PATRICIAN OF THE ROMANS. — This dignity appears in Rome in the 8th century and lasts there with various interruptions until the 12th century. It is no longer the ancient Roman patrician, but a dignity that arose in the imperial period and was subsequently transformed.
In the Justinianic organization, the patrician constituted the highest rank in the court hierarchy, and this continued to be the case in the Byzantine court until the 9th century, even though it was combined with that of *antypatos*; in the 9th century, the new dignity of magistrates prevailed; in the 11th century, the patrician disappeared. The Byzantine emperors used to confer this dignity upon foreign princes of their clientage.
After the Lombard conquest of Italy, the persons who came to govern the Byzantine domains with the office of exarch belonged, as a rule, to the rank of patricians; this was the case with the governors of Sicily and Africa. Often, for brevity’s sake, people spoke of the patrician, meaning the Exarch of Ravenna.
The new patrician that emerged in the second half of the 8th century is linked to the Byzantine type of patrician.
Around 740, the Duke of Rome is a patrician: “Stephanus patricius et dux.” The *Liber Pontificalis* states that when Pope Zachary left for the meeting with King Liutprand in 743, he left Rome “in the care of Stephen the patrician and duke to govern.” The phrase is of doubtful interpretation. Some believe that, given the Italian political crisis, the Emperor wished that a person of equal rank to the Exarch be in Rome; others believe that this was already a figure from the Roman aristocracy designated by the local element, as an assertion of autonomy. It should not be forgotten that in 739 Gregory III sought help against King Liutprand from Charles Martel, offering him a Roman dignity that the sources do not clarify. Stephen III, during his journey to France after the agreements with Pippin at Ponthion on 28 July 754, crowned him king and conferred upon him and his sons the dignity of *Patricius Romanorum*.
The legal status that Pippin thus assumed is much debated. It is certain, however, that Pippin, King of the Franks and *Patricius Romanorum*, did not perform the political and military functions of either the Exarch or the Duke of Rome. From Pippin to Charlemagne, the Frankish kings, by assuming the patrician dignity, took on the protection of the Roman Church and the Papacy. The patrician is created “in whatever manner—by the pope, but does not depend on him; Stephen II says *a Deo institutus* [instituted by God].” The patrician has rights of intervention, which amount to duties of intervention: and this is not, as some believe, linked only to extraordinary circumstances. The authority of the pope is not diminished by that of the patrician, but rather strengthened. Moreover, the creation of the Franco-Roman patrician allowed the Roman Church to escape, as far as papal elections were concerned, imperial control: from Pope Paul I in 757 onwards, the Franco-patrician was merely informed of the election having taken place, without waiting for confirmation or approval; indeed, while Paul I made the announcement before the consecration, Leo III did so only after, without raising objections from Charlemagne.
The Franco-Roman patrician also had relations with the population of Rome; the letter of the Senate and people of Rome to Pippin in 737 recalls the admonition from the king-patrician to remain faithful to the blessed Peter, to the Church, and to Pope Paul I: assurance is given in this regard “because he (the Pope) is our father and excellent shepherd”; they will therefore be faithful to him; but in various letters the Romans say they are also “faithful” to the patrician, and it is known that oaths of fidelity were sworn by various cities of the Patrimony to the patrician. And perhaps from now on the term patrician was used as a geographical-political term, equivalent to the Patrimony of St. Peter, as found in the *Regesto di Farfa* (vol. V, p. 193, no. 1116): “within the Lombard kingdom or within the *patriciatus Romanorum* [Patrician of the Romans].”
In substance, however, the office of the patrician was to protect the Roman Church. Charlemagne, writing in 796 to the new Pope Leo III, speaks of the *pactum* he had made with his predecessor Adrian and expresses his intention to enter into an inviolable “*fœdus fidei et charitatis*” [covenant of faith and charity] with him. Yet it should not be believed that in 796 there was a modification of the patrician authority; the content of Charlemagne’s dignity is the same as Pippin’s: “devout defender of the holy Church and humble helper.” The popes, in their correspondence with Pippin and his sons, regularly call them “king and patrician.” Pippin does not seem to have used this title; Charles, however, gladly bore it in 774; his entry into Rome took place with the traditional ceremonial for the entries of the imperial exarch; in 799 his intervention in Rome in defense of Leo III is to be attributed to his patrician authority. In 781, Charles had brought with him to Rome his two sons Pippin and Louis, who were consecrated and made patricians by Adrian I; indeed, there are documents in which Pippin is called King of the Lombards and *patricius Romanorum*.
The imperial coronation of 800 caused the title of patrician to disappear from the Carolingian protocol. It was not, however, forgotten: the actions of the Carolingian emperors in Rome are perhaps to be traced more to the patrician authority than to imperial authority. There are some hints: Amalarius, Bishop of Trier, in 811, writes to Charlemagne calling him emperor, king, and *patricius Romanorum*; in 872, Adrian II writes to Charles the Bald, wishing him to be duke, king, *patricius*, and emperor; John VIII, writing to Boso in 879, calls him “just patrician.”
The dignity of *Patricius Romanorum* reappears in the 10th century with Alberic II of the house of Theophylact. In truth, he used the title of “Prince of the Romans,” but various sources call him *Patricius Romanorum*; the coins on which he is said to assume the title of “patricius” are not reliable. Marozia is sometimes also called “patricius.” It cannot be excluded that Alberic II called himself patrician: in this case, the dignity would have assumed a value quite different from the Carolingian patrician; it would have been something opposed to the Papacy. Various German sources state that Otto I was created in Rome not only emperor but also patrician: “*patricius atque imperator* [patrician and emperor] *apostolica benedicere creatus* [created to be blessed by the apostolic see].” Otto III would also have been crowned emperor and patrician in 996. However, for the Ottonian period, there is no absolute certainty regarding this revival of the patrician as an imperial dignity. Instead, perhaps in connection with the Alberician one, in 975 the patrician reappears as a high urban magistracy in the family of the Crescentii. In 975, there is “Benedictus patricius,” cousin of Crescentius; in 985, there is *Patricius* John, son of Crescentius I, until about 993; then John II, son of Crescentius, between 1006 and 1011. The Crescentian patrician has given rise to much discussion; Gregorovius considered it a manifestation of anti-papal sentiment; Bossi traces it back to imperial, either Ottonian or Byzantine, dependence; Borino, with good reasons, affirms its character as a papal magistracy: “*patricius Domini Apostolici*” [patrician of the Lord Apostle], with a reservation made for John II. Between the two Johns of Crescentius, a patrician of clear imperial derivation is inserted with a “Ziarius patricius,” a faithful minister of Otto III, who would thus have had the urban patrician under his authority.
The house of Theophilactus regained power in Rome after 1012, but it does not appear to have exploited the dignity of patrician; however, according to Bonizo, Benedict IX would have granted it to his brother Gregory of Tusculum. The memory of this dignity was not lost in this period: the *Grapha aurea urbis Romae*, drawing on various sources, preserves a legal and moral profile of the «patricius Romanorum» in which the Byzantine and Carolingian patricians are united. This explains why in 1046 Henry II, having come to Rome for his imperial coronation, ensured that the Roman nobles of the imperial faction conferred upon him the honor of the patriciate: he donned the traditional green mantle and placed upon his head the *aureum circumdam primamatica*. Similarly, in 1061, the Roman nobles again sent to the young Henry IV the *aureum circumdam* of the patriciate, along with the ring, mitre, and *claumide*, symbols of the dignity. Bonizo explains this by saying that Henry III believed that «per patricius ordinem se Romanum posse ordinare pontificem». Whether the patrician had the right to direct or control the election of the popes was a matter hotly debated during the Investiture Controversy between imperialists and curialists. In 1076, Henry IV, to compel Gregory VII to abandon the usurped papacy, openly invoked the right that the patrician of the Urbe possessed, to which he had been elevated by the will of God and the consent of the Romans.
The patrician reappears in Rome in the 12th century: according to William of Malmesbury, when Henry V was in Rome in 1111, the Roman nobles hastened to crown him with the golden patrician circlet; according to Peter the Deacon, the same occurred for Lothair III in 1133. It does not appear that other emperors subsequently assumed the Roman patriciate. Instead, in 1144, the anti-papal Roman renewal revived the patrician as an urban magistracy of the Crescentian type, but with an anti-papal character: the people (or the nobles?) created Jordan of Pierleone as patrician. Yet by 1145, the Senate’s agreement with Eugenius III led to the abolition of the patrician, while the prefecture was restored as a papal magistracy.