ing him. He was cured of leprosy and gave up worshipping idols. Then "with all his satraps, the
Senate, his nobles and the whole Roman people, he thought it good to grant supreme power to the
See of Peter," and superiority over Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople. He then
built a church in his palace of the Lateran. On the Pope he conferred his crown, tiara, and imperial
garments. He placed a tiara on the Pope's head and held the reins of his horse. He left to "Silvester
and his successors Rome and all the provinces, districts, and cities of Italy and the West to be
subject to the Roman Church forever"; he then moved East "because, where the princedom of
bishops and the head of the Christian religion has been established by the heavenly Emperor it is
not just that an earthly Emperor should have power."
The Lombards did not tamely submit to Pepin and the Pope, but in repeated wars with the Franks
they were worsted. At last, in 774, Pepin's son Charlemagne marched into Italy, completely
defeated the Lombards, had himself recognized as their king, and then occupied Rome, where he
confirmed Pepin's donation. The Popes of his day, Hadrian and Leo III, found it to their advantage
to further his schemes in every way. He conquered most of Germany, converted the Saxons by
vigorous persecution, and finally, in his own person, revived the Western Empire, being crowned
Emperor by the Pope in Rome on Christmas Day, A.D. 800.
The foundation of the Holy Roman Empire marks an epoch in medieval theory, though much less
in medieval practice. The Middle Ages were peculiarly addicted to legal fictions, and until this
time the fiction had persisted that the Western provinces of the former Roman Empire were still
subject, de jure, to the Emperor in Constantinople, who was regarded as the sole source of legal
authority. Charlemagne, an adept in legal fictions, maintained that the throne of the Empire was
vacant, because the reigning Eastern sovereign Irene (who called herself emperor, not empress)
was a usurper, since no woman could be emperor. Charles derived his claim to legitimacy from
the Pope. There was thus, from the first, a curious interdependence of pope and emperor. No one
could be emperor unless crowned by the Pope in Rome; on the other hand, for some centuries,
every strong emperor claimed the right to appoint or depose popes. The medieval theory of
legitimate power depended upon both emperor