Roman Empire-Rysdyck

THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Roman Empire - Rysdyck, Isaac by James Strong & John McClintock To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the AGES Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: MAKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. AGES Software Rio, WI USA Version 1.0 © 2000 2 Roman Empire, The Holy, is the designation familiarly given to the mediaeval and modern Roman Empire of the West, and especially to that empire after the imperial sceptre had passed into the hands of German sovereigns. For a whole millennium — from the coronation of Charlemagne to the abdication of Francis of Austria — the Roman empire occupied in Western Europe the first place, in dignity and prestige, of all secular governments. Though its actual power had continually fluctuated, and its influence on the affairs of the world had rapidly waned after the retirement of Charles V, it remained an imposing memorial of ancient grandeur and dominion, and was honored as a “clarum et venerabile nomen.” “Heir of the universal sway of Rome, the holder of it claimed to be the suzerain of all earthly kings. First and oldest of European dignities, its very name had a sound of dignity.” Passing over the widely extended and thoroughly organized empire of Charlemagne, and the rapid decay of eminence and power, under his successors of the Carlovingian line, and confining attention to the Germanic dynasties, the Holy Roman Empire maintained a lofty and potent ascendency over all kings and temporal rulers in the West for three centuries, extending from the first Otho, the Great, to the death of that “stupor mundi,” the dazzling, energetic, and lordly Frederick II. During this long and agitated period, the empire and the papacy marched abreast in constant discord and furious contention; the one acknowledged to be supreme in the secular order, the other reverenced as supreme in the spiritual order. The rivalries, the jealousies, the animosities, the virulent antagonisms, of these transcendent sovereignties — each endeavoring to secure its own position and predominancy by the depression of the otherfilled the centuries with strife, with acrimonies, and with perplexities worse than the bloody warfare which they engendered. For one brief interval in the subsequent ages, after long and dreary eclipse, the Holy Roman Empire, under an emperor of the house of Hapsburg, threatened to regain a more arrogant control, a vaster domain, a more solitary domination, than it had possessed under the first Caesars or had claimed under the first Constantine. But Charles V, the most powerful of emperors since Charlemagne, was the last of emperors crowned in Italy. He was frustrated of the dreams that had been nursed for him by both his grandfathers, and that had been eagerly cherished by himself throughout a long and busy reign. His energies were engrossed and wasted, his enormous resources consumed, and his authority paralyzed by discords in 3 his numerous scattered kingdoms and principalities, and by the divisions and civil wars produced by the Protestant Reformation, and favoring its extension. Worn out and baffled, he renounced his thrones in despair. He retired shattered in health, in spirit, and in confidence, to fritter away the last months of a grand existence — amid the lovely scenery around the monastery of Juste. Thenceforward the empire continued to wane and shrivel up, till finally extinguished by the conquests and confederations of the emperor Napoleon. An institution of such long duration, of such splendid pretensions, of such intimate association with the ecclesiastical system of Christendom, of such profound influence upon both the temporal and the spiritual fortunes of humanity — an institution which transmitted the consummate result of all ancient civilization almost to our own day — merits careful appreciation, and requires it the more urgently because its name has already ceased to be familiar, and because its fortunes and vicissitudes are often slighted as the vanished “phantoms of forgotten rule.” I. Origin of the Name. — The name of The Holy Roman Empire cannot be distinctly traced in either its origin or its application. It is obscurely involved in the institution of the empire throughout all the phases of its existence. It may readily be discerned in pagan Rome. It is implied in the constitution of the reanimated Empire of the West. In more modern times it frequently appears in treaties and imperial documents, in diplomatic papers, and in the official transactions of the imperial chancery. But it was never of obligatory or habitual employment. It does not occur in the Act of Abdication of Francis I in 1806, nor in the earlier Pragmatic, which paved the way for the abdication and prescribed his official titles as emperor elect. It has not been found in any of the numerous chronicles, specially examined for the present inquiry, which record the coronations from Charlemagne to Rodolph of Hapsburg. It has not been detected by us in the capitularies and edicts, nor in the Libri Feudorum. There is nothing on the subject in Pfeffel’s Abrege Chronologique, notwithstanding the well-merited commendations bestowed by Gibbon upon that painstaking and useful treatise. There is no explanation in Muratori nor in Gibbon. It would be vain, of course, to expect the solution of any real difficulty from The Middle Ages of the superficial and blundering Hallam. It is strange, however, that no elucidation of its origin and use is given by Bryce in his work specifically entitled The Holy Roman Empire. All these European 4 writers had ready access to authentic sources of information which are usually beyond the reach of inquirers in America. The interpretation of the name is not far to seek, though a long, elaborate, and dubious research would be required to determine the times, conditions, and circumstances of its ordinary employment, if there ever was any fixed rule on the subject. The city of Rome and the imnperium Romanum were always regarded as sacrosanct, even under the republic. The argumentation of Augustine, in his memorable treatise De Civitate Dei, revolves mainly upon the pagan allegation of the intimate dependence of Rome on the guidance of her gods. Under the empire, the city was fervently adored as diva Roma, urbs divina, and the sacred fire was kept ever burning in her honor. Such a perpetual fire was maintained in the imperial palace. Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus, holding the holiest of offices at the time of his assassination, and had been chief of the religion many years previously. On his murder, he was deified, and became Divus Julius. On the death of Lepidus, Augustus united the office of Pontifex Maximus to his other titles. He, too, was deified. Subsequent emperors retained the pontificate, and many were worshipped as Divi while still alive. The pontificate was held even by Christian princes; and the epithet “sacred” was applied in both the Latin and the Greek vocabulary of the court to their persons, their families, their functions, their ministers, and all their surroundings. This practice was not weakened by the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the state. Comes sacri cubiculi, sacri fisci, sacrarum largitionum, sacri palatii, etc., were regular offices under the constitution of Constantine. We find even “the sacred inkstand” and “the sacred ink.” It should be remembered, too, that the “tribunicia potestas, “ which was one of the principal constituents of imperial authority, had always been “sacrosanct” (Liv. 4, 3, 6, et Not. Vat. ad 27, 38, 3, ed. Drakenborch). The organization and ceremonial of the old Roman empire were habitually adopted or travestied by the barbarian kingdoms (see Cassiodor. Epp. Var.) before they were repeated by the Western emperors. In the attestation of the Acta de Pace Constantioe, 1183, of Frederick Barbarossa, the notary signs himself, “Ego Odelinus, sacri palatii notarius, “ in exact correspondence with the language of Justinian in the confirmation of the code: “Vir gloriosissimus, quaestor sacri palatii nostri....” Hence it is not surprising to find in the West, as in the East, the phrase “sanctus Imperator,” though it does not become one of the formal titles. 5 When Charlemagne received the imperial crown at Rome on Christmas day, 800, he received it with all the attributes of the imperial sovereignty of Rome. The sanctity of the office, derived from the several confluent tendencies which have been specified, was not the least marked of these attributes. This sanctity was further heightened by the circumstances and the purposes of his appointment, and by the relations of himself and his family to the orthodox Christianity of the West. One of his highest duties and honors was to be the “advocatus ecclesiae,” the protector of the pope against domestic and foreign enemies — the temporal sovereign of the Christian faith and of Christendom. He was solemnly anointed. It is stated by a late chronicler that he was hailed, in the acclamations of the people, as “a Deo coronato.” So Justinian had declared: “Deo auctore nostrum gubernante imperium” (De Concept. Dig. § 1). When Otho I was crowned in 962, the pope conveyed the dignity “benedictione et consecratione.” It is a mistake to suppose that when Charles merged the patriciate in the empire, he took merely a title of higher dignity. It is an equal mistake to suppose that he only revived or renewed the long dormant Empire of the West. He was crowned sole emperor of the Roman world at the time of a supposed vacancy of the imperial throne, which had always been deemed elective, and of exclusively masculine tenure: “Quia muller excoecato imperatore Constantino filio suo imperabat” (Sigebert Gemblacensis, ad ann.; comp.

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