The actual extent of his donation is very difficult to ascertain. But it seems to be the general opinion of the historians, that it included not only the exarchate of Ravenna, but the dukedoms of Spoleto and Benevento, Venetia, Istria, and other territories in the north of Italy—in short, almost the whole peninsula with the island of Corsica. Every Naboth was robbed of his vineyard, and his blood shed, for the gratification of Jezebel's ambition, and for the establishment of her throne of iniquity. But mark the consummation and seal of all wickedness in the way that the pope sought to reconcile his character, as vicar of Christ, with his new position. As all men are subject to Christ, he reasoned, so likewise are they subject to His vicar and representative on earth in all that appertains to His kingdom. But that kingdom extends over all; therefore nothing belonging to this world or its affairs can be above or beyond the jurisdiction of St. Peter's chair. Our kingdom is not of this world; it is, like that of Christ, in all, above all, over all. According to this theory, no amount of temporal dominion was to be regarded as inconsistent with the Savior's declaration respecting the nature of His kingdom. On this impious assumption thenceforward, the popes ever acted. Hence their interference with priest and people, king and subject, land and sea, all over the world.
Charlemagne visited Rome again in 781, and a third time in 787, and on each occasion the church was enriched by gifts, bestowed, as he professed in the language of the age, "for the good of his soul." Overwhelmed with gratitude, and fully conscious of his own need of a permanent defender, the pope crowned Charlemagne on the Christmas-eve of the year 800 with the crown of the Western empire, and proclaimed him Caesar Augustus. A Frankish prince, a Teuton, was thus declared the successor of the Caesars, and wielded all the power of the Emperor of the West. "The empire of Charlemagne," says Milman, "was almost commensurate with Latin Christendom; England was the only large territory which acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of Rome, not in subjection to the new Western empire." This event forms the great epoch in the annals of Roman Christendom.
We must now leave the West for a time, and turn our attention to another great religious revolution which suddenly and unexpectedly sprang up in the East—Mahometanism.
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