The Donation of Constantine (Latin, Constitutum Donatio Constantini or
Constitutum domini Constantini imperatoris) is a forged Roman imperial edict devised probably between 750 and 850. The precise purpose of the forgery is not entirely certain, but it was
clearly a defense of papal interests, perhaps against the claims of either the Byzantine
Empire, or the Frankish king Charlemagne, who had assumed the former imperial dignity
in the West and with it the title "Emperor of the Romans". The earliest date is the most probable, and it is often said that the
document could have been written during the papacy of Stephen II, around
752. The Donation is included among the texts of the False Decretals of Isidore.
Origin and content
Purportedly issued by the fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine I, the Donation grants Pope Sylvester I and
his successors, as inheritors of St. Peter, dominion over the city of Rome, Italy, and the entire Western Roman
Empire, while Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Roman
Empire from his new imperial capital of Constantinople. The text claims that the Donation was Constantine's gift to Sylvester for
instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him and miraculously curing him of leprosy.
It has been suggested that an early draft was made shortly after the middle of the eighth century in order to assist
Pope Stephen II in his negotiations with Pepin the
Short, the Frankish Mayor of the Palace. In 754, Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps to anoint Pepin king, thereby enabling
the Carolingian family to supplant the old Merovingian royal line. In return for Stephen's support, Pepin apparently gave the Pope the lands in Italy
which the Lombards had taken from the Byzantine Empire. These lands would become the
Papal States and would be the basis of the Papacy's secular power for the next eleven
centuries.
Medieval use
Inserted among the twelfth-century compilation known as the Decretum
Gratiani, this document continued to be used by medieval popes to bolster their territorial and secular power in
Italy. It was widely accepted as authentic, although the Emperor Otto III
did denounce the document as a forgery. The poet Dante Alighieri lamented it as the root
of papal worldliness in his Divine Comedy. It was not until the mid 15th-century, with
the revival of Classical scholarship and textual critique, the Church had begun to realize that the document could not possibly
be genuine.
Investigation
The Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla proved in
1440, in his treatise De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione, that the Donation
must be a fake by analyzing its language, and showing that while certain imperial-era formulas
are used in the text, some of the Latin in the document could not have been written in the fourth century; anachronistic terms
such as "fief" were used. Also, the purported date of the document is inconsistent with the
content of the document itself as it refers both to the fourth consulate of Constantine (315) as well as the consulate of
Gallicanus (317).
However, the Vatican placed Valla's work on the list of prohibited books, and the genuineness of the document was defended. It
continued to be used as authentic until Baronius in his "Annales Ecclesiastici" (published 1588-1607) admitted that the "Donatio"
was a forgery, and eventually the church conceded its illegitimacy.[1] It has been suggested that this acceptance was hastened by Andeas Helwig's work Antichristus
Romanus (1612) which had identified the title Vicarius Filii Dei used in the
Donation as being the number of the beast.
More recently, scholars have further demonstrated that other elements, such as Sylvester's curing of Constantine, are legends
which originated at a later time. Its recent editor[2] has
affirmed that at the time of the composition of Valla's work, Constantine's alleged "donation" was no longer a matter of
contemporary relevance in political theory and that, rather, it furnished the theme
for a brilliant exercise in legal rhetoric.
Contemporary opponents of papal powers in the Peninsula emphasized the primacy of civil law and civil jurisdiction, now firmly
embodied once again in the Justinian Corpus Juris Civilis. The Florentine
chronicler Giovanni Cavalcanti reported that, in the very year of
Valla's treatise, Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, made diplomatic
overtures toward Cosimo de' Medici in Florence proposing an alliance in common defence
against the Pope, as sovereign lord of the Marche, where Francesco Sforza was currently protected by papal sovereignty, in which Visconti used the words, "It
so happens that even if Constantine consigned to Sylvester so many and such rich gifts— which is doubtful, because such a
privilege can nowhere be found— he could only have granted them for his lifetime: the Empire takes precedence over any
lordship."
Civil law was the Emperor's prerogative, according to the Imperial vassal Visconti: "and for this reason you see why the
Church is without civil law."[3] Valla's refutation was
taken up vehemently by scholars of the Protestant Reformation, such as
Ulrich von Hutten and Martin Luther.
Further reading
For a detailed account of textual forgery in the early Christian Church, see:
- Wheless, Joseph, Forgery In Christianity, (Moscow, Idaho, USA. 1930),reprint (1990).
- McCabe, Joseph, A History Of The Popes, (Watts & Co, 1939).
References
- Lorenzo Valla, Treatise on the Donation of Constantine (1440). online edition
See also
Notes
External links
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