Theological tension probably converged with Lombard military pressure
to drive the papacy into the arms of the Franks: Pope Stephen II’s trip
across the Alps to seek Frankish intervention effectively put him and his
chief advisers out of Byzantine reach for the iconoclast council scheduled
in Constantinople for February 754. In any event, Pippin the Short’s twin
invasions of Italy in 754 and 756 signalled to Constantine V that his power
counted in the ancient territories over which Constantinople was reasserting
control (see below, p. 444). That Byzantium viewed the Franks in the
light of Italy emerges from every aspect of its diplomatic d´emarche to the
west: the embassy to Pippin followed his first intervention in Italy; John
silentiarios, one of the ambassadors, had headed previous negotiations with
the Lombards; he stopped at Rome to liaise with the pope before heading
on to Pippin’s court.77 Papal assertions to the contrary notwithstanding,
Constantine V’s efforts to woo the Franks for his version of an anti-Lombard
alliance clearly tempted the Franks and frightened the Romans. In May
757, Byzantine ambassadors pressed their case and presents, including an
organ, on Pippin’s court at a general assembly at Compi`egne. More than
simply symbolising superior technology, a Byzantine organ was a strictly
secular instrument used chiefly in ceremonies glorifying the emperor. Its
ostentatious presentation to the usurper king at the gathering of his unruly
magnates suggests that Byzantium curried royal favour by supplying the
means to magnify a nascent monarchy.78
In the last twelve years of his reign, Pippin’s frequent diplomatic contacts
with Constantinople provoked papal anxiety; the papacy tried to examine
Frankish correspondence with Byzantium and stressed the heretical character
of imperial theology. This explains for instance the staging of a theological
debate between imperial and papal representatives at Gentilly in 767.
The popes supplied Pippin’s court with specialists who could advise him on
the Byzantines. To papal horror, Pippin solidified his Byzantine relations
by betrothing his daughter Gisela to Constantine V’s son.79 But the fragile
Frankish political consensus which had allowed intervention in Italy disintegrated
with the king’s death. The Frankish aristocracy turned inwards to
the succession of Pippin the Short’s sons, Charlemagne and Carloman, as
Italy and Byzantium receded to the far periphery of Carolingian politics.
Yet this very succession issue triggered decisive Frankish intervention in
Italy. Among the reasons spurring Charlemagne to invade the Lombard
kingdom in 773, the escape of Carloman’s wife and sons to her father’s capital
of Pavia after Charlemagne pounced on his dead brother’s kingdom was
critical. Carloman’s kin residing at the Lombard court in Pavia constituted a
permanent threat to Charlemagne. The papacy’s position appears ambivalent.
It had worked hard to foster warm relations with the Carolingians and
benefited from the virtual Frankish protectorate in northern Italy. But for
all its differences with the emperors, Rome continued formally to recognise
imperial sovereignty.80 In fact, the year before Charlemagne’s invasion, Pope
Hadrian I was comfortable enough with the iconoclast regime to send his
political enemies to Constantinople for safekeeping.81 In any event, Charlemagne’s
conquest of Pavia brought renewed relations with Constantinople.
A marriage alliance was resurrected and formally concluded in Rome in
781; the eunuch official Elissaios was dispatched to Charlemagne’s court
to prepare his daughter Rotrud for her new life as a Byzantine empress.82
Rome again faced the disturbing prospect of its two major partners making
arrangements over its head, when Pope Hadrian responded cautiously but
positively to Empress Irene’s overtures in 784 and 785 about restoring icons
and doctrinal – and therefore political? – unity.83
The second Frankish–Byzantine entente was short-lived. Why it collapsed
is unclear. Einhard claims that Charlemagne simply could not bear
to lose his daughter and torpedoed the alliance. It is no less likely that the
Franks had inherited the Lombard kingdom’s conflicts with Constantinople
– notably in the Adriatic, where Venice already presented an inviting
target – and the Lombard assimilation of Byzantine Istria was pursued.84
To the south, the allegiance of the powerful duchy of Benevento oscillated.
Charlemagne’s efforts to impose his overlordship met with patchy
success, and the policies of the dukes there and in Bavaria – both of whom
had married sisters of Adelchis, the Lombard co-king who had escaped to
Constantinople – were unpredictable. Hadrian’s growing disillusionment
with Frankish domination can be read in his constant, vain entreaties to
Charlemagne to fulfil his part of the bargain struck by his father.85
The break came early in 787, when Charlemagne met with Byzantine
ambassadors at Capua, even as he reasserted his authority over the Beneventans.
Hadrian frantically relayed reports of Beneventan collusion with
an impending Byzantine invasion which would restore Adelchis. The invasion
occurred early in 788; it coincided – perhaps not coincidentally – with
attacks by the Bavarians and Avars. The Byzantine expeditionary force
expected aid from Benevento. But the new duke sided with the Franks and
the imperial troops were crushed in Calabria. Alcuin of York boasted that
4,000 Byzantines were killed and another 1,000 captured. Among the latter
was Sisinnios, Patriarch Tarasios’ (784–806) brother, who would spend the
next decade in western captivity. The Byzantine defeat secured the Frankish
position in Italy and left relations with Constantinople at a standstill.86
There was a complication. Even as Byzantine forces and the Lombard
king were disembarking to drive the Franks from Italy, Hadrian’s ambassadors
were en route or just back home from Constantinople with their
copy of the Acts of the second council of Nicaea (787). The Greek text
of the proceedings proclaimed the perfect unity of the Byzantine rulers
and the pope on icon-veneration, punctuated by the usual acclamations of
imperial power; the whole, of course, signed and approved by papal legates.
To make matters worse, the Greek text had silently excised references to
Charlemagne (and the papal patrimonies) from its quotations of Hadrian’s
correspondence with the emperors.87 Exactly when Charlemagne and his
advisers learned about all this is unclear. Their reaction is not: it can be
read in the enraged pages of the Libri Carolini. Although papal opposition
ultimately forced the Frankish court to abandon the treatise, more accurately
called the Opus Caroli regis contra synodum, this theological assault
on the second ecumenical council of Nicaea was clearly about more than
pure doctrine.88
Hadrian’s relations with Charlemagne survived this crisis, but the Frankish
court persisted in a modified version of its iconoclast views as the council
of Frankfurt (794) shows, and the court of the next pope, Leo III (795–816),
made its differing opinion known to the Roman public and visitors by raising
huge icons in the city’s main pilgrim shrines. In the south, Byzantium
recouped its position somewhat by marrying the emperor Constantine VI’s
sister-in-law Evanthia to the duke of Benevento.89 Starting again in 797,
Byzantium attempted to normalise relations with the increasingly powerful
Charlemagne, whose contacts with the caliphate and Byzantine milieux
in Palestine could scarcely have escaped Constantinople’s notice.90 Two
more legations had arrived at the Frankish court by late 798. But the crisis
in Rome pre-empted whatever was cooking between the two courts,
and Charlemagne’s actions in subsequent months appeared hostile. The
Frankish crackdown which restored Pope Leo III was soon followed by the
famous visit to Rome at Christmas 800.91
In Constantinople, Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor naturally
appeared as the latest in a long series of Italian usurpations, the most recent
of which had occurred only nineteen years before, and it was believed an
invasion of Sicily would soon follow.92 When this did not materialise,
Irene (797–802) continued her contacts and two of Charlemagne’s righthand
men travelled to Constantinople, according to a Byzantine witness,
in order to discuss a marriage between the new emperor and the increasingly
beleaguered empress.93 Irene was toppled, however, and subsequent
contacts led nowhere, as Charlemagne’s imperial pretensions poisoned an
atmosphere of increasing hostility. Again Italy supplied the kindling, as an
internal power struggle inVenice spilled over into Frankish politics: the new
Venetian leaders and two key officials of Byzantine Dalmatia shifted their
allegiance to Charlemagne in 805. The result was Charlemagne’s second
war with Byzantium, which ended only when the Franks, whose Adriatic
successes were mitigated by naval defeat and the death of Charlemagne’s
son, renounced their claim to Venice. In return Byzantine ambassadors
acclaimed Charlemagne as basileus – without specifying of what or whom –
in the new chapel of Aachen. Byzantine silver coins henceforth entitled
their rulers basileis Romaion: ‘emperors of the Romans’ (see fig. 28).94 This
compromise would govern the two powers’ basic modus vivendi for over a
quarter of a century.
The compromise facilitated some military co-ordination in Italy. Arab
raids increasingly menaced the peninsula’s western coast, and the pope was
able to act as intermediary between the Byzantine governor of Sicily and
Charlemagne. Border disputes along the western Balkans were the subject
of two Byzantine missions in 817. But the crisis of the Carolingian political
structure that overtook Louis the Pious’ court interrupted the progress
realised by the missions of 824 and 827, aimed at a deepened diplomatic
and theological union. Further embassies in 833, 839 and the early 840s
found the Franks enmeshed in civil war and a looming succession crisis,
which dashed Theophilos’ hopes of Frankish military support.95
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