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Papal States
The Papal States (/ˈpeɪpəl/ PAY-pəl; Italian: Stato Pontificio; Latin: Dicio Pontificia), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the unification of Italy, which took place between 1859 and 1870, culminating in their demise.
The state was legally established in the 8th century when Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, gave Pope Stephen II, as a temporal sovereign, lands formerly held by Arian Christian Lombards, adding them to lands and other real estate formerly acquired and held by the bishops of Rome as landlords from the time of Constantine onward. This donation came about as part of a process whereby the popes began to turn away from the Byzantine emperors as their foremost temporal guardians for reasons such as increased imperial taxes, disagreement with respect to iconoclasm, and failure of the emperors, or their exarchs in Italy, to protect Rome and the rest of the peninsula from barbarian invasion and pillage.
During the Renaissance, the papal territory expanded greatly, and the pope became one of Italy's most important rulers as well as the head of Western Christianity. At their zenith, the Papal States covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio (which includes Rome), Marche, Umbria, Romagna, and portions of Emilia. The popes' reign over these lands was an exemplification of their temporal powers as secular rulers, as opposed to their ecclesiastical primacy.
By 1860, much of the Papal States' territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, except Lazio, which remained under the pope's control. By 1870, only the Leonine City within Rome was retained, the Italian kingdom refraining from occupying it militarily, despite its annexation. In 1929, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, the head of the Italian government, ended the "Prisoner in the Vatican" period by negotiating the Lateran Treaty, signed by the two parties. This treaty acknowledged the sovereignty of the Holy See over a newly created territorial entity, a city-state within Rome limited to a token territory, the Vatican City, with the pope as its sovereign.
The Papal States were also known as the Papal State; although the plural is usually preferred, the singular is equally correct as the polity was more than a mere personal union. The territories were referred to variously as the State(s) of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, the Patrimony of St Peter or the Roman States (Italian: Stato Pontificio, also Stato della Chiesa, Stati della Chiesa, Stati Pontifici, and Stato Ecclesiastico; Latin: Status Pontificius, also Dicio Pontificia "papal rule"). To some extent, the name used varied with the preferences and habits of the European languages in which it was expressed.
For its first 300 years, within the Roman Empire, the Church was persecuted and unable to hold or transfer property. Early congregations met in rooms set aside for the purpose in the homes of wealthy adherents, and a number of titular churches located on the outskirts of Rome were held as property by individuals, rather than by any corporate body. Nonetheless, the property held nominally or actually by individual members of the Roman churches would usually be treated as a common patrimony handed over successively to the legitimate "heir" of that property, often its senior deacons, who were, in turn, assistants to the local bishop. This common patrimony became quite considerable, including as it did not only houses etc. in Rome or nearby but also landed estates, such as latifundia, whole or in part, across Italy and beyond.
A law of Constantine the Great, promulgated in 321, allowed the Christian Church to possess property and restored to it any property formerly confiscated; in the larger cities of this empire the property restored would have been quite considerable, the Roman patrimony not least among them. The Lateran Palace was gifted to the patrimony, most probably from Constantine himself.
Other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. However, the Roman Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, not as a sovereign entity. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the papacy found itself increasingly placed in a precarious and vulnerable position. As central Roman authority disintegrated throughout the late 5th century, control over the Italian peninsula repeatedly changed hands, falling under the Arian suzerainty of Odoacer in 473, and in 493, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. The Ostrogothic kings would continue to rule much of Italy until 554. The Roman Church submitted of necessity to their sovereign authority, while asserting its spiritual primacy over the whole of Christendom.
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Papal States
The Papal States (/ˈpeɪpəl/ PAY-pəl; Italian: Stato Pontificio; Latin: Dicio Pontificia), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th century until the unification of Italy, which took place between 1859 and 1870, culminating in their demise.
The state was legally established in the 8th century when Pepin the Short, king of the Franks, gave Pope Stephen II, as a temporal sovereign, lands formerly held by Arian Christian Lombards, adding them to lands and other real estate formerly acquired and held by the bishops of Rome as landlords from the time of Constantine onward. This donation came about as part of a process whereby the popes began to turn away from the Byzantine emperors as their foremost temporal guardians for reasons such as increased imperial taxes, disagreement with respect to iconoclasm, and failure of the emperors, or their exarchs in Italy, to protect Rome and the rest of the peninsula from barbarian invasion and pillage.
During the Renaissance, the papal territory expanded greatly, and the pope became one of Italy's most important rulers as well as the head of Western Christianity. At their zenith, the Papal States covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio (which includes Rome), Marche, Umbria, Romagna, and portions of Emilia. The popes' reign over these lands was an exemplification of their temporal powers as secular rulers, as opposed to their ecclesiastical primacy.
By 1860, much of the Papal States' territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, except Lazio, which remained under the pope's control. By 1870, only the Leonine City within Rome was retained, the Italian kingdom refraining from occupying it militarily, despite its annexation. In 1929, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, the head of the Italian government, ended the "Prisoner in the Vatican" period by negotiating the Lateran Treaty, signed by the two parties. This treaty acknowledged the sovereignty of the Holy See over a newly created territorial entity, a city-state within Rome limited to a token territory, the Vatican City, with the pope as its sovereign.
The Papal States were also known as the Papal State; although the plural is usually preferred, the singular is equally correct as the polity was more than a mere personal union. The territories were referred to variously as the State(s) of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, the Patrimony of St Peter or the Roman States (Italian: Stato Pontificio, also Stato della Chiesa, Stati della Chiesa, Stati Pontifici, and Stato Ecclesiastico; Latin: Status Pontificius, also Dicio Pontificia "papal rule"). To some extent, the name used varied with the preferences and habits of the European languages in which it was expressed.
For its first 300 years, within the Roman Empire, the Church was persecuted and unable to hold or transfer property. Early congregations met in rooms set aside for the purpose in the homes of wealthy adherents, and a number of titular churches located on the outskirts of Rome were held as property by individuals, rather than by any corporate body. Nonetheless, the property held nominally or actually by individual members of the Roman churches would usually be treated as a common patrimony handed over successively to the legitimate "heir" of that property, often its senior deacons, who were, in turn, assistants to the local bishop. This common patrimony became quite considerable, including as it did not only houses etc. in Rome or nearby but also landed estates, such as latifundia, whole or in part, across Italy and beyond.
A law of Constantine the Great, promulgated in 321, allowed the Christian Church to possess property and restored to it any property formerly confiscated; in the larger cities of this empire the property restored would have been quite considerable, the Roman patrimony not least among them. The Lateran Palace was gifted to the patrimony, most probably from Constantine himself.
Other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. However, the Roman Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, not as a sovereign entity. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the papacy found itself increasingly placed in a precarious and vulnerable position. As central Roman authority disintegrated throughout the late 5th century, control over the Italian peninsula repeatedly changed hands, falling under the Arian suzerainty of Odoacer in 473, and in 493, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. The Ostrogothic kings would continue to rule much of Italy until 554. The Roman Church submitted of necessity to their sovereign authority, while asserting its spiritual primacy over the whole of Christendom.
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