27. The Forged Donation

In 778, Pope Adrian I made a remarkable historical claim in a letter to Charlemagne, referencing how Emperor Constantine had granted the western Roman Empire to the papacy centuries earlier. What Adrian didn't mention was that this "Donation of Constantine" was a complete fabrication - one of history's most successful frauds. This episode explores how a forged medieval document became the legal foundation for papal territorial claims and shaped European politics for nearly 700 years, despite its obviously fabricated nature.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Calarogu shark media. In seven hundred seventy eight, Pope Adrian
first sat in his study in the Lateran Palace, carefully
composing a letter to the most powerful ruler in Western Europe. Charlemagne,
King of the Franks, had proven himself a formidable ally,

(00:24):
but also an independent partner who made his own decisions
about church affairs. Adrian needed something more compelling than mere
requests to secure Charlemagne's continued generosity to the Roman Church.
In his letter, Adrian made a remarkable historical claim. He
reminded Charlemagne how, in the times of Blessed sylvest the

(00:45):
Roman Pontiff, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church was
elevated and exalted by the most pious Emperor Constantine the
Great through his generosity, and he deigned to grant power
in these western regents. The Pope was referencing a document
that supposedly proved Constantine had given the Western Roman Empire
to the papacy three centuries earlier. What Adrian did not

(01:09):
mention was that this document had never existed in Constantine's time.
It was a forgery created sometime in the previous decades
by unknown hands in the papal chancery. Yet this fabricated
Donation of Constantine would become one of the most influential
documents in medieval history, shaping papal claims to temporal power

(01:29):
for nearly seven hundred years. Today we explore how a
forged document became the legal foundation for papal territorial claims
and temporal authority, and how medieval fraud created lasting political realities.
This is White Smoke, Episode twenty eight. The Forge Donation.

(01:50):
The document known as the Donation of Constantine purported to
be an imperial decree issued by Emperor Constantine the Great
sometime between the years THID three fifteen and three seventeen,
addressed to Pope Sylvester the First. Like many effective forgeries,
it mixed genuine historical elements with fabricated claims to create
a plausible narrative that served specific political purposes. The forged

(02:17):
document consisted of two main sections. The first, titled Confessio,
told the story of Constantine's conversion to Christianity. According to
this fabricated account, Constantine had been afflicted with leprosy that
no physician could cure. Pope Sylvester miraculously healed the emperor
through baptism, leading to Constantine's conversion and his desire to

(02:38):
reward the Church for this divine intervention. The second section
the Donaccio Proper, contained the supposed imperial grants Constantine allegedly
bestowed upon Sylvester and his successors supremacy over the major
Christian centres of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. More significantly,

(03:00):
he granted the pope temporal authority over Rome, Italy, and
all the western provinces of the Roman Empire, along with
imperial insignia, including the right to wear a crown and
purple robes. The donation of Constantine represented a sophisticated attempt
to provide legal and historical justification for papal temporal claims,
explains doctor Christopher Coleman, specialist in medieval documentary forgery. By

(03:26):
grounding papal authority in an imperial grant rather than purely
spiritual foundations, the forgers created a secular legal basis for
Church territorial control that could compete with other temporal authorities.
The document's fabrication reflected several important political realities of eighth
century Italy. The Byzantine Empire's control over Italian territories was weakening,

(03:49):
creating opportunities for new authorities to assert territorial claims. The
Lombard Kingdom posed a continuing threat to papal independence, making
protecttion from Frankish allies essential. The rising power of the
Carolingian dynasty offered potential partnership, but also demanded justification for
papal territorial autonomy. The Forged Donation addressed all these challenges

(04:13):
by creating a legal precedent for papal territorial control that
predated any competing claims. If Constantine had legitimately granted Western
imperial authority to the Papacy, then Byzantine, Lombard, or Frankish
claims to Italian territories could be dismissed as violations of
established papal rights. The timing of the document's creation, most

(04:37):
likely during the Pontificate of Stephen in the seven hundred fifties,
coincided perfectly with the papal alliance with Peep In the
short Stephen's desperate journey across the Alps to seek Frankish
protection had resulted in Papin's promise to grant conquered Lombard
territories to the Church. The donation provided historical justification for

(04:57):
these territorial grants by suggesting that represented restoration of ancient
papal rights rather than new political arrangements. The first documented
use of the donation occurred during this crucial period of
papal Frankish negotiations. While no direct evidence proved Stephen presented
the document to Pepin during their meetings, the timing suggests

(05:18):
its creation was connected to these territorial negotiations. Pepin, who
was largely illiterate, would have been unable to evaluate the
document's authenticity and would have had little reason to question
papal historical claims. The effectiveness of the forgery depended on
several factors that made verification difficult. In the eighth century,

(05:39):
few people possessed the linguistic skills to evaluate the document's
Latin style or identify anachronistic terms that revealed its medieval origin.
Even fewer had access to fourth century imperial documents that
might have revealed the forgeries inconsistencies with genuine Constantinian decrees.

(06:06):
The donation's most significant early use came in Adrian the
First's correspondence with Charlemagne during the seven hundred seventies. Adrian's
letter of seven hundred seventy eight represented the first certain
reference to the document by a reigning pope, though he
alluded to it indirectly rather than citing it explicitly. This
careful approach suggests Adrian understood the document's questionable nature while

(06:30):
recognizing its political utility. Adrian's strategic use of the donation
reflected the complex relationship between papal spiritual authority and temporal claims.
As spiritual leader of Western Christianity, the pope commanded respect
and loyalty from Christian rulers. However, as territorial rulers seeking

(06:50):
to maintain independence from secular powers, he needed legal justifications
that could compete with imperial, royal and ducal claims to
Italian lands. Adrian's references to Constantine's supposed grants represented a
sophisticated diplomatic strategy, notes Dr. Thomas Noble. By invoking historical
precedent rather than making direct territorial demands, he positioned papal

(07:14):
claims as restoration of ancient rights rather than new political ambitions.
This approach was more likely to gain Frankish support than
outright requests for territorial concessions. Charlemagne's response to Adrian's historical
claims revealed the document's limitations as a diplomatic tool. The
Frankish king simply ignored the papal references to Constantine's grants,

(07:38):
suggesting he either questioned their authenticity or considered them irrelevant
to contemporary political arrangements. Charlemagne's own vision of Christian Empire
left little room for papal temporal authority that might compete
with imperial prerogatives. This early failure demonstrated a crucial weakness
in the donation's political effectiveness. While the document to provide

(08:00):
legal justification for papal territorial claims, its practical impact depended
entirely on the willingness of secular authorities to accept its validity.
Rulers who questioned papal authority or possessed their own territorial
ambitions were unlikely to be impressed by ancient documents, however
impressive their apparent provenance. The donation's inclusion in the ninth

(08:23):
century collection known as the Falster Cretles marked a significant
development in its influence. This compilation of genuine and forged
church documents provided the fabricated Constantine decree with scholarly respectability
and wider circulation throughout the Frankish Empire. The documents association
with other apparently authentic papal decrees enhanced its credibility and

(08:47):
made questioning its authenticity more difficult. Yet, even within this
broader circulation, the donation's immediate impact remained limited. No pope
during the ninth or tenth centuries made official use of
the document, despite its obvious relevance to ongoing disputes with
secular authorities over territorial control and church independence. This papal

(09:09):
reluctance suggests continuing doubts about the document's authenticity or concerns
about the political risks of invoking obviously questionable historical claims.
The Donation's transformation from occasional diplomatic reference to foundational legal
document occurred during the eleventh century reform movements. Pope Leo

(09:29):
the Ninth became the first pontiff to cite the document
officially in ten fifty four, using extensive quotations to support
papal claims of supremacy over the Eastern churches. Significantly, Leo
was of German rather than Italian origin, suggesting that familiarity
with the document had spread throughout the Empire's scholarly networks.

(09:51):
Leo's dramatic use of the donation contributed directly to the
Great Schism of ten fifty four, when Eastern and Western
Christianity permanently separate his claims of papal supremacy over Constantinople
and other Eastern patriarchates based partly on the forged Constantine grants.
Outraged Byzantine church leaders who rejected both papal authority and

(10:14):
the document's historical authenticity, Leo the Ninth's invocation of the
Donation of Constantine marked a watershed in papal political strategy,
explains doctor Rosamond McKitterick. By officially citing the document in
correspondence with Constantinople, he transformed a quietly circulated forgery into
a public legal claim that would shape Church state relations

(10:36):
for centuries to come. The document's effectiveness during this period
reflected changed political circumstances that made its claims more credible.
The Byzantine Empire's weakness in Italy had eliminated the primary
alternative to papal territorial authority. The Holy Roman Empire's struggles
with internal divisions created opportunities for papal assertion of independence.

(11:00):
The growing sophistication of church legal scholarship provided frameworks for
incorporating the donation into systematic theories of papal power. During
the Investiture Controversy of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries,
the donation became a standard weapon in papal arguments against
imperial authority over church affairs. Reforming popes like Gregory seven

(11:23):
invoked Constantine's supposed grants to argue that imperial power itself
derived from papal sanction, since the first Christian emperor had
acknowledged papal supremacy by transferring temporal authority to the church.
These arguments represented a fundamental transformation of the document's purpose.
Where Adrian the First had used Constantine references to justify

(11:46):
specific territorial claims, Reform era popes employed the donation to
assert theoretical supremacy over all temporal authority. The forgery had
evolved from a diplomatic tool into a constitutional document. The
US redefined the relationship between spiritual and secular power. The
practical effectiveness of these expanded claims varied considerably depending on

(12:09):
political circumstances. Strong emperors like Henry the fourth largely ignored
papal invocations of the donation, relying instead on military force
and political alliances to maintain their authority. Weaker rulers, although
seeking papal support for their own legitimacy, were more willing
to acknowledge papal theoretical supremacy while maintaining practical independence. By

(12:34):
the thirteenth century, the Donation of Constantine had become firmly
embedded in church legal collections and theoretical frameworks. Canonists and
theologians routinely cited the document as proof of papal temporal authority,
while political theorists incorporated its claims into systematic theories of
government that subordinated secular to spiritual authority. The forgery had

(12:57):
achieved the status of established legal presses despite its fraudulent origins.
Yet even at the height of its influence, the Donation
faced periodic challenges from scholars and political opponents who questioned
its authenticity. Emperor Otto the Third's chancery had denied its
validity as early as the year one thousand, while various

(13:18):
intellectuals throughout the medieval period raised doubts about its linguistic
style and historical claims. These early criticisms remained largely isolated
until the Renaissance humanist movement created new scholarly approaches to
document analysis. Lorenzo VALA's definitive proof of the Donation's fraudulent
nature in fourteen thirty nine to fourteen forty represented the

(13:41):
culmination of centuries of growing skepticism about the document's authenticity.
VALA's linguistic analysis demonstrated that the document's Latin style belonged
to the eighth rather than fourth century, while his historical
research revealed numerous anachronisms that proved medieval rather than ancient composition.
His work represented a devastating blow to papal temporal claims

(14:05):
that had relied on the Donation's supposed authenticity for their
legal foundation. The exposure of the donation as a forgery
had profound implications that extended far beyond medieval politics. Protestant
reformers seized upon VALA's proof as evidence of papal corruption
and institutional fraud, using the document's fabrication to support broader

(14:27):
attacks on church authority and credibility. The scandal contributed to
growing demands for religious reform that would ultimately fragment Western Christianity.
Yet the practical impact of VALA's revelations remained limited. During
his lifetime, the Catholic Church placed his work on the
index of prohibited books and attempted to suppress discussion of

(14:48):
the donation's fraudulent nature. Papal territories established through centuries of
political development could not be simply dissolved by scholarly proof
that their original legal GJEF justification had been fabricated. The
Donation of Constantine thus represents one of history's most successful frauds,
a medieval forgery that shaped European political development for nearly

(15:11):
seven centuries despite its obviously fabricated nature. Its influence demonstrates
how historical documents can acquire authentic political force regardless of
their actual origins, and how legal precedents can become established
facts through repetition and acceptance rather than genuine validity. The
document's legacy continues to influence modern understanding of church state

(15:35):
relations and the complex relationship between legal authority and political power.
Its story reveals how ambitious medieval clerics transformed religious authority
into temporal control through careful documentation and persistent political pressure,
creating institutions that outlasted the fraudulent foundations upon which they

(15:55):
were originally built. White Smoke is a production of Caloroga
Shark Media, portions of which were made with the help
of a I narration