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The Election of Pope Hadrian I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
It would be difficult to find an aspect of eighth-century papal history that has been more thoroughly studied than the early pontificate of Hadrian I (772–795). A host of scholars—among them Duchesne, Caspar, Kleinclausz, Kehr, Halphen and Hodgkin—have scrutinized each of the highly significant developments which unfolded between Hadrian's election on February 1, 772, and Charles the Great's assumption of the Lombard crown in June, 774: Hadrian's vigorous measures against the Roman supporters of the Lombard king, Desiderius (757–774); his appeal to Charles for Frankish military assistance to counter Desiderius' offensive in the papal duchy of Rome; and Hadrian's conference with Charles in Rome in April, 774, which resulted in Charles' donation of 774 and his subsequent deposition of Desiderius and installation of himself as rex Langobardorum.
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1968
References
1. Very brief and vague statements to this effect are found in Duchesne, L. M. O., The Beginnings of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, A.D. 757–1073, trans, Mathew, A. H. (London, 1908), p. 87Google Scholar; Hodgkin, Thomas, The Frankish Invasions, 744–774, Vol. VII of Italy and Her Invaders (Oxford, 1899), 343Google Scholar; and Mann, Horace K., The Popes Under Lombard Rule, 657–795, Vol. I, Pt. 2 of The Lives of the Popes in the Middle Ages (London, 1925), 399.Google Scholar I find nothing to sustain the tempting argument that Hadrian was a Lombard sympathizer prior to his election but changed his policy later.
2. Cf. Vita Stephani III in Liber Pontificalis, 2d ed., Vol. I, ed. Duchesne, (Paris, 1955), 474–480Google Scholar and Carolinus, Codex, ed. Gundlach, W. in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, Vol. I (Berlin, 1892), no. 48Google Scholar. Among the several secondary accounts of the Lombard coup the most complete and penetrating is Bertolini, Ottorino, “La caduta del primicerio Cristoforo (771) nelle versione dei contemporanei, e le correnti anti-longobarde e filiolongobarde in Roma alla fine del pontificato di Stefano III (771–772),” Revista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia, I (1947), 227–262 and 349–378Google Scholar. Cf. also Halphen, Louis, “La papauté et le complot lombard de 771,” Revue Historique, CLXXXII (1938), pp. 238–244.Google Scholar
3. Christopher and his son, Sergius, were high-ranking papal officials, the former being Stephen's primicerius and the latter his saccellarius or paymaster. Between 768 and 771 they held Stephen under their tutelage, but in the Lombard coup of 771 Christopher was murdered and Sergius was blinded and then imprisoned in a Lombard cell.
4. Vita Hadriani I in L. P., p. 489, 1. 12–20.
5. V. H., p. 486, 1. 25 — p. 487, 1. 2. Collectively these acts suggest that Afiarta himself was preparing to succeed the dying Stephen. It is more likely, however, that they were intended to consolidate Afiarta's position as the power behind the papal throne.
6. V. H., p. 486, 1. 22–24. “… dum de hac vita migraret … domus Stephanus papa, ilico, dum ferventissimo affectu a populo Romano diligeretur, isdem praeipuus ac sanctissimus vir et Dei cultor Hadrianus ad sacrum pontificatus electus est culmen.”
7. V. H., p. 486, 1. 25 – p. 487, 1. 2. “Hic namque in ipsa electionis suae die, confestim eadem hora qua electus est, reverti fecit iudices illos huius Romanae urbis, tam de clero quamque militia, qui in exilium ad transitum domni Stephani papae missi erant a Paulo cubiculario cognomento Afiarta et allis consentaneis impiis satellitibus; sed et relinquos qui in arta custodia mancipati ac retrusi erant absolvi fecit.”
8. The following account is taken directly from V. H., p. 486, 1. 1–21.
9. Duchesne, , L. P., p. 514, n. 1.Google Scholar
10. The office of consul et dux was Byzantine in origin, a civil and military position which made Theodotus “one of the principal personages of the city.” Kleinclausz, A., Charlemagne (Paris, 1934), p. 13Google Scholar. Cf. also Halphen, , “Note sur les consuls et ducs de Rome du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle,” Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, XXVI (1906), 67–77Google Scholar. The primicerius was a high-ranking papal official who served the Holy See as chief of the seven ecclesiastical notaries. Duchesne, , Beginnings of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, p. 63Google Scholar, A good survey of papal administration in the eighth century is Halphen, , Études sur l'administration de Rome au moyen-âge (751–1252) (Paris, 1907), pp. 38–44.Google Scholar
11. Hadrian sent him on a diplomatic mission to Desiderius. It has been suggested that Afiarta's selection was unwise. Kleinclausz, p. 14. Or it may be that Hadrian wished to negotiate seriously with Desiderius and thus sent him a proven friend. Duschesne, , Beginnings of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, p. 89.Google Scholar
12. Afiarta was arrested at Hadrian's command by the archbishop of Ravenna and was later executed by him. The papal biographer asserted that the pope made every effort to spare him. V. H., p. 490, 1. 18 – p. 491, 1. 25. I suspect, however, that the attempt was half-hearted in the hope that Afiarta could be disposed of in Raveana rather than Rome.
13. A severe Lombard attack was unleashed against the papal Exarchate of Ravenna in the spring of 772, about two months after Hadrian's accession. V. H., p. 488, 1. 1–11.
15. Shortly after the conclusion of the inquiry, Hadrian caused the bodies of Christopher and Sergius to be exhumed and reinterred with honor in the basilica of St. Peter, an act which was surely symbolic of his ascendency in Rome. V. H., p. 490, 1. 15–16.
16. In the summer of 772 Desiderius attacked papal towns in the Pentapolis and the duehy of Rome. V. H., p. 491, 1. 26–28.
17. Duchesne, , Beginnings of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, p. 70Google Scholar; and Homo, Léon, Rome médiévale, 476–1420 (Paris, 1956), p. 45.Google Scholar
18. Vita Stephani III, p. 468, 1. 10 – p. 469, 1. 6. For an excellent discussion of the Roman nobility and Constantine's usurpation see Bertolini, , Roma di fronte a Bisanzio e al Longobardi (Bologna, 1941), pp. 611–631.Google Scholar
19. Constantine's chief supporter, his brother, Toto, was killed. His clerics were blinded, deprived of their tongues or demoted in rank. Constantine himself was first humiliated and then blinded.
20. Duchesne's briefly stated view of the election is somewhat along these lines. “His supporters hoped, by electing him, to get out of difficulties, and to please both the Church and the nobility, by giving them a Pope who was at once a member of the ecclesiastical profession and of the aristocracy.” Beginnings of the Temporal Sovereignty of the Popes, p. 87.
21. The first letter from Hadrian to Charles contained in this collection was written in 774 and has no reference to either the election or the pope's career before 772.
22. In the neighborhood of fifty individuals figure in the Vitae and the letters. The Vita Stephani III, moreover, is in many respects the most complete papal biography of the eighth century.
23. This episode appears not in the Vita Stephani but rather in the Vita Hadriani, p. 487, 1. 9–23. The papal biographer places it in the context of Hadrian's negotiations with Desiderius which occurred shortly after the election.
24. It has been suggested that these acts were based upon an old papal custom of a general amnesty at the outset of each pontificate. Mann, pp. 399–400. Judging from the emphasis given to the episode by the papal biographer, however, it appears that Hadrian had much more than the exercise of custom in mind.
25. Vita Pauli I in L. P., p. 463, 1. 1–14.
26. A council held in Rome in 769 during the pontificate of Stephen III declared that henceforth only the Roman clergy should elect the pope. The laity, in particular the army and the nobles, were restricted to acclamation of the pope-elect. The decree is located in M. G. H., Concilia, Vol. II, no. 14, p. 86.Google Scholar On the council itself cf. Hefele, Karl J., Histoire des concilia d'après les documents originaux, Vol. III, Pt. 2 (Paris, 1910), 730–737.Google Scholar
27. Only infrequently, of course, do the papal Vitae contain more than a brief notice of the pontiff's election.
28. A prime example is the Vita Stephani III description of the Lombard coup of 771. It is unmatched in its obscurity and conflicts sharply with a second version of the same event found in C. C., no. 48. I suspect that the same devious treatment was applied in the Vita Hadriani account of Paul Afiarta's demise.
29. They had, for example, figured prominently in Stephen III's reprisals against Constantine II and Philip, . V. S., p. 471, 1. 16–26.Google Scholar
30. This was more or less the pattern of the usurpation effected by Constantine II in 767.
31. The aristocrats who supported Constantine II employed this tactic to enlist a semblance of clerical support for his elevation.