The earliest point at which we can clearly discern the existence of a well-developed ma chinery of Papal power is in the administration of Leo I. (440-461). He grasped, as none of his predecessors had done, the vast range of his opportunity. He aimed to establish, both in the East and in the West, a system of Papal vicariates through which the Roman jurisdiction could be enforced and the Roman forms of faith and practice maintained. Eastward from the Adriatic his success was only partial and tem porary. The pressure of Greek Christianity backed by the forces of the Greek Empire was too great, and we may from this point practical ly dismiss the East from our view. At the Court cif of Chalcedon (451), the formula of faith presented by Leo was accepted as a 'sufficient statement of the Christological problem. In Gaul the rising metropolitan power received a serious check in Leo's severe treatment of Hilary of Arles, who had on insufficient ivi deuce deposed of Besancon. In 452 Leo went out, armed with none but spiri tual weapons. to meet the terrible Attila, and actually turned him back in the full tide of victory. In 455 he again faced a Vandal inva sion from the south and succeeded in gaining at least milder terms for the doomed capital.
Especially clear does this Roman leadership appear in the dealings with those Germanic peoples who for a longer or shorter time occupied the soil of Italy and organized there an actual administration of government. The popes of this period, nominally subject to the emperors at Constantinople, never really questioned the de facto sovereignty of the barbarian in Italy. With Odoacer (476-493), and then with Theodoric the Ostrogoth (493-526), we find them in relations of friendly temporal subjeetion. Many cases of Papal privilege and several dis puted elections were referred to these barbarous and heretical chiefs of tribes, and their decisions were accepted. It was the wise policy of Rome, at this early stage, to conform itself to actual conditions and make its profit out of them. This tic facto allegiance was readily transferred to Constantinople when, after the death of Theo doric, the armies of Justinian under Belisarius and Narses finally drove the out of Italy (535-53). This revival of Byzantine sover eignty was, however, the most serious disaster that could have happened to the Papal idea. Again and again popes were made to feel the rough hand of the Empire if they ventured to act against its will, even on a matter of doctrine. The prestige of Rome was in danger of disappear ing. if ,he were to become merely one among the numerous patriarchates under the fitful dic tation of Constantinople. It was really an ad vantage when the dreaded Lombards swarmed over into the Po Valley (564) and rapidly drove the Byzantine garrisons from most of the country east of the Apennines. The Lombard terror forms the background of the Papal history for nearly two hundred years, but it was one of the means through which the importance of the Papal in stitution was recognized and justified.
These were the conditions under which Gregory 1.. the Great (590-604). came to power. From his correspondence we gain for the first time a clear impression of the economic side of the Papal administration. We find a considerable
total of landed properties scattered from Africa. through Sicily and Italy. to Gaul. managed directly by Papal agent- and serving as the chief financial of the Roman bishopric. Gregory, a prudent manager and astute politi cian. knew how to keep on good terms with the Empire. and even succeeded in making some impression on the Arian Lombards in the direc tion of their ultimate conversion to Catholicism. He kept up all active correspondence with the Catholic 3.1erovingian princes of the Franks, and was the originator of the conversion of the heathen Anglo-Saxons to Roman Catholic Chris tianity. In a spirit of wise charity for :Ill hu man diversities. Gregory I. laid the foundations for a Papal system which would have made the Roman bishop the guide and harmonizer of West ern Christendom. As time went on, the hold of the Eastern Empire upon Italy beeame weaker and weaker. In vain popes implored emperors for help against the Lombards. The Moham medan conquest absorbed all the energies of the declining Empire, and Rome must turn elsewhere for the material support it needed. Gregory's relation, with the Franks gave the clue for the future. So long as the Merovingian dynasty lasted nothing could be done: but when the new and vigorous House of Pepin began to displace the Merovingian primes, the opportunity ea me. Papal appeal, to Charles Martel (Major Domus, 714-741) were flatly refined. but his son. Pepin, needing a sanction for his usurpation of the kingdom. found it worth while to win this of Rome as the price of deliverance from the Lom bard terror. Nlore than this, he guaranteed to the Papacy the temporal sovereignty over an ill defined stretch of territory including Rome and a considerable surr ling country. See PAPAL STATES for the subsequent history of the tem poral sovereignty.
With the coronation of Charles the Great as Roman Emperor by Pope Leo Ill, (sof)) a new phase of the Papal pones begins. The revival of the Imperial name was intended to connect the actual domination of the Frank ish people with the traditions of the ancient Roman world, It was, however, to he several generations yet before the importance of this new connection was to he evident. No emperor from Charles to Otho the Saxon held a po-ition that could in any sense be called 'Imperial... Even the title disappeared for more than a generation before Mho. Meanwhile the Papacy kept on quietly developing the constitution under which it n-as to do its great work. The administration of Nicholas I. coincident with the notable rise of intellectual culture in West Fran pia. serves to indicate this progress. Nicholas I. was keen to seize every occasion to assert Pa pal right of supreme jurisdiction. 11I As de fender of a sound Christian morality h. took up eagerly the cause of Thentberga, the rejected wife of King Lothair 11. of Lorraine. and car ried it against the support of the fighting men and the whole clergy of Lorraine to a complete triumph. (2) lie assailed the metropolitan power in the person of the great Archbishop Ilincmar, the most important prelate in the North. on the old question of the right of a subordinate clergy man disciplined by his local superior to appeal directly to Rome.