PATRIZIO dei ROMANI. — This dignity appears in Rome in the eighth century and persists there, with various interruptions, until the twelfth century. It is no longer a matter of the ancient Roman patriciate, but of a dignity that arose during the imperial period and subsequently underwent transformation.
In the Justinian organization, the patriciate constituted the highest rank in the court hierarchy, and it continued to be so at the Byzantine court until the ninth century, although it was combined with that of antypatos; in the ninth century the new dignity of the magistrates prevailed; in the eleventh century the patriciate disappeared. The Byzantine emperors used to confer this dignity upon foreign princes belonging to their clientele.
After the Lombard conquest of Italy, the persons who came to govern the Byzantine dominions with the office of exarch generally belonged to the rank of p.; the same was true of the governors of Sicily and Africa. For the sake of brevity, people often spoke of the p., meaning the exarch of Ravenna.
The new patriciate that arose in the second half of the eighth century was connected with the patriciate of Byzantine type.
Around 740 the duke of Rome is a p.: « Stephanus patricius et dux ». The Liber Pontificalis says that, when Pope Zaccaria departed in 743 for the meeting with King Liutprando, he left Rome « iamdieto Stephano patricio et duci ad gubernandum ». The phrase is of doubtful interpretation. Some believe that, given the Italian political crisis, the Emperor wished a personage equal in rank to the exarch to be in Rome; others believe that this was already a personage from the Roman aristocracy, designated by the local element as an affirmation of autonomy. It should not be forgotten that in 739 Gregorio III appealed to Carlo Martello for help against King Liutprando, offering him a Roman dignity that the sources do not clarify. On his journey to France, after the agreements with Pipino at Ponthion on 28 July 754, Stefano III crowned him king, conferring upon him and his sons the dignity of patricius Romanorum.
The juridical position that Pipino thus came to assume is much debated. In any case, it is certain that Pipino, king of the Franks and patricius Romanorum, did not perform the political and military functions either of the exarch or of the duke of Rome. From Pipino to Carlomagno, however, the Frankish kings, through the patrician dignity, assumed the protection of the Roman Church and the Papacy. The p. is created — whatever the title may be — by the pope, but does not depend upon him; Stefano II says a Deo institutus. The p. has rights of intervention, which amount to duties of intervention; and this is not connected, as some believe, only with extraordinary circumstances. The authority of the pope, moreover, is not diminished by that of the p., but rather strengthened. Furthermore, the creation of the Franco-Roman patriciate enabled the Roman Church to escape imperial control as regards the papal election: from the time of the Frankish p. under Paolo I, in 757, onward, notification alone was given of the election that had taken place, without awaiting confirmation and approval; indeed, whereas Paolo I gave the notification before the consecration, Leone III gave it only afterward, without raising any objections on the part of Carlomagno.
The Franco-Roman patriciate also had relations with the population of Rome; the letter of the Senate and people of Rome to Pipino in 757 recalls the admonition that had come from the p. king to remain faithful to blessed Peter, to the Church, and to Pope Paolo I: assurance is given on this point « quia ipse (il Papa) noster est pater et obtumus pastor »; they would therefore remain faithful to him. But in various letters the Romans also say that they are « fideles » to the p., and there is evidence of oaths of fidelity sworn by various cities of the Patrimony to the p. Perhaps from this time onward, patriciate was also used as a geographic-political term, equivalent to Patrimony of St. Peter, as appears in the Regesto di Faria (vol. V, p. 193, n. 1116): « infra regnum Longobardum sive infra patriciatus Romanorum ».
Essentially, however, the office of the p. was to protect the Roman Church. In writing to the new Pope Leone III in 796, Carlomagno speaks of the pactum he had concluded with his predecessor Adriano and expresses his intention of entering with him into an inviolable « foedus fidei et charitatis ». It should not, however, be believed that a modification of the patrician authority took place in 796; the substance of Carlomagno’s dignity was the same as Pipino’s: « devotus sanctae Ecclesiae defensor humilisque adiutor ». In their correspondence with Pipino and his sons, the popes regularly call them « rex et patricius ». Pipino does not appear to have used this title; Carlo, on the other hand, was pleased to bear it in 774. His entry into Rome took place according to the traditional ceremonial for the entrances of the imperial exarch; in 799 his intervention in Rome in defense of Leone III is to be attributed to his patrician authority. In 781 Carlo had brought with him to Rome his two sons Pipino and Ludovico, who were consecrated king and p. by Adriano I; indeed, there is no shortage of documents in which Pipino is called king of the Lombards and p. of the R.
The imperial coronation of 800 caused the title of p. to disappear from the Carolingian protocol. It was not, however, forgotten: the actions of the Carolingian emperors in Rome may perhaps be attributed more to their patrician authority than to their imperial authority. Some references are found: Amalario, bishop of Trier, writing to Carlomagno in 811, calls him emperor, king, and p. of the R.; in 872 Adriano II writes to Carlo il Calvo, expressing the wish that he might have him as duke, king, p., and emperor; Giovanni VIII, writing to Bosone in 879, calls him « iustus patricius ».
The dignity of p. of the R. reappears in the tenth century with Alberico II of the house of Teofilatto. In fact, he used the title « princeps Romanorum », but various sources call him p. of the R.; the coins on which he is supposed to have assumed the title « patricius » are not certain. Marozia, too, is sometimes called « patricia ». It cannot be excluded that Alberico II called himself p.; in that case, the dignity would have assumed a meaning quite different from that of the Carolingian patriciate: it would have been something opposed to the Papacy. Several German sources state that Ottone I was created in Rome not only emperor but also p.: « patricius atque imperator apostolica benedictione creatus ». Ottone III, too, is said to have been crowned emperor and p. in 996. However, for the Ottonian period there is no absolute certainty concerning this revival of the patriciate as an imperial dignity. Instead, perhaps in connection with the patriciate of Alberico, in 975 the patriciate reappears as a high urban magistracy in the family of the Crescenzi. In 975 there is a « Benedictus patricius », a cousin of Crescenzi; in 985 we find p. Giovanni, son of Crescenzi I, until approximately 995; then Giovanni II, son of Crescenzi, between 1006 and 1011. The Crescenzian patriciate has given rise to much discussion: Gregorovius regarded it as an anti-papal manifestation; Bossi traced it to imperial dependence, whether Ottonian or Byzantine; Borino, with good reason, asserts its character as a papal magistracy: « patricius Domini Apostolici », while reserving judgment in the case of Giovanni II. Between the two Giovanni of Crescenzi there appears a patriciate normally of imperial derivation, with a « Ziarius patricius », a faithful minister of Ottone III, who would thus have had the urban patriciate under his authority.
The house of Teofilatto returned to power in Rome after 1012, but does not seem to have exploited the dignity of p.; it is true, however, that, according to Bonizone, Benedetto IX granted the patriciate to his brother Gregorio di Tuscolo. The memory of it was not lost at this time: the Graphia aurea urbis Romae, gathering elements of diverse origin, preserves a juridical and moral portrait of the « patricius Romanorum », in which the Byzantine and Carolingian patriciates are fused. This explains how, in 1046, Enrico III, who had come to Rome for the imperial coronation, arranged for the Roman nobles of the imperial party to confer upon him the honor of the patriciate: he donned the traditional green mantle and placed upon his head the customary aureum circulum. Thus, in 1061, the Roman nobles once again sent the young Enrico IV the patrician aureum circulum, together with the ring, the mitre, and the chlamys, the insignia of the dignity. Bonizone explains the matter by saying that Enrico III believed « per patriciatus ordinem se Romanum posse ordinare pontificem ». Whether the p. had the right to direct or control the election of the popes was vigorously debated during the investiture struggle between the imperialists and the curialists. In 1076, in ordering Gregorio VII to abandon the papacy he had usurped, Enrico IV openly invoked the right conferred upon him by the patriciate of the City, to which he had been admitted by the will of God and with the consent of the Romans.
The patriciate reappeared in Rome in the 12th century: according to Guglielmo di Malmesbury, when Enrico V was in Rome in 1111, the Roman nobles hastened to crown him with the golden patrician circlet; according to Pietro Diacono, the same occurred with Lotario III in 1133. It does not appear that any other emperors subsequently assumed the Roman patriciate. Instead, in 1144 the Roman anti-papal renewal revived the patriciate as an urban magistracy of the Crescentian type, but with an anti-papal character: Giordano di Pierleone was created p. by the people (or by the nobles?). As early as 1145, however, the Senate’s agreement with Eugenio III led to the suppression of the patriciate, while the prefecture was restored as a papal magistracy.