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this was the second kingdom which fell before the little horn.

[1]In the year 796 Leo III being made Pope, notified his election to Charles the great by his Legates, sending him for a present the golden keys of the Confession of St Peter & the banner of the city of Rome: the first as an acknowledgment of the Popes holding the cities of the Exarchate & Lombardy by the grant of Charles, the other as a signification that Charles should come & subdue the Council & people of Rome as he had done the Exarchate & the kingdome of the Lombards. For the Pope at the same time desired Charles to send some of his Princes to Rome who might subject the Roman people to him & bind them by oath in fide & subjectione in fealty & subjection, as his words are recited by Sigonius. An anonymous poet published by Boeclerus at Strasburg expresses it thus:

Admonuitque pijs præcibus, qui mittere vellet

Ex proprijs aliquos primoribus ac sibi plebem

Subdere Romanam, servandaque fœdera cogens

Hanc fidei sacramentis promittere magnis.

Hence arose a misunderstanding between the Pope & the City And about two or three years after, the Romans by the assistance of some of the Clergy, raised so great tumults against him as gave occasion to a new state of things in all the west. ffor two of the Clergy accused him of certain crimes & by an armed force of the Romans seized him stript him of his sacerdotal habit & imprisoned him in a monastery. But by assistance of his friends he made his escape & fled into Germany to Charles the great, & complained of the Romans for acting against him out of a designe of throwing of all authority of the Church & recovering their ancient freedom. And in his absence his accusers with an armed force ravaged the possessions of the Church, & sent the accusations to Charles. And before the end of the year Charles sent the Pope back to Rome with a large retinue. And the Nobles & bishops of France who accompanied him, examined the Chief of the accusers at Rome & sent them into France in custody. This was in the year 799, & the next year Charles himself went to Rome & upon a day appointed presided in a Council of Italian & ffrench Bishops to hear both parties. But when the Pope's adversaries expected to be heard, [2]the Council declared that he who was the supreme judge of all men was above being judged by any other then himself. And thereupon the Pope made a solemn declaration of his innocence before all the people, & by doing so was looked upon as acquitted.

A few days after when Christmas day arrived, the people of Rome who had hitherto elected their Bishop & recconed that they & their Senate inherited the rights of the ancient Senate & people of Rome , voted Charles their Emperor, & subjected themselves to him in such a manner as the old Roman Empire & their senate were subject to the old Roman Emperors. And the Pope crowned him & annointed him with holy oyle & worshipped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old Roman Emperors, as the aforesaid Poet thus mentions.

Post laudes igitur victus & summus eundem

Præsul adoravit, sicut mos debitus olim

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Principibus fuit antiquis.

And the Emperor mutually took the following oath to the Pope. In nomine Christi spondeo atque polliceor Ego Carolus Imperator coram Deo & beato Petro Apostolo me protectorem ac defensorem fore hujus sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ in omnibus utilitatibus quatenus divino fultus fuero adjutorio prout sciero po{t}eroque. The Emperor was also made Consul of Rome & his son Pipin was crowned king of Italy. And henceforward the Emperor stiled himself Carolus serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus, pacificus, Romæ gubernans Imperium, or Imperator Romanorum, & was prayed for in the Churches of Rome. And the enemies of the Pope to the number of 300 noble Romans & two or three of the Clergy were sentenced to death: & the 300 Romans were beheaded in one day in the Lateran field, but the Clergy at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned & banished into France. And thus the right of the Roman Emperors which had hitherto been in the Greek Emperors was by this act translated to the kings of France.

[3]After these things Charles gave the City & Dutchy of Rome to the Pope subordinately to himself as Emperor of the Romans & spent the Winter in ordering the affairs of Rome & of the Apostolick See & all Italy both civil & ecclesiastical, & in making new laws for them, & leaving the City under its Senate & both under the Pope returned the next summer into France. And hearing that his new laws were not observed by the Iudges in dictating the law nor by the people in hearing it, & that the great men took servants from free men & from the Churches & Monasteries to labour in their vinyards fields pastures & houses, & continued to exact cattel & wine of them & to oppress those that served the Churches: he wrote to his son Pipin to remedy these abuses take care of the Church & see that his laws be executed. It is observable also that the custome of kissing the Popes feet began about this time. There are some instances of it in the ninth century. Platina tells us that the feet of Pope Leo IIII were kissed according to ancient custome by all that came to him & some say that Leo III began this custome pretending that his hand was infected by the kiss of a woman.

Now the Senate & people of Rome I take to be the third king which was overcome by the little horn. For the old Roman Empire was a king in the sense of Daniels prophesies, as well when it was in the form of a common wealth under its senate as when it was reduced to a monarchical form of government under its Emperors. This people elected the Pope & the Emperor & by electing the Emperor was acknowledged to be the remainder of the old Roman Empire & by consequence a little Empire, the Empire of the Romans in whose name the fourth Beast of Daniel still continued & of which Charles was made Emperor. Rome was to be the metropolis of the little horn & therefore its Dutchy was to be conquered by him. And the victory of the little horn over this king was attended with greater consequences then those over the other two kings & finished the work which those victories began. ffor it set up the western empire which continues to this day. It completed & secured Peter's patrimony to <3r> the Pope: which patrimony was the kingdom of the little horn: & it set up the Pope above all humane judicature & gave him the supremacy & a look more stout then his fellows. When the Pope in favour of the worship of images revolted from the Greek Emperor & began to set up for himself; in rising up he overcame these three Kings who stood in his way & opposed him & by overcoming them he rose up & acquired a temporal kingdom composed of the three conquests & thereby became a horn of the Beast. And in token that he is a king as well as a bishop he wears the crowns of three kingdoms upon his head in form of a triple crown, & carries the keys of the cities of the two first kingdoms in his hand. And being exalted above kings & declared by a Council above all humane judicature & the supreme judge of all men, he has reigned ever since with a peculiar soul & a look more stout then his fellows, & by setting up the worship of images, the abomination of desolation, he has changed times, & laws, which after his rising up & becoming potent by rooting up three of the first horns were to be given into his hands for a time & times & half a time

His kingdom they call Peters patrimony because given by Pipin & Charles the great to St Peter. And for the same reason the keys of the cities of his kingdom they call St Peters keys, they being offered to St Peter upon his Confession or Altar. But some turning history into an allegory tell us that the keys represent the power of binding & loosing & are the keys of heaven & that the three crowns relate to heaven earth & hell as if the Pope was crowned king of those three regions. These are whimsies which I need not stay to confute Others come nearer to the truth, who tell us that the crowns denote the Pontifical Imperial & Royal power of the Pope . One of his crowns was given him by Clodovæus king of the Franks as above. This Crown has no relation to the Exarchate or kingdom of Lombardy. It was given him as Pope of Rome: & after his subduing that city he deserved to wear it as its king. The other two crowns came to him with the two golden keys upon the conquest of the exarchate & kingdom of Lombardy, tho it was some time before he began to wear them.

In a small book printed at Paris 1689 & entituled &c < insertion from f 3v > In a small book printed at Paris 1689, & entituled, An historical dissertation upon some coins of Charles the great, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius & their succesors stamped at Rome, there is a draught of a piece of Mosaic work which Leo the third caused to be made in his Palace neare the church of Iohn Lateran, in memory of his sending the standard or banner of the city of Rome curiously wrought to Charles the great, & which still remained there at the publishing of the said Book. In this mosaick work there appears Peter with three keys in his lap, reaching the Pallium to the Pope with his right hand & the banner of the city to Charles the great with his left. By the Pope is this inscription SCSSIMVS D. N. LEO PP; by the king this D. N. CARVLO REGI; & under the feet of Peter this, BEATE PETRE DONA VITAM LEONI PP, ET VICTORIAM CAROLO REGI DONA. By the inscriptions it appears that this piece of mosaic work was made before Charles was Emperor, suppose in the year 796 or 797. The three keys in the lap of Peter signify the keys of the three parts of his Patrimony, vizt of Rome with its Dutchy, of Ravenna with the Exarchate & of the territories taken from the Lombards. These were the three Dominions whose keys were in the lap of Peter & whose crowns are still worn by the Pope.[4]

< text from f 3r resumes >

After the death of Charles the great, his son & successor Ludovicus Pius at the request of the Pope a[5] confirmed the donations of his grandfather & father to the sea of Rome. And in this Confirmation he names first Rome with its Dutchy extending into Tuscia & Campania, then the Exarchate of Ravenna with Pentapolis & in the third place the territories taken from the Lombards. These are his three conquests, & he was to hold them of the Emperor for the use of the Church sub integritate intirely without the Emperors intermedling therewith or with the jurisdiction or power of the Pope therein unless called thereunto in certain cases. This ratification the Emperor made in writing under an oath. And as the king of the Ostro-goths for acknowledging that he held his kingdom of Italy of the Greek Emperor stamped the Emperors effigies on one side of his coins & his own on the Reverse: so the Pope made the like acknowledgment to the western Emperor. ffor the Pope began now to coin money & the coins of Rome are henceforward found with the head of the Emperors (Charles, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius, Ludovicus II &c) on one side & the Popes on the reverse for many years.

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the history to his own times. He was a ready scribe in the Law of God, & for assisting him in this work Neemias founded a library, & gathered together the Acts of the kings & the Prophets & of David & the Epistles of the Kings concerning the holy gifts 2 Maccab. 2.13. And hence it is that in the books of the Kings & Chronicles, the book of Samuel the Seer, the book of Nathan the Prophet, & the book of Gad the Seer are cited for the Acts of David; the book of the Acts of Solomon, the book of Nathan the Prophet, the Prophesy of Ahijah the Shilonite, & the visions of Iddo the Seer for the acts of Solomon; the book of Shemaiah the Prophet, & the book of Iddo the Seer concerning genealogies for the acts of Rehoboam & Abijah; the book of Iehu the son of Hananai the Seer for the acts of Iehosaphat; the visions of Isaiah for the acts of Vzziah & Hezekiah, &c. Out of these & other ancient Records collected by Nehemias, the books of Samuel Kings & Chronicles were composed by Ezra; & in doing this he joyned those Records together in due order of time, copying the very words of the authors, as is manifest from hence that the books of the kings & Chronicles frequently agree with one another in words for many sentences together. Where they agree in sense there they agree in words.

In these books & the books of Nehemiah & Esther, We have the history & chronology of the people of Israel down to the times of Ezra & Nehemiah: which times are fully stated by Eclipses of the Sun & Moon mentioned by Thucydides & Ptolomy. But the Records of other nations written before thosetimes being all of them lost, it is very difficult to give a true account of the ancient affairs of those nations, & the best way to come to any certainty therein, is to begin with the later times where history & chronology is certain, & reccon upwards as high as we can proceed by any good arguments. But first it will be requisite to say something of the years & months of the ancient nations.

[1] Sigon. de Regn. Ital. ad An 796.

[2] Vide Anastasium.

[3] Sigon de Regn. Ital.

[4] Vide Actorum Expedit. Suppl. Tom. 2. Sect. 1 p. 37, 38.

[5] a Confirmationem recitat Sigonius lib. 4 de Regno Italiæ, ad Ann. 817.

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Professor Rob Iliffe
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