Papal States

Background

The Papal States were a state in which the pope, in addition to his authority as a religious leader, directly governed territory and subjects in the manner of a king. They were officially known by such names as the "State of the Church" and the "Patrimony of Saint Peter." Their territory corresponded roughly to the present-day Italian regions of Lazio, Umbria, and the Marche, along with part of Emilia-Romagna.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, the papacy was the strongest power in Rome and its surroundings. In the mid-eighth century the Lombards threatened Italy, but little help could be expected from the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Pope Stephen II therefore appealed for aid to Pepin (Pepin III), king of the Franks.

Development

• 754: The pope and Pepin met and formed an alliance. Pepin promised to protect the pope and Rome, and the pope personally anointed Pepin as king and conferred on him the title "Patrician of the Romans."
• 756: After driving out the Lombards, Pepin gave Ravenna and other former Byzantine territories to the pope rather than returning them to the Byzantine emperor. This is known as the "Donation of Pepin," and it is usually regarded as the beginning of the Papal States. Around the same time, a document known as the Donation of Constantine was produced and used to support papal claims to temporal rule; in the fifteenth century it was shown to be a forgery.
• 781: Charlemagne defined in writing the extent of the territory the pope was to govern.
• Late Middle Ages: The territory expanded considerably under Innocent III in the early thirteenth century. From 1309 to 1376 the popes resided at Avignon in France (the Avignon Papacy). Beginning with Martin V in the fifteenth century, the papacy displaced local lords and strengthened direct rule from Rome. The territory reached its greatest extent under Julius II in the early sixteenth century.
• French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era: Papal rule was interrupted in 1798–1799 and again in 1809–1814. The Papal States were restored after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1849 a Roman Republic was briefly established.
• Italian unification: As the wars of unification unfolded from 1859, most of the Papal States passed to the forces of unification by 1860, leaving only the region of Lazio. On September 20, 1870, Italian troops entered Rome, and following a plebiscite that same year Rome became the capital of Italy. The last sovereign of the Papal States was Pius IX.

Consequences and Legacy

Having lost Rome, Pius IX described himself as the "prisoner of the Vatican." The ensuing conflict between the Holy See and the Italian government, known as the "Roman Question," lasted about sixty years. It ended on February 11, 1929, when Cardinal Gasparri, representing the Holy See, and Italian Prime Minister Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty at the Lateran Palace. Under the treaty Italy recognized the sovereignty of Vatican City, made Catholicism the state religion, and paid compensation for the former Papal States. The Holy See, in turn, formally recognized the Italian state with Rome as its capital. Thus papal territorial rule, which had lasted more than 1,100 years, continued in Vatican City, which covers an area of about 0.44 km².

Assessment

• Political history: Because the Papal States stretched across the central Italian peninsula and divided the country into north and south, they are regarded as having been an obstacle to Italian unification.
• Catholic Church: From the Catholic perspective, the pope's temporal sovereignty is understood in terms of the need to guarantee his independence, so that he can lead the Church without being subject to the power of any nation. The Lateran Treaty likewise resolved this issue by guaranteeing the independence of Vatican City.
• Critical views: Critics argue that because the supreme leader of the Church was also a territorial monarch, the Church became deeply entangled in political and military conflicts. The fact that a document used to justify the Papal States was exposed as a forgery also became grounds for criticizing the pope's temporal power. Protestants regard the Papal States as a prime example of the medieval Church's union with secular power before the Reformation, and sometimes cite them as a historical example when discussing the relationship between church and politics.