Representing the space of papal government at the time of Lothar I: the claim of fines Romani
From Firenze University Press Book: Carolingian Frontiers: Italy and Beyond
Maddalena Betti, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Reviving the question of the “political” borders of the territory subjected to papal authority during the years of the Emperor Lothar I means, first of all, dealing with highly debated and controversial historiographical issues. The subject of my essay is indeed a main part of the complex question of the origins of the “State of the Church” (Stato della Chiesa), familiar to Italian historians since the sixteenth century, an issue which emerges at regular intervals, provoking diverging interpretations1. We can legitimately refer to the “State of the Church” with complete certainty only from the pontificate of Innocent III onwards — on this point the consensus is unanimous. Everything else has been questioned, beginning with the legitimate definition of the “State of the Church” before the “State of the Church” (Patrimonium sancti Petri? Republic of Saint Peter? Terra sancti Petri?), and continuing with periodisation, which is the identification of the fundamental stages of a presumably linear and coherent process through which the popes would have assumed temporal power over a specific territory. In recent decades, if on the one hand the narrative of the origins of the “Papal State” proposed by Thomas Noble has in some respects been affirmed itself as the dominant account, on the other, epistemological and methodological critical aspects have been reasserted The legitimacy of the notion of “Papal State” itself before the twelfth or thirteenth century has been debated, and the idea of the papacy as an institutional reality with a stable identity, capable of broad, linear and enduring political programmes, has been disputed. On several occasions, we read of an overestimation of the pontiffs’ political capacity and of the stability of the Papal state formation. This is the opinion of Marios Costambeys, who more than others seems to have been able to seek new approaches, to investigate the sources differently and, hence, to attempt new reconstructions of the history of Central Italy, especially in the years of the Carolingian transition6. In particular, Costambeys emphasised the inadequacy of the Liber pontificalis, a source on which — in his opinion — the reconstruction of events up to the year 774 relies recklessly and excessively, and he reiterated that the Franco-papal agreements are not to be considered constitutional acts of political status (and thus defining papal borders) but rather the expression of the papal claims that had already emerged in the Liber pontificalis and papal letters. Instead, he focused on the records of the abbey of Farfa, emphasising how the trends of donations to the monastery, before and after the immunity granted by Charlemagne, actually allow us to understand the changes in the political balance of the border region of Sabina, and also to reflect more cautiously about the supposed papal territorial expansion in Sabina, a privileged area for its documentary richness but also for the stimulating contributions of Pierre Toubert that have enabled a prolific cycle of regional studies. Costambeys reassesses the idea of a papal territorial expansion in Sabina, supposedly developed during the pontificate of Hadrian I — with a real definition of the political border with a “Carolingianised” Duchy of Spoleto — and then curbed, from 817 onwards, due to the diplomas in favour of Farfa issued by the Emperor Louis the Pious. He rather assumes that individual pontiffs, especially Hadrian I, together with Roman families, acted as «“private” patron-proprietar(s)» towards Farfa through competing with the dukes of Spoleto and the local aristocracies to obtain additional property rights (but also public control of the territory) in Sabina. Here the drawback becomes apparent: the general ambiguity in the sources, firstly the papal ones, which bring together on the one hand the theme of restitutiones of patrimonies donated to the Roman Church, and then illegitimately usurped by new owners (Lombards?), and on the other territorial claims (with the configuration of borders). Are we facing a planned “patrimonial” or political expansion? Can we distinguish between these two types of expansion? And finally, how is this expansion managed (if at all), and on which territories? My essay stands at the margins of the major issues I have tried to outline in this brief introduction. Moreover, its purpose is not to define the borders of the territories governed by the popes in the first decades of the ninth century. The aim is rather to offer a reflection on how the territory claimed to be papal territory was represented during a specific period, namely the decades following the death of Charlemagne, with a focus on the years of the Emperor Lothar I (822–850). This reflection will be based, despite Costambeys’ warnings — though these refer to the decades before the advent of Lothar — on the papal biographies of the Liber pontificalis, which I have systematically investigated when taking part in the creation and implementation of the LaCPI database (Languages and Agents of Carolingian power in Italy), a prosopographical database created as part of the research activities promoted by the 2017 PRIN project Ruling in Hard Times. Patterns of power and practices of government in the making of Carolingian Italy. The biographies I found most useful for my purpose are those of Paschal I (817–824), Sergius II (844–847) and Leo IV (847–855).
DOI: 10.36253/979–12–215–0416–3.14
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