756
From the Liber
Pontificalis
An imperial
messenger hastened after the aforementioned most Christian king of the Franks (Pepin).
He found him within the Lombard borders, not far from the city of Pavia.
He urgently begged him, with the promise of many imperial gifts, to
surrender to the imperial authorities the city of Ravenna and the other cities
and fortified places of the Exarchate. But he was not able to persuade the
steadfast heart of that most Christian and benevolent king, who was faithful to
God and loved St. Peter, namely Pepin the king of the Franks, to surrender those
cities and places to the imperial authority. That same friend of God and most
benevolent king refused to alienate those cities from the power of St. Peter and
the jurisdiction of the Roman Church or from the pontiff of the apostolic see.
He affirmed under oath that he had not engaged in war so often to win the
favor of any man but for the love of St. Peter and for the remission of his
sins, and he declared that no enrichment of his treasury would persuade him to
snatch away what he had once offered to St. Peter...
Having acquired all these cities, he issued a document of
donation, for the perpetual possession of them by St. Peter and the Roman Church
and all the pontiffs of the apostolic see. This document is still preserved in the archives of our holy
church. The Most
Christian king of the Franks sent his counselor Fulrad, a venerable abbot and
priest, to receive the cities, and he himself at once set out happily with his
armies to return to France. The
said venerable abbot and priest, Fulrad,
came to the region of Ravenna with emissaries of King Aistulf, and, entering
all the cities of the Pentapolis and Emilia, he took possession of them and also
took hostages from among the leading men of each city and obtained the keys of
the city gates. Then he came to
Rome and, placing on the tomb of St. Peter the keys of Ravenna and of the
various other cities of the Exarchate together with the aforementioned donation
issued by his king concerning them, he handed them over to be owned and
controlled for all time by the apostle of God and by his most holy vicar the
pope and all his successors in the papacy...
(Adapted from Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1964)