The western Emperors seated at Ravenna were conquered by yethe Heruli A.C. 176 The worship of dead saints called Mahuzzims by Daniel was introduced by the Monks in the 4th 5th & 6th centuries & soon after arose a dispute about worshipping their images, the Greek Emperor Phillippicus A.C. 411 or 412 declaring against it.

In the year 726 Sigon. de Regno Italiæ ad an. 726 the Emperor Leo Isaurus to put a stop to this worship of Images it called a meeting of Councillors & Bishops in his Palace & by their advice put out an Edict against that worship, & wrote to Pope Gregory the second that a general Council might be called. But the Pope thereupon called a council at Rome, confirmed the worship of Images, excommunicated the Greek Emperor, absolved the people from their allegiance, & forbad them to pay tribute or otherwise to be obedient to them him. And the people of Rome & Campania & Ravenna & Pentapolis with the cities under them, revolted, & laid violent hands upon their Magistrates killing the Exarch Paul at Ravenna & laying aside Peter Duke of Rome who was become blind. And when Exhileratus Duke of Campania incited the people against the Pope, the Romans invaded Campania & slew him with his son Hadrian. Then a new Exarch Eutychius coming to Naples, sent some secretly to take away the lives of the Pope & Nobles of Rome; but the plot being discovered, the Romans revolted absolutely from the Greek Empire, & took an oath to preserve the life of the Pope, & to defend their state, & be obedient to their authority in all things. Thus Rome with its Dutchy including part of Tuscia & part of Campania revolted in the year 726 & became a free state under the Government of the Senate in civil affairs of the city of this city, & the authority of the Senate in civil affairs was henceforward absolute, the authority of the Pope extending hitherto no farther than to the affairs of the Church.

Sigon. de Regn. Italiæ ad an. 726, 752At that time the Lombards also being zealous for the worship of Images & pretending to favour the cause of the Pope, invaded the cities of the Exarchate. And at length, A.C. 752, they took Ravenna & put an end to the Exarchate; & this was the first of the three horns kingdoms which fell before the little horn.

Sigon. ib. ad. an. 750Pope Zechary A.C. 752 this same year deposed Childeric a sloathfull & useless king of France & the last of the race of Merovæus, & absolving his subjects from their oath of allegiance, gave the kingdom to Pipin the Major of the Palace, & thereby made a new & potent friend. Sigon ib. an. 753, 754, 755.And his successor Pope Stephen knowing better how to deal with the Greek Emperor than with the Lombards he went the next year to the king of the Lombards to perswade him to return the Exarchate to the Greek Emperor. But this not succeeding, he went into France & persuaded Pipin to take the Exarchate & Pentapolis from the Lombards & give it to St Peter. And accordingly Pipin A.C. 454 came with an army into Italy & made Aistulphus king of the Lombards promise5r promise the surrender. But the next year Aistulphus on the contrary, to revenge himself on the Pope, besieged the city of Rome. Whereupon king the Pope sent letters to Pipin wherein he told him that if he came not speedily against the Lombards, pro data sibi potentia alienandum fore a regno Dei et vita æterna, he should be excommunicated. Pipin therefore fearing a revolt of his new subjects, & being indebted to the Church of Rome, came speedily with an army into Italy, raised the siege, besieged the Lombards in Papia, & forced them to surrender the Exarchate & region of Pentapolis to the Pope for a perpetual possession. Thus the Pope became Lord of Ravenna & the Exarchate, some few cities excepted, & the Keys were sent to Rome, & laid upon the Confession of St Peter, that is upon the High Altar his Tomb at the High Altar, in signum veri perpetuiqꝫque dominijs sed pietate Regis gratuita as the inscription of a coin of Pipin hath it. This was in the year of Christ 755. And henceforward the Popes being temporal Princes left off in their Epistles & Bulls to note the years of the Greek Emperors as they had hitherto done

Sigon. ib. an. 773After this, the Lombards invading the Popes countries, Pope Adrian sent to Charles the great the son & successor of Pipin to come to his assistance. And accordingly Charles entred Italy with an army, invaded the Lombards, overthrew their kingdoms, became master of their countries, & restored to the Pope not only what they had taken from him, but also the rest of the Exarchate wchwhich they had promised Pipin to surrender to him but had hitherto deteined, & also gave him some cities of the Lombards, & was mutually made Patricius by the Romans, & had the authority of confirming the elections of the Popes conferred upon him. These things were done in the years 773 & 774. And this was the second kingdom wchwhich fell before the little horn. But Rome which was to be the seat of his kingdom was not yet his own.

Sigon. de. Regn. Italiæ ad an. 796.In the year 796 Leo III being made Pope, notified his election to Charles the great by his Legates, sending him for a present the golden keys of the Confession of Peter & the Banner of the city of Rome; the first as an acknowledgement of the Popes holding the cities of the Exarchate & Lombardy by the grant of Charles, the other as a signification that Charles should come & subdue the Senate & people of Rome, as he had done the Exarchate & the kingdom of the Lombards. For the Pope at the same time desired Charles to send some of his Princes to Rome who might subject the Roman people to him & bind them by oath in fide & subjectione in fealty & subjection, as his words are recited by Sigonius. An anonymous Poet published at Strasburgh by Boeclerus at Strasburgh, expresses it thus

Hence arose a misunderstanding between the Pope & the city city. And the Romans about two or three years after, by the assistance of the Clergy raised so great tumults against him as gave occasion to a new state of things in all the west. For two of the clergy accused him of certain crimes & by an armed force of the Romans seized him, stript him of his sacerdotal habit & imprisoned him in a Monastery. But by assistance of his friends he made his escape & fled into Germany to Charles the great, & complained of the Romans for acting against him out of a designe of throwing off all authority of the Church & recovering their ancient freedom. And in his absence, his accusers with an armed force ravaged the possessions of the Church & sent the accusations to the tower Charles. And before the end of the year Charles sent the Pope back to Rome with a large retinue. And the Nobles & Bishops of France who accompanied him examined the chief of the accusers at Rome, & sent them into France in custody. This was in the year 799. And the next year Charles went himself went to Rome & upon a day appointed presided in a Council of Italian & French Bishops to hear both parties. Vide AnastasiumBut when the Popes adversaries expected to be heard, the Council declared that he who was the supreme judge of all men, was above being judged by any other then himself. And thereupon the Pope made a solemn declaration of his innocence before all the people, & by doing so was looked upon as acquitted.

A few days after when Christmas day was arrived, the people of Rome who had hitherto elected their Bishop & recconed that they & their Senate inherited the rights of the ancient Senate & people of Rome, voted Charles their Emperor & subjected themselves to him in such manner as the old Roman Empire & their Senate were subject to the old Roman Emperors. And the Pope crowned him, & annointed him with holy oyle, & worshipped him on his knees after the manner of adoring the old Roman Emperors, as the aforesaid Poet thus mentions.

And the Emperor mutually took the following oath to the Pope. In nomine Christi spondeo atqꝫque polliceor Ego Carolus Imperator coram Deo et beato Petro Apostolo me protectorem ac defensorem fore huius Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ in omnibus utilitatibus quatenus divino fultus fuero adjutorio prout sciero poteroqꝫque. The Emperor was also made Consul of Rome & his son Pipin was crowned king of Italy. And henceforward the Emperor stiled himself: Carolus serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus, magnus pacificus, Romæ gubernans Imperium, or Imperator Romanorum; & was prayed for in the Churches of Rome; & his image was henceforward put upon the coins of Rome; & the enemies of the Pope to the number of 300 Romans, & two or three of the clergy were sentenced to death; & the te 300 Romans were beheaded in one day in the Lateran fields, but the Clergy men at the intercession of the Pope were pardoned & & banished into France. And thus the right of the Roman Emperors which had hitherto been in the Greek Emperors, was by this Act translated in the West to the kings of France.

After these thingsSigon. de Regn Italiæ. Charles gave the city & Dutchy of of Rome to the Pope subordinately to himself as Emperor of the Romans,7r spent the winter in ordering the affairs of Rome & those of the Apostolick Sea & of all Italy both civil & Ecclesiastical & in making new laws for them & returned the next summer into France, leaving the City under its Senate & both under the Pope & himself. And hearing that his new laws were not observed by the Iudges in dictating the law, nor by the people in hearing it, & that the great men took servants from free men & from the Churches & Monasteries, to labour in their vineyards, fields, pastures, & houses, & continued to exact cattel & wine of them, & to oppress those that served the Churches: he wrote to his son Pipin to remedy these abuses, take care of the Church, & see that his laws be executed.

Now the Senate & people & Principality of Rome I take to be the third King whom the little horn overcame, & even the chief of the three. For this people elected the Pope & the Emperor, & made him Consul by electing the Emperor & making him Consul was acknowledged to retain the authority of the old Roman Senate & people. This City was the Metropolis of the old Roman Empire represented by the fourth Beast & by subduing the Senate & people it became the Metropolis of the little horn of that Beast, & completed Peters Patrimony wchwhich was the kingdome of that horn. And this victory was attended with greater consequences then these over the other two kings. For it set up the western Empire wchwhich continues to this day; & it set up the Pope above the judicature of the Roman Senate & even above all humane judicature, & gave him the supremacy over the western Churches & their Councils in a high degree. It gave him a look more stout then his fellows so that at length when this new religion began to be established in the minds of men he grappled even with the western Emperor himself. It is observable also that the kissing of the Popes feet custome of kissing the Popes feet, began about this time: an honour superior to that of kings & Emperors, began about this time. There are some instances of it in the ninth Century. Platina tells us that the feet of Pope Leo IV were kissed according to ancient custome by all that came to him, & some say that Leo III began this custome pretending that his hand was infected by the hand kiss of a woman. The Popes began also about this time to canonize Saints & grant Indulgences & Pardons; & some represent that Leo III was the first author of all these things. And it is further observable that Charles the great between the years 775 & 796 conquered all Germany northward from the Rhene & Danube northward to the Baltic sea & eastward to the river Teys, & extended his conquests also into Spain as far as to the river Eber, & by these conquests he laid the foundation of the new Empire, & at the same time he propatedgated the Roman Catholick religion into all his conquests, obliging the Saxons & Hunns who were heathens to receive the Roman faith, distributing his northern conquests into Bishopricks & granting tyths to the clergy & Peter-pence to the Pope: by all wchwhich the Church of Rome was highly enlarged enriched, & exalted, & established.

Vide Actorūum Erudit. Suppl. Tom. 2. Sect. 1. pag. 37, 38.In a small book printed at Paris 1689, & entituled: An historical dissertation upon some coins of Charles the great, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius & their successors stamped at Rome there is a draught of a piece of Mosaic work stamped at Rome wchwhich Pope Leo III caused to be made in his Palace neare the Church of Iohn Lateran, in memory of his sending the standard or banner of the city of Rome curiously8r curiously wrought to Charles the great, & which still remained there at the publishing the of the said book. In the Mosaic work there appeared Peter with three keys in his lap, reaching the Pallium to the Pope with his right hand, & the banner of the city to Charles the great with his left. By the Pope is this inscription SCISSIMVS D. N. LEO PP; by the King this D. N. CARVLO REGI; & under the feet of Peter this, BEATE PETRE DONA VITAM LEONI PP, ET VICTORIAM CARVLO REGI DONA. By The meaning seems to be that in this attempt S. Peter would preserve the life of the Pope & give victory to the king. For Bby the inscription it appears that this picepiece of mosaic work was made before Charles was Emperor, suppose in the year 796800 or 797 before the Counsel met to heare the cause of yethe Pope. The three keys in the lap of Peter signify the keys of the three parts of his patrimony, vizt ytthat of Rome with its Dutchy which he was conquering, & those of Ravenna wthwith the Exarchate & of the territories taken from the Lombards both wchwhich he had newly conquered. These were the three Dominions whose keys were in the lap of Peter & whose crowns are now worn by the Pope, & by the conquest of wchwhich he became the little horn of the fourth Beast. By Peters giving the Pallium to the Pope with his right hand & the Banner of the city to the king with his left & by the inscription naming the Pope before the king in the inscription, may be understood, that the Pope was then recconed superior in dignity to the kings of the earth.

After the death of Charles the great, his son & successor Ludovicus Pius at the request of the Pope aConfirmationem recitat Sigonius lib. 4 de Regno Italiæ ad Ann 817. confirmed the donations of his grandfather & father to the sea of Rome. And in this confirmation he names first Rome with its Dutchy extending into Tuscia & Campania, then the Exarchate of Ravenna with Pentapolis, & in the third place the territories taken from the Lombards. These are his three conquests & he was to hold them of the Emperor for the use of the Church sub integritate entirely without the Emperors medling therewith or with the jurisdiction or power of the Pope therein unless called thereunto in certain cases. This ratification the Emperor made in writing under an oath. And as the king of the Ostrogoths for acknowledging that he held his kingdom of Italy of the Greek Emperor, stamped the Emperors effigies on one side of his coins & his own on the Reverse: so the Pope made the like acknowledgment to f the western Emperor. For the Pope began now to coin money, & the coins of Rome are henceforward found with the head of the Emperors (Charles, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius, & their successors), on one side, & the Popes inscription on the Reverse for many years.