Constantine, Roman Emperor, Known as the Great

CONSTANTINE (Imp. Caesar Flavius Valerius Constantinus Augustus), ROMAN EMPEROR, called the GREAT. -
SUMMARY. - I. Life. - II. Personality. - III. Ecclesiastical policy. - IV. Personal religiosity. - V. Political motives for the conversion of C. - VI. The caesaropapism of C. - VII. C. in legend and in cult. - VIII. Constantinian buildings in Rome and in Palestine. - IX. Donation of C.

I. LIFE

He was born at Naissus (Dacia) on 22 February, not before 280 (according to Seeck in 288), to the Caesar Constantius I and to Helena; he died in the villa of Achiron, near Nicomedia, on 22 May 337. In 289 Constantius separated from Helena and married Theodora, stepdaughter of Maximian Herculius. C. was educated at the court of Diocletian and Galerius in the East, where he was kept almost as a hostage. After the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian (1 May 305), Constantius, having become senior Augustus, summoned his son to Gaul, and when he died shortly afterwards at Eboracum (York), the troops proclaimed C. emperor (25 July 306). At the same time in Rome, Maxentius, son of Maximian, proclaimed himself emperor (28 Oct. 306), with his father's help. Maximian and Maxentius formed alliance with C. against Galerius, and C. married Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, who had already been destined to him. Maximian and Maxentius recognized him as Augustus, but the consulate of C. and Maximian for 307 was not recognized in the East. Soon Maximian, having fallen out with Maxentius, fled to C. in Gaul. Since he began to conspire also against his son-in-law, the latter had him imprisoned and executed (according to others he ended by suicide) in July 310.

After the death of Galerius (May 311), the two emperors of the East, the Augustus Licinius and the Caesar Maximinus Daia, fell into discord: Daia took the side of Maxentius, while Licinius drew closer to C. and took as his wife Constantia, his half-sister. In the spring of 312, C. began the war against Maxentius and defeated him in the battle at the Milvian Bridge (28 Oct. 312), in which Maxentius met his death. The Senate gave C. the title of first Augustus. In Feb. 313 C. met with Licinius at Milan, where they celebrated the marriage of Licinius to Constantia and issued the so-called "edict of Milan" (v. infra). When C. had returned to Gaul, the first war between C. and Licinius broke out. C. defeated him at Cibalae (near Sirmium) and in the peace kept Illyricum for himself, thus making himself master of a good half of the empire. In 315 C. and Licinius were consuls. New dissensions, to which the persecution of the Christians resumed by Licinius in 321 was not extraneous, caused a second war in which Licinius was defeated at Adrianople (3 July 323), then at Chrysopolis in Asia Minor (18 Sept. 323) and was finally shut up in Nicomedia. Constantia interceded, and C. promised pardon; however, conspiracies of Licinius with the barbarians gave C. grounds to have him executed (324). Thus, after 40 years of divisions, C. remained the sole head of the empire.

On 20 May 325 C. was present at the opening of the Council of Nicaea. From July to Sept. 326 he resided in Rome, and at this moment he decreed the death of his firstborn son Crispus, at Pola. The reasons for this decision are obscure; it seems that a palace intrigue on the part of Fausta, Crispus's stepmother, was involved. Having then become convinced of Crispus's innocence through the intervention of his mother Helena, C. had Fausta executed. On 26 Nov. 326 he laid the first stone of Constantinople, the new capital which was solemnly inaugurated on 11 May 330. Of the three sons he had by Fausta he had already given the title of Caesar, in 317, to Constantine (II), and in 323-24 to Constantius (II).

In 333 he also nominated the last, Constans, and in 335 Dalmatius, the son of his half-brother Julius Constantius. Evidently he intended to revive the tetrarchy of Diocletian, entrusting it to his blood relatives. Hannibalianus, the younger brother of Dalmatius, received in marriage Constantia, daughter of Constantine, and the kingdom of Pontus. In 337, during the preparations for a war against Shapur II, king of Persia, C. fell ill and died, baptized by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia. His body was buried in the basilica of the Apostles at Constantinople.

II. PERSONALITY

He is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures among the Roman emperors, and his government one of the most fortunate. His character: first of all it is that of a passionate and reckless man: in the army he drags men along and is a bold strategist; at court he loves pomp and magnificence, poses as a handsome man and a wit, and always takes pleasure in acting, in creating. He seeks to dazzle, to win the hearts of his subjects and to secure the attention of posterity. To satisfy his ambition or even merely his vanity, he spares neither reforms nor expense, without calculating the consequences or the repercussions, because his decisions, most of the time, are sudden. He is an impulsive man, docile to influences, but also highly conscious of his mission. His passion for ruling is sustained and, as it were, magnified by the awareness of his duty and by confidence in his destiny" (J. R. Palanque).

In a certain sense Constantine is the first true sovereign of the Roman empire, whereas the emperors, from Augustus through the whole of the 2nd century, were rather supreme magistrates, and those of the 3rd century were generals or dictators. The Byzantine emperors, as well as Charlemagne and the medieval emperors, felt themselves to be, and were, much more the successors of Constantine than of Augustus or of Trajan.

Modern historians often treat Constantine with a certain malevolence, due in part to the legitimate tendency to reduce to their proper proportions the overly enthusiastic praises of his contemporaries, but above all to his religious policy.
III. ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY. - When C. took over the government, the persecution had long since ceased in the West in fact, and in the East it had ceased since 311 thanks to the edict of Galerius. Arguing from Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IX, 9, 12), some (Burckhardt, Boissier; against: K. Bihlmeyer, Das angebl. Toleranzedikt K. von 312, in Theol. Quartalschr., 96 [1914], pp. 65-100) held that C. issued an edict of toleration before the battle at the Milvian Bridge. It is certain that at the meeting with Licinius in Milan (February 313) the norms to be followed in the matter of the Christians were established, from which resulted the edict issued by Licinius in the name of both emperors at Nicomedia on 13 June 313 (full text in Lactantius, De mort. pers. 58; extract in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., X, 5, 2-3), briefly called the "Edict of Milan," of which here is the

Among the laws subsequently issued by Constantine in favor of the Church, the principal ones are: in 313 or 315 immunity from the tributum and from the annona (Cod. Theod., XI 1, 1); exemption for clerics from "public munera." In 321 Sunday is recognized as a day of rest; churches are declared capable of accepting testamentary legacies (Cod. Theod., XVI 2, 4). In 321 and 333 the arbitration of bishops (audientia episcopalis) is obligatory even if invoked by only one of the two parties (this last clause was abolished by Arcadius in 398 and Honorius in 408); from the arbitration of bishops there is no appeal to civil judgment.

In addition to this, Constantine filled the churches, especially those of Rome, with gifts and benefactions (on C.'s constructions in Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, v. individual entries, and under paragraph VIII). As early as 313 he ordered Anulinus, proconsul of Africa, to place substantial sums at the disposal of the Church, and wrote on the matter to Caecilian, bishop of Carthage (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., X, 6). For the care of the poor he assigned regular subsidies to the churches in the individual cities (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., V, 5).

From the beginning C. showed himself solicitous for the unity of the Church. In 313 he entrusted to Pope Miltiades (310-14) the arbitration in the Donatist question. In 314 he assembled at Arles the bishops of the states then governed by him in a Council for the same cause (cf. DONATISM). In the convocation and the happy outcome of the Council of Nicaea (v.) in 325 against Arius, he had an important part. If after the Council he restored to their sees the bishops Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea, deposed by the Council, on account of new disturbances, this is probably due to the wiles of his sister Constantia, widow of Licinius. Subsequently he went even further: he consented to the deposition of Eustathius of Antioch (330) and other bishops adherent to the definition of Nicaea, and removed Athanasius (335) from his see of Alexandria (v. ARIANISM).

IV. PERSONAL RELIGIOSITY

Constantine was never a "practicing" Christian. He received Baptism only at death, and his actions did not always remain within the limits of Christian morality. On the other hand, he was certainly convinced of the truth of the Christian faith, he loved and highly esteemed the Church and its representatives, and he desired the spread of the faith (on Constantine's letter to Shapur, king of the Persians, cf. N. H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church, p. 26).

There was certainly an evolution in his religious thought. Modern authors have sought to establish its stages: solar syncretism, philosophical monotheism, superstitious Christianity (cf. J. R. Palanque, in Pliche-Martin-Fruta, III, pp. 30-34); one must bear in mind, however, that Constantine does not seem to have been a thinker capable of splitting hairs, but rather a practical realist. On the other hand, the expressions of the pagan panegyrists, the fact that pagan emblems still appear on Constantine's coins for years, the title Pontifex Maximus (which was suppressed only by Gratian in 382), cannot have decisive value in judging Constantine's religious attitude. Likewise, the conviction that took root in him of a vision or divine manifestation granted to him before the victory over Maxentius, and the dream that led him to choose Byzantium as his new capital (Cod. Theod., XIII, 5, 7; Sozomen, Hist. eccl., II, 3) are not enough to make of him a habitual dreamer or a mystic.

The vision of 312. - A panegyric of 313 alludes to the vision (Kirch, Enchirid. n. 363) and another of 321 (ibid., n. 392); it is recounted by Lactantius (De mort. pers., 44), Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IX, 9, 1-11; De vita Const., I, 27-29), Socrates (Hist. eccl., I, 2, 5-10), Sozomen (Hist. eccl., I, 3), Philostorgius (Hist. eccl., frag. 6), Gelasius of Cyzicus (Hist. conc. Nicaeni, I, 4, 1), who indeed differ on the particulars: in fact, according to Lactantius the vision would have occurred in a dream on the night preceding the battle of the Milvian Bridge; according to Eusebius (De Vita Const.) much earlier, while Constantine was still on the march, and at broad noon, with the soldiers also witnessing it; according to Philostorgius it was a vision of stars; however, since such accounts must go back to Constantine's own testimony, it may be that he himself varied in setting forth the particulars, as happens to one who often and with satisfaction repeats an episode of his youth. Of the substance of the fact one cannot reasonably doubt.

V. POLITICAL MOTIVES FOR CONSTANTINE'S CONVERSION

When Constantine assumed the government, the general situation, especially in the West, was not such as to require a pro-Christian policy. Christians were still a minority (not much more than 10% of a total population of the empire estimated at 50 million) and had never constituted a political party, nor taken part in the internal struggles for the conquest of the empire. The prejudices of the masses and of the educated classes against them still persisted. Constantine would have had an interest, especially in the West, in not introducing changes that would clash with public opinion and in continuing the administrative direction given to the empire by Diocletian. By taking up the cause of the God of the Christians, Constantine could not count on profiting from them in the struggle against Maxentius, since the latter did not persecute the Christians; on the contrary, he had begun to restore their confiscated property (Optatus, Contra Parmenianum, I, 18). Just as the campaign against Maxentius had no religious character, so too Constantine's conversion, if it occurred during this campaign, could not have had a purely political character. One can speak of political motives only in the sense that Constantine, having clearly perceived the disastrous consequences for the empire of the persecuting policy of Diocletian and Galerius, must have felt induced not to repeat their error; but this is rather a commitment to governing the State well than a political calculation.

VI. THE CAESAROPAPISM OF CONSTANTINE

From a certain point of view C. can be considered the first representative of the system that modern historians call caesaropapism, that is, the system that regards the prince as head by right, in a certain sense, also of the Church. C. held it his duty to promote the interests of the Church, and to that end he convoked councils, issued laws, and took measures concerning ecclesiastical interests, so much so that one is led to think that he was very little concerned about the primacy of the Roman Pope. «The disproportion between his magnificence toward the Roman Church and the small place that he grants to the papacy in his ecclesiastical policy is extraordinary» (Battifol). Certain of his measures after the Council of Nicaea, when under the influence of his sister Constantia and of Eusebius of Nicomedia he lent himself to the intrigues of the Arians, were very harmful to the Church. Nevertheless it can be said that C., more than governing the Church, intended to be its great benefactor; not to regulate the «creed» of his subjects, as his son and successor Constantius did, but to remove the divisions that heretics created within it, in a certain way anticipating the theory of the secular arm of the medieval Empire. And the bishops, first of all in the East, dazzled by this unexpected benevolence following upon the most atrocious of persecutions, considered themselves bound by a devotion without limits toward him, imagining that from the Emperor every good would henceforth come to the Church. To all the acts that appear to us caesaropapistic, C. was induced by the prayers of the bishops. Thus, without being a caesaropapist in principle, he inaugurated this system in the Byzantine Church.

VII. CONSTANTINE IN LEGEND AND CULT

Constantine, it seems, was not, like so many other great figures, the object of legends of a popular character, but rather of a literary character. The most important is that of his baptism at the hands of Pope Sylvester and his healing from leprosy; it is found in the 6th century in the Lib. Pont., but may go back to the second half of the 5th century (on the Donatio Constantini, v. below). Such legends were also the subject of artistic representations such as the Donatio Constantini by Giulio Romano, the 17th-century frescoes at St. John Lateran and especially the much older ones in the oratory of the SS. Quattro. The liturgical cult of Constantine, perhaps originating among the Arians (H. Leclercq, s. v. in DACL, III, col. 2688), spread throughout the Greek East, where Constantine was celebrated as "equal to the Apostles" and "thirteenth Apostle" (feast 21 May, together with St. Helena, as also among the Armenians). On isolated cults, arising through relics, in England, Bohemia, Sicily, Calabria, v. Acta SS. Maii, V, pp. 12-14. In Calabria there still exist today S. Costantino near Mileto and S. Costantino di Rivello near Sapri.

Constantin, Paris 1932; J. R. Palanque, Constantin (Hommes d'Etat, 1), ibid. 1936, pp. 340-426; W. Sexton, Recherches sur la chronologie du règne de C. le Grand, in Revue des études anciennes, 39 (1937), pp. 197-218; J. R. Palanque, in Fliche-Martin-Frutz, III, pp. 17-100; J. Ortiz de Urbina, La politica di C. nella controversia ariana, in Atti del V Congr. internazionale di studi bizantini, Rome 1939, pp. 284-98. For the 16th centenary of Constantine's death (1937) many commemorative articles appeared: A. Ferrus, in Civ. Catt., 1937, IV, pp. 385-94; H. Lietzmann, Der Glaube Konstantins d. Gr., in Sitzungsb. d. Preuss. Akademie d. Wiss. Phil. hist. Kl., 20 (1937); H. Grégoire, La «conversion» de Constantin, in Revue de l'Univ. de Bruxelles, 36 (1930-31).

pp. 331-72; A. Schenck v. Stauffenberg, Der Reichsgedanke K. s., in Festschrift Haller, 1940, p. 70-94; A. Kanluth, Die Beisetzung Kaiser K. d. Gr., Untersuchungen zur religiösen Haltung des Kaisers (Breslauer hist. Forschungen, 18), Breslau 1941.

On the vision: The sources collected in Kirch, Enchiridion, nn. 363, 365, 391, 392, 453, 457, 716, 843, 915, 953. Special studies: H. Schroers, K. d. Gr. Kreuzerscheinung, Bonn 1913; id., in Zeitschr. f. kath. Theol., (1916), pp. 238-37, 485-523; F. Savio, in Civ. Catt., 1913, II, pp. 11 ff., 385 ff., 556 ff.; 1913, III, p. 3 ff.; Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri, Il labaro descritto da Eusebio, in Studi romani, 1 (1913), pp. 61-86; Ancora del labaro descritto da Eusebio, ibid., 2 (1913), pp. 161-23; A. Alföldi, in Pisciculi (Miscellanea Dölger), Münster 1939, pp. 1-18; J. Zeiller, in Byzantium, 14 (1939), pp. 329-39; H. Grégoire, La vision de C. liquidée, ibid., 14 (1939), pp. 341-51; v. LABARO.

On the legend of Constantine's leprosy and his baptism at the hand of Sylvester, cf.: J. Döllinger, Papstfabrik, 2nd ed., Munich 1890, p. 61 ff.; F. J. Dölger, in Röm. Quartalschr., suppl., 19 (1913), pp. 377-447; W. Levinson, Konstantinische Schenkung und Silvesterlegende (Miscell. Ehrle, II, in Studi e Testi, 38), Rome 1924, pp. 159-247; G. B. Giovenale, Il Battistero lateranense, ibid. 1929. Ludovico Hertling

VIII. CONSTANTINIAN CONSTRUCTIONS IN ROME AND PALESTINE

1. General order

The grand purpose of Constantine the Great was to reunite the Roman Empire and to rebuild it on the foundations of Christian doctrine, ethics and discipline. The Emperor was concerned to favor the Christian Church, to strengthen its prestige. A good means to this end seemed to him the construction of monumental buildings of worship for the new religion.

This activity of his manifested itself in a threefold way: 1) in restoring places of assembly both to private individuals and to Christian communities according to the rescript of Milan (313); 2) in raising, enlarging and extending already existing places of worship; 3) in building sacred edifices ex novo both in the West and in the East.

2. Edifices of worship in the West

In the West this activity began after the victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge (28 Oct. 312), and according to the Lib. Pont. eleven edifices of worship are traced back to the personal impulse of the Emperor. Perhaps immediately after taking possession of the Urbs, the Basilica in honor of the Savior was erected, as the episcopal church for the bishop of Rome, in connection with a baptistery and a papal palace (Lib. Pont., I, p. 176). The entire building was constructed on the imperial property in the Lateran (domus Faustae), extending it over a street and over the demolished barracks of the Equites singulares (E. Josi, Scoperte nella basilica costantiniana al Laterano, Rome 1934). In the same city, though later in time, a church in honor of the Holy Cross was built in the Sessorium, this being the property of Helena Augusta (ibid., I, p. 179).

Outside the walls five cemetery churches arose, either immediately over the tombs of the martyrs or in the area above the crypts of the cemeteries along the consular roads. But the most important building is without doubt the basilica of St. Peter over the tomb of the prince of the Apostles, which was built by cutting away a part of the Vatican hill down to the level of the tomb, filling in with earth the pagan burial ground with its monuments and building over it a basilica with five naves (ibid., I, p. 176). Simpler and more modest in its dimensions was the small basilica of St. Paul over the tomb of the Apostle in the marshy region of the Tiber between the Iter vetus and the via Ostiense (ibid., I, p. 178). Equally modest seem to have been the basilica of St. Lawrence «super arenario cryptae» in the cemetery of Cyriaca on the via Tiburtina (ibid., I, p. 181) and also the Basilica in honor of the martyrs Marcellinus the Presbyter and Peter the Exorcist on the imperial domain ad duas lauros in connection with the mausoleum of the empress Helena (ibid., I, p. 182). Likewise of modest proportions was the church in honor of St. Agnes, virgin and martyr, on the property of the imperial princesses on the via Nomentana (ibid., p. 180).

Of a more administrative character are the following four churches, which were arranged according to a military point of view, namely a church at Ostia (ibid., I, p. 183), a port of connection with Spain and Africa, together with a baptismal place, one at Naples (ibid., I, p. 186), a station of the fleet for the East, another at Albano Laziale (ibid., I, p. 184) together with an episcopium, using the «scheneca deserta» of the Legio Parthica II, and a fourth at Capua on the via Appia (ibid. I, p. 185).

On the basis then of the data of the history of architecture, the Basilica Apostolorum on the via Appia and the basilica of Theodore in Aquileia can also be attributed to this period. Beyond this, the Lib. Pont. also presents the detailed lists of donations (furnishings, decorations) and of foundations (money, landed properties, spices).

3. Edifices of worship in the East

In the East Constantine began to build Christian churches after having overcome in 324 Licinius, his adversary. Eusebius, a historian at the imperial court, expressly records eight Constantinian churches. The church, presumably built first, was the Octagon in Antioch (v.) as a kind of commemorative church of the victory of 324 and of the unification of the Roman Empire.

Almost a trilogy in glorification of the divine manifestations of the Nativity, Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord was formed by the edifices of worship in Bethlehem, in Jerusalem and on the Mount of Olives. The building at Bethlehem comprises a longitudinal edifice with five naves and, in place of the apse, an octagon over the cave of the Nativity (Eusebius, Vita Constantini, III, 43). That at Jerusalem comprises a basilica with five naves, the Martyrion and a central building over the cave of the Sepulchre and of the Resurrection, the Anastasis (Eusebius, op. cit., III, 30-40). The third, on the Mount of Olives, consists of a three-nave prayer building above the cave of the teaching, connected with a sanctuary on the actual site of the ascension on the summit of the mount (Eusebius, op. cit., III, 43). The basilical building at Mamre, around the altar, the well and Abraham's terebinth, is also considered to be of the same type (Eusebius, op. cit., III, 51). Besides this, a basilica on the site of the temple of Jupiter at Heliopolis (Eusebius, op. cit., III, 65), a basilica at Tyre, as compensation for another that had been destroyed (Eusebius, op. cit., X, 4, 25), and above all the Apostoleion at Constantinople in connection with the mausoleum of C. himself (Eusebius, op. cit., IV, 58), are enumerated as Constantinian churches.

Eusebius subsequently also gives a special description of the churches at Tyre, Jerusalem, Antioch and Constantinople. To that of the basilica of Tyre he adds an interpretation of the Christian place of worship in a liturgical and mystical sense.

4. Characteristics

The architectural form varies according to the purpose of the building. One normally finds a central construction (round or octagonal) for mausoleums (St. Helena on the via Labicana, St. Constance on the via Nomentana, the mausoleum of C. at Constantinople), for baptisteries (St. John in the Lateran) and for the memorials (Anastasis in Jerusalem, the Octagon at Bethlehem and the one at Antioch Eleona [?]), an apsidal construction for the tombs of the martyrs (St. Peter's in the Vatican, St. Paul's on the via Ostiensis) as well as for the underground crypts (St. Lawrence outside the Walls, St. Agnes outside the Walls, Sts. Peter and Marcellinus on the via Labicana), and finally a longitudinal construction for the buildings of prayer and liturgical assemblies, whether with five naves (St. Saviour at the Lateran, St. Peter's in the Vatican, the Martyrion in Jerusalem, the Basilica at Bethlehem, the Apostolion at Constantinople [?]), or with three naves (St. Paul outside the Walls, St. Lawrence outside the Walls, Albano [?], Capua, Naples, Mount of Olives, Mamre, Heliopolis, Tyre), or with one nave (St. Agnes outside the Walls).

The central and longitudinal constructions normally have a single storey. In the East, however, some have two storeys (the Octagon at Antioch, the Martyrion in Jerusalem).

The vertical section of the places of worship almost always shows the raised space with a row of windows, and with two or four porticoes added at the sides.

The law of the orientation of places of worship on the east-west axis seems to have been respected. Ten churches are oriented with the apse towards the west (the Lateran, St. Peter's, St. Paul's, St. Lawrence, the Basilica Apostolorum, Jerusalem, Tyre, Antioch, Heliopolis, Constantinople), five with the apse towards the east (St. Cross in Jerusalem, Albano, Capua, Bethlehem, Eleona, Mamre) and four in a divergent direction (St. Agnes outside the Walls, Ostia, Naples, Sts. Peter and Marcellinus).

Ludovico Voelkl

IX. DONATION of C

Today more commonly called the Constitutum of C., it is a medieval forgery that claims to be the diplomatic act by which the emperor C. would have donated in 314 Rome, Italy and the West to Pope Sylvester I (314-35) and his successors, attributing to them over those territories honours and powers of true temporal sovereigns and over all the Churches of the world the primacy of jurisdiction and the right to legislate in matters of faith and morals.

The content of the document must be divided into two clearly distinct parts. In the first, the confessio (C. Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus, Tübingen 1934, no. 228, 1-10), after the complete formal protocolary characteristics and the professio fidei, there follows the narration of the prodigious healing of C. from leprosy and of his baptism. The pagan priests, all medical remedies having proved useless, had suggested that he bathe in a vat full of the blood of innocent children. C., moved by the weeping of the mothers, refused. The apostles Peter and Paul, having appeared to him on the following night, assured him of healing, should he ask Baptism of Pope Sylvester. Having recognized in an image, which the latter presented to him, the Apostles seen the night before, he asked for Baptism, which Sylvester administered to him, having it immediately followed by Confirmation. In the second part, the donatio or dispositio (C. Mirbt, op. cit., 11-20), Constantine, in agreement with all his satraps and with the entire Senate and also with the optimates and all the Roman people, resolves to honor the Roman Church by granting it imperial powers, dignities and honors; he wills that the bishop of Rome have the principatum over the four Eastern patriarchs and over all the Churches of the world; that the Lateran Basilica be venerated as the principal (caput et vertex) of all the Churches of the world, that the imperial palace itself, the Lateran palace, become the residence of the popes, that they may bear imperial insignia; that the clergy of Rome have the same honors and the same vestments as the officials of the Emperor. Finally he grants the Pope civil jurisdiction, firma imperiali censura, over Rome, Italy and the entire West. Consequently the Emperor contents himself with the countries of the East, where he would have his new capital «quoniam ubi principatus sacerdotum et christianae religionis caput ab imperatore coeleste constitutum est, iustum non est ut illic imperator terrenus habeat potestatem». There follows the eschatocol with the sanctio or threat of spiritual penalties against violators of the document's provisions and the corroboratio in which he declares that he has furnished the act with his autograph signature and placed it on the tomb of St. Peter, swearing for himself and his successors to observe it loyally.

The text, drafted in an obscure and bombastic form, has come down to us in Latin, Greek and Slavonic. The most complete and definitive Latin text, ordinarily preferred by editors, is the Frankish or Dionysian one, because it is preserved in a manuscript of the monastery of St-Denis in Paris, written in the 9th century (Paris, Bibl. Nat., cod. lat. 2777). Close to it is the maior text of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, which however also present a minor one, comprising only the confessio. In the letter of Pope Leo IX to Michael Cerularius of 1054 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 4382; Mansi, XIX, p. 663 ff.), on the other hand, only the part properly called donatio is reported. These Latin redactions go back to a common archetype. In the Vatican Library are preserved manuscripts that report the Greek text, made known by Agostino Steuco (De falsa donatione Constantini libri duo, Lyon 1547, pp. 99-103). These too appear in two redactions, which however, unlike the Latin ones, are absolutely independent of one another and are reflected in the manuscripts that contain the integral text (cod. Vat. gr. 614, 778, 789, 973) or a part of it, only the confessio (cod. Vat. gr. 1416) or only the donatio (cod. Vat. gr. 81, 606, 848, 849, 850, 1115). One, more ancient, reproduces the structure of the lesser Isidorian and Leonine text; the other, more recent, is the literal translation of the Frankish Latin text. Pavlov made known (in Vizant. Vremen., 3 [1896], p. 21 f.) several Slavonic versions of the document, all made, rather than on the Greek text more conformable to the original, in a reading resulting from the pairing of the confessio, from the best Greek text, with a late translation of the donatio. Until the last decades of the past century everyone admitted the unity of the text of the donatio and the priority of the Frankish Latin text. In 1889 J. Friedrich first and then Lamprecht, Bayet and Brunner came out against the unity of composition of the text of the donation, whose parts betray a different origin. The confessio would be linked to the Sylvestrian legend and to the Monothelite movement, and would express the religious moment in which it was composed: 7th century (638-53); the donatio would express the political-territorial moment and would be linked to the situation of the time of Stephen III (754). However, their arguments were easily criticized by Scheffer-Boichorst and by Löning. A. Gaudenzi, on the other hand, believes that the donatio, before being drafted in diplomatic form, was an appendix to the Vita Silvestri, of which the confessio would instead have been the fundamental core; the Greek text would have precedence both for the confessio and for the donatio; from their union was born the diplomatic falsification, as expressed in the Frankish text. R. Cessi, acutely analyzing the text, believes he can assert: the original Latin text of the donatio, which reproduced the features of the imperial constitutions with their diplomatic style, subsequently underwent various reworkings under the influence of the Sylvestrian legend in the confessio and of a different political interpretation in the donatio.

The manuscript tradition already reveals the wide diffusion of the donation. If the hypotheses of Gaudenzi and Cessi were accepted, one would have to admit a complicated history of the text even before the end of the 8th century or the beginning of the 9th, when the Paris manuscript, which reproduces the definitive text, was written.

Some have wished to see a reference to the donatio in an allusion of Pope Adrian I contained in a letter to Charlemagne of 778 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 2423) where the largesses of Constantine are spoken of; but more than to the donatio he meant to allude in general to the Emperor's benefactions, which were very well known, if for no other reason than thanks to the Lib. Pont.; all the more so since none of Adrian's successors down to Leo IX makes mention of the donatio, although it was very well known through the Pseudo-Isidorian collection.

In the 10th century Otto III rejected a copy that was being passed off as the original and had been fabricated by the deacon John of the maimed fingers. It was Leo IX who first made official use of it, sending to Constantinople a copy of the Greek text of the donatio, in a letter to Michael Cerularius of 1054 (Mansi, XIX, p. 663 ff.). The initial objections then quieted down both in the East, as Balsamon and Blastares and the Slavonic versions testify, and in the West, as the insertion into the Decretum Gratiani in the 12th century proves. Canonists and civilians were agreed on its authenticity, though the latter censured its content; a censure that Dante made his own (Inf., XIX, 115-117).

The first to confront the critical problem of the authenticity of the donation and to conclude negatively were in the West the humanists of the 15th century: Nicholas of Cusa, Lorenzo Valla, Reginald Pecock. In vain attempts were made thereafter until the 19th century to save the document. By now for everyone it is a historical and diplomatic falsification.

It now remains to determine the origin and purpose of the forgery. Having excluded that the author of the donation was John of the maimed fingers, who lived in the 10th century, scholars thought of Pseudo-Isidore (A. Natale, R. Cessi, W. Martens, F. Gregorovius), of the Lateran cleric Gregory (H. M. Colombier, C. Bayet, I. Döllinger), of Leo and then Pope Leo III (L. Duchesne), of the cardinal deacon John (L. G. Morin, Pietro della Marca), of Christopher, head of the papal chancery (Hartmann), of Pope Adrian I himself (J. Langen), of Stephen II (Hauck), of Paul I (J. Friedrich), of an assistant of his (Scheffer-Boichorst) and even of Anastasius the Librarian (Schnürer).

As for the place, once an Eastern origin is ruled out, the choice lies between Rome and St-Denis in France. As for the time, opinions are even more varied. Setting aside the earlier views, the critics who accept the textual unity of the document — and they are the vast majority — do not go outside the period between Pepin and Charles the Bald (750-850). Many hold that the donatio was fabricated in Rome to justify and validate the political aspirations of the popes, partly accepted in the pact of Quierzy of 754, or else to obtain the full execution of those promises, noting affinities of terms and views between the text of the donatio and the papal documents of the time. According to Döllinger, Stephen II (III), going to France in 753, actually carried the document with him; according to Cantel, Böhmer and Hauck the document would have appeared between 753 and 754; according to Mayer, Scheffer-Boichorst and K. Zeumer, in the time of Paul I; according to Hartmann, Verminghoff and Brackmann, in the time of Stephen III. Others see in the forgery the intention of preparing and justifying the imperial coronation of Charlemagne. Yet even among these critics some remain firmly attached to the Roman origin (Duchesne), while others (Thomassin, Zaccaria, Hergenröther, M. Buchner, Soranzo, etc.) observe that the oldest manuscript tradition is of French origin (cod. Paris, 2777 and the Pseudo-Isidorian), that the first to cite it were French writers (Ado of Vienne, Aeneas of Paris, Hincmar of Reims) and that among the popes the first who undoubtedly cited it was a Frank, Leo IX, in the middle of the 11th century, and finally that the donatio served as a model for a series of forgeries prepared precisely in that monastery of St-Denis, where the oldest text of the donatio was preserved; and they conclude that the forgery was composed in France between 774 and 824. Perhaps one does not stray far from the truth in thinking that the whole document was compiled to emphasize the Church's relations of independence in the face of civil power, or to legitimize the fact of the creation of the new Western Empire.

Recently Cessi, denying the textual unity of the document, holds that as it stands it is the result of a long elaboration: to the initial Latin nucleus of political-jurisdictional content, intended to affirm the authority of the Church in the face of the Empire and going back to the time of Gelasius, there was added in the 7th century a mystical-religious addition under the influence of the Sylvestrian legend later collected in the Acta Silvestri, of which our document is indeed the primary source, and finally in the time of Pope Adrian I, no later than 774, the political-territorial addition was inserted, that is, the donatio properly so called. - See pl. XL.

Studies: G. P. Kirsch, La donatio di C., in La scuola cattolica, 1913 II, pp. 198-213; A. Schönegger, Die kirchenpolitische Bedeutung des Constitutum Constantini im früheren Mittelalter, in Zeitschrift für katholischen Theologie, 42 (1918), p. 337 ff. (with an ample and reasoned bibliography). Later works: W. Levison, Konst. Schenkung und Silvester-Legende (Studi e testi, 38), Rome 1925; G. Luehr, Die Konstanz. Schenkung in der abendländ. Liter. des M. A. (Hist. Studien von Ebering, 166), Berlin 1926; E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, I, Tübingen 1930, pp. 103 ff., 580 ff.; R. Cessi, Il Costituto di C., fonti ed età di composizione, in Annali della R. Università di Trieste, 1 (1929); id., Il Costituto di C., in Rivista storica italiana, 48 (1931), pp. 155-76; M. Buchner, Rom oder Reims die Heimat des Constitutum Constantini, in Histor. Jahrbuch, 53 (1933), pp. 137-68.

Ireneo Daniele