeared, describing how the Emperor Constantine had, when his outrages compelled him to leave Rome, given Central Italy (or most of it) to the Pope. When the Lombards recovered it, and Pippin refused to move, the Pope sent him a letter forged in the name of St. Peter—it may still be read (Migne Collection, Ep. V), and doubts about the intention to deceive the Frank are ridiculous—which brought Pippin hurriedly to Italy, and the Provinces were regained. While Rome, during the eighth century, was occupied with the murderous intrigues of its clerics and nobles, the Lombards again spread over Central Italy and created the finest and most cultivated cities in Europe (Florence, Pisa, etc.). Pope Hadrian, in 774, summoned Charlemagne to destroy their civilization, and at Rome, when he had done this, the Pope produced the document which is known as the Donation of Constantine, assigning Central Italy to the Popes. Charlemagne, a rough, sensual, and unlettered man (like all the Franks), endorsed it. The official Pontifical Chronicle describes the extent of territory, and the Pope quotes the forged Donation of Constantine—no one now claims it to have been genuine—in a letter (IX in Migne) to Charlemagne. A supporting document of the time, the Acts of St. Sylvester (the Pope to whom Constantine is supposed to have left the territory), is equally admitted to be a sheer forgery. The most thorough study is Prof. T. Lindner's Die sogenannten Schenkungen Pippins, Karls des Grossen, und Otto's I an die Päpste (1896). The appalling cost to Europe of the forgery and the corruption of the Papal rule will be discussed under Papal States.

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