Charlemagne, having assumed the iron crown of Lombardy, con firmed Pepin's donation to the Pope, who acknowledged him as patrician of Rome and his temporal superior. In the year 800 the sovereignty of Charlemagne over Rome was confirmed by Pope Leo Ill., who crowned him at Rome emperor of the West, with the title of Carolus I., Cmsar Augustus, a title which was acknowledged by Nicephorus, emperor of the East, who defined the limits between the two empires. Rome was nominally under the Carlovingian dynasty till 888.
In the year 887 Charles the Fat was solemnly deposed, and in hint ended the imperial dynasty of the Carlovingians. A long period of confusion followed, during which there were many claimants for tho throne of Italy. Otho of Saxony, king of the Germans, married Adelaide, widow of Lotharius, the late so-called king of Italy, at Pavia, and in the following year returned to Germany. He allowed Berengarius, who had succeeded Lotharius, to retain the crown of Italy as his vassal, after swearing fidelity to Otho in the presence of the court and army. Friuli and the March of Treviso were excepted, which Otho kept under his immediate dominion. Otho himself handed to Berengariue a sceptre of gold, in token of investiture. From this transaction arose the claims of the kings of Germany upon the kingdom of Italy. Otho soon after deposed Berengarius, and was himself elected king of Italy, and crowned in the church of St. Ambrose, at Milan, with the ancient crown and other insignia of the Longobard kings. He was immediately after crowned as emperor by Pope John XI I. He swore to reaped the authority of the Roman see, and not to encroach upon its temporal rights and possessions. He was acknowledged emperor, and his son as king of the Romans; bortouged to the Eastern empire, and thee. west of it to the Western siepira The earful% Rome and Constantinople, had each its senate, with equal privileges; but the bend of nnion between the two empires was weakeeed by the course of events, and they soon began to feel ;salon. of each other. The emperors of the Fast contrived to avert
the insadons of the barbarians, and to tarn their attention to the Weak which, being also more exposed to such invasions, was destined to fall first ; the Eastern empire. which had the advantage of a more favourable position for its capital, and had also greater means and Letter 'rude% prolonged Its existence for many centuries. And even after it had lost all its province., and was confined to a very narrow space. It nevertheless maintained itself in this wretched condition until the year 1453, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks under Mahauluse.1 11.
The re:lowing is a chronological list of the emperors of Rome :- but the Pope remained lord of the Roman duchy as a great imperial feudatory, as in the time of the Carlovingians. Rome, with the rest of Italy, paid nominal obedience to the emperors of Germany till ]278. Cardinal Orsini, being elected pope in 1277 by the name of Nicholas III, applied to Rudolph of Hapsburg, king of Germany, to define by a charter the States of the Church, and separate them for ever from those dependent on the empire. Rudolph defined by letters patent, dated May 1278, the States of the Church as extending from Radicofani to Ceprano on the frontiers of Naples, and from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, including the former duchy of Spoleto, the March of Am.-one, and the Romagna. He released the people of all those places from their oath of allegiance to the empire, giving up all rights over them which might still be settled in the imperial crown, and acknowledging the sovereignty of the same to belong to the see of Rome. This important document, which is found in Raynaldus Annales '), was confirmed by the electors and princes of the empire. Thus ended the former imperial authority over Rome and its territory; and the city and States of the Church have been ainoe under the tem poral government of the popes. [PAPAL STATER.