One day in AD 754, Pope Stephen came to the Abbey of St. Demin on the outskirts of Paris to anoint and crown Pepin the Short, the founder of the Carolingian dynasty. After receiving the coronation, Pepin fulfilled the promise he had made to the Pope. In 754 and 756, he sent troops to Italy twice to recapture the Duchy of Ravenna and some other cities from the Lombards and dedicated them to the Pope. , which is the famous “Piping offering soil” in history. But who could have guessed that this gift from Pepin contributed to the establishment of the “Papal State”.
Pepin the Shorty’s father, Charlie Matt, served as Chancellor of the Merovingian dynasty. Pepin inherited his father’s business, and during his tenure in office, he almost assumed the power of Frankish rule. But Pepin wanted more! So the claim to the throne came naturally. But according to Germanic customs, the throne could only be passed to those of royal blood, and Pepin, who was eager to get the title of king, did not want to risk the world to murder the then Merovingian king. Therefore, he decided to actively seek the support of the Pope, hoping that the Pope could recognize himself as the king. So in 749, Pepin sent a messenger to ask Pope Zachary: “Is the man who actually rules the Franks the king, or the king who has the name of the king but has no real power?” Faced with this kind of suggestive question, The pope understood and replied, “It is more fitting that the man who really holds power is king.” Two years later, the pope named Pepin king of the Franks, and the last Merovingian king was sent to the monastery. The reason is that the theological authority St. Augustine once declared: “The verification of a person’s kingship is to see if he can maintain order and justice.” But obviously, this is just a pretext for the Pope to support Pepin as king, and more importantly The real reason was that the Pope wanted Pepin to provide protection for the Roman Church, which was under attack by the Lombards.
After helping Pepin become king of the Franks, Pope Stephen personally went to meet Pepin and asked him to protect the Church of Rome. It turned out that the Lombards, who had been entrenched in northern Italy since the 6th century, not only established the Lombard kingdom, but also captured central Italy at this time. Several Roman popes have always been subject to the Lombard kings. To get out of the predicament, the popes even proposed that whoever the Franks could free them in Italy, they would cede to him all the power of the Church in France. By 754, when Pope Stephen again asked Pepin for protection, Pepin promised that he would send troops to Italy to protect the Roman Church. After receiving Pepin’s promise, the delighted Pope Stephen anointed the king and his two sons, Charles and Carloman. At the same time, in order to eliminate the possible threat to the Frankish throne, Stephen also stipulated that the French should never make another family king, otherwise they will be punished.
If time can be reversed and we go back to this history, we will find that the anointing ceremony held by the Pope in Rome was indeed of extraordinary significance. The anointing ceremony is a religious ceremony in which the Pope and Archbishop imitated ancient Jewish rituals for the coronation of kings in Western Europe. The Pope or Archbishop smeared holy oil on the king’s forehead, chest, back and other parts of the body. In the Old Testament, King Saul (1 Samuel 10:1), King David (1 Samuel 16:13) and Solomon (1 Kings 1:35) were anointed for Therefore, the value of the anointing ceremony is that it can put a divine halo on the king who receives the coronation. Throughout his life, Pepin was anointed twice by Archbishop Boniface and Pope Stephen. The 18th-century French writer Voltaire expressed the king’s motivation for taking the trouble to accept the Pope’s anointing: “The Pope is more holy, more authoritative, and more effective than the German bishop. Others have more power to legitimize usurpation.” Therefore, every time Pepin received an anointing from the Pope, his kingship would have a special spiritual and moral color. Although the anointing had little significance for Pepin’s power expansion, it at least made the people more respected for him and helped to stabilize his rule. So, in a way, it’s the anointing, not the emperor’s blood, that put the Christian king in the spotlight.
After Pepin dedicated a piece of land in central Italy to the Pope, the Pope forged a so-called Gift of Constantine to cover up his territorial ambitions. This document falsely claims that the emperor of the Roman Empire transferred the Lateran Palace and the crown, the bishop’s crown, the purple cloak, etc. to Pope Sylvester in order to thank the Bishop of Rome Sylvester for curing him, and to add The honor and glory of the Church, hand over all the palaces and areas of the city of Rome, Italy and the western region to the Holy Roman Church for eternal possession. The reason why the church forged such documents is to show that the territory owned by the “Papal State” is not a gift generously given by a secular king, but is just a “lost land” restored with the help of a secular king-since it is a “return of things”. The original owner”, the Pope can naturally accept it and embrace it with equanimity.
There are two most famous coronations presided over by the Pope through the anointing. One was in 800 AD, when Pope Leo III held a coronation ceremony for the Frankish King Charles, the son of Pepin, in St. Peter’s Church in Rome, calling him “” Emperor of the Romans”. Another time, in AD 963, was when Pope John XII crowned Otto I, the German king, who also called him “Emperor of the Romans.” The Pope’s “Papal State” became the center of the Catholic Church and existed until 1870. The current Vatican is the continuation of the “Papal State” in history.
If, as Voltaire said: “Pepin needs the Pope, but Pope Stephen needs Pepin even more, it is obvious, because it is the priest who comes to beg the protection of the samurai.” Then the historical “Pepin offering” is A deal between Pepin and the Pope. This transaction can be said to be that the Pope of Rome used his own anointing power as a bargaining chip in exchange for Pepin’s gift – the “Papal State”.
