XLIX.

guage it has been tinged fince the time of Cæfar CHA P. and Tacitus. Between the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Alps, the fucceffors of Otho acquired a vain fupremacy over the broken kingdoms of Burgundy and Arles. In the north, Chriftianity was propagated by the fword of Otho, the conqueror and apoftle of the Slavic nations of the Elbe and Oder; the marches of Brandenburg and Slefwick were fortified with German colonies; and the king of Denmark, the dukes of Poland and Bohemia, confessed themselves his tributary vaffals. At the head of a victorious army, he paffed the Alps, fubdued the kingdom of Italy, delivered the pope, and for ever fixed the Imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany. From that memorable æra, two maxims of public jurifprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time. I. That the prince who was elected in the German diet, acquired from that inftant the fubject kingdoms of Italy and Rome. II. But that he might not legally affume the titles of emperor and Auguftus, till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman pontiff ".

The Imperial dignity of Charlemagne was announced to the East by the alteration of his ftyle; and instead of faluting his fathers, the Greek emperors, he prefumed to adopt the more equal

119 The power of custom forces me to number Conrad I. and Henry I. the Fowler, in the lift of emperors, a title which was never affumed by those kings of Germany. The Italians, Muratori for inftance, are more fcrupulous and correct, and only reckon the princes who have been crowned at Rome.

and

Tranfac western

tions of the

and Eaftern empires.

XLIX.

CHAP and familiar appellation of brother 120. Perhaps in his connection with Irene he afpired to the name of hufband: his embaffy to Conftantinople spoke the language of peace and friendship, and might conceal a treaty of marriage with that ambitious princefs, who had renounced the most facred duties of a mother. The nature, the duration, the probable confequences of fuch an union between two distant and diffonant empires, it is impoffible to conjecture; but the unanimous filence of the Latins may teach us to fufpect, that the report was invented by the enemies of Irene, to charge her with the guilt of betraying the church and ftate to the ftrangers of the Weft "". The French ambaffadors were the fpectators, and had nearly been the victims, of the confpiracy of Nicephorus, and the national hatred. Conftantinople was exafperated by the treafon and facrilege of ancient Rome: a proverb, "That the Franks were good friends and "bad neighbours," was in every one's mouth; but it was dangerous to provoke a neighbour who might be tempted to reiterate, in the church of St. Sophia, the ceremony of his Imperial coronation. After a tedious journey of circuit and delay, the

121

120 Invidiam tamen suscepti nominis (C. P. imperatoribus super hoc indignantibus magnâ tulit patientiâ, vicitque eorum contumaciam... mittendo ad eos crebras legationes, et in epiftolis fratres eos appellando. Eginhard c. 28. p. 128.). Perhaps it was on their account that, like Auguftus, he affected fome reluctance to receive the empire.

121 Theophanes fpeaks of the coronation and unction of Charles, Kafehog (Chronograph. p. 399.), and of his treaty of marriage with Irene (p. 402.), which is unknown to the Latins. Gaillard relates his tranfactions with the Greek empire (tom. ii. p. 446—463.).

5

ambaf

422

CHAP.

ambaffadors of Nicephorus found him in his camp, XLIX. on the banks of the river Sala; and Charlemagne affected to confound their vanity by difplaying, in a Franconian village, the pomp, or at least the pride of the Byzantine palace 122. The Greeks were fucceffively led through four halls of audi ́ence in the first they were ready to fall proftrate before a fplendid perfonage in a chair of state, till he informed them that he was only a fervant, the constable, or master of the horse of the emperor. The fame mistake, and the fame anfwer, were repeated in the apartments of the count palatine, the steward, and the chamberlain; and their impatience was gradually heightened, till the doors of the prefence chamber were thrown open, and 'they beheld, the genuine monarch, on his throne, enriched with the foreign luxury which he defpifed, and encircled with the love and reverence of his victorious chiefs. A treaty of peace and alliance was concluded between the two empires, and the limits of the Eaft and Weft were defined by the right of prefent poffeffion. But the Greeks 28 foon forgot this humiliating equality, or remembered it only to hate the Barbarians by whom it was extorted. During the short union of virtue and power,

122 Gaillard very properly observes, that this pageant was a farce fuitable to children only; but that it was indeed reprefented in the prefence, and for the benefit, of children of a larger growth.

123 Compare, in the original texts collected by Pagi (tom. iii. A. D. 812, No 7. A. D. 824, No 10, &c.), the contraft of Charlemagne and his fon: to the former the ambaffadors of Michael (who were indeed difavowed) móre fuo, id eft linguâ Græcâ laudes dixerunt, imperatorem eum et Buσiλ appellantes; to the latter, Vocaro imperatori Francorum, &c.

VOL. IX.

they

CHAP. they respectfully faluted the august Charlemagne XLIX. with the acclamations of bafileus, and emperor of

the Romans. As foon as these qualities were separated in the person of his pious fon, the Byzantine letters were infcribed, " To the king, or, as "he styles himself, the emperor of the Franks and "Lombards." When both, power and virtue were extinct, they defpoiled Lewis the fecond of his hereditary title, and, with the barbarous appellation of rex or rega, degraded him among the crowd of Latin princes. His reply is expreffive of

124

his weakness: he proves, with fome learning, that both in facred and profane hiftory, the name of king is fynonimous with the Greek word bafileus: if, at Constantinople, it were affumed in a more exclufive and imperial fenfe, he claims from his ancestors, and from the pope, a juft participation of the honours of the Roman purple. The fame controverfy was revived in the reign of the Othos; and their ambaffador defcribes, in lively colours, the infolence of the Byzantine court "25. The Greeks affected to despise the poverty and ignorance of the Franks and Saxons; and in their last decline,

124 See the epiftle, in Paralipomena, of the anonymous writer of Salerno (Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars ii. p. 243-254. C. 93—107.), whom Baronius (A. D. 871, No 51-71.) mistook for Erchempert, when he tranferibed it in his Annals.

125 Ipfe enim vos, non imperatorem, id eft Baσıλ:a fuâ linguâ sed ob indignationem Pnyw, id eft regem noftrâ vocabat (Liutprand, in Legat. in Script. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 479.). The pope had exhorted Nicephorus, emperor of the Greeks, to make peace with Otho, the august emperor of the Romans-quæ infcriptio fecundum Græcos peccatria et temeraria . . . . . imperatorem inquiunt, univerfalem, Romanorum, Auguftum, magnum, folum, Nicephorum (p. 486.).

refufed

XLIX.

refused to prostitute to the kings of Germany the CHAP. title of Roman emperors.

of the emperors in

the electhe popes, -1060.

tions of

A. D. 800

These emperors, in the election of the popes, Authority continued to exercise the powers which had been affumed by the Gothic and Grecian princes; and the importance of this prerogative increased with the temporal estate and spiritual jurifdiction of the Roman church. In the Chriftian aristocracy, the principal members of the clergy ftill formed a fenate to affist the administration, and to fupply the vacancy of the bishop. Rome was divided into twenty-eight parishes, and each parish was governed by a cardinal-prieft, or prefbyter, a title which, however common and modest in its origin, has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their number was enlarged by the affociation of the feven deacons of the moft confiderable hofpitals, the feven palatine judges of the Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This ecclefiaftical fenate was directed by the feven cardinal-bishops of the Roman province, who were lefs occupied in the fuburb diocefes of Oftia, Porto, Velitræ, Tufculum, Prænefte, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their weekly service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the honours and authority of the apoftolic fee. On the death of the pope, these bishops recommended a fucceffor to the fuffrage of the college of cardinals 126, and their choice was

ratified

126 The origin and progress of the title of cardinal may be found in Thomaffin (Difcipline de l'Eglife, tom. i. p. 1261-1298.), Murátori (Antiquitat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. vi. differt, lxi. p. 159-182.), and Mofheim (Inftitut.