Definition of Papal States

The power of the Roman Catholic Church has been and is, for centuries, great. But there was a time when, to divine power, this also added an earthly power, centered on the Italian peninsula and with Rome as the epicenter, which we know as the States Pontifical.

The Papal States were the territories under the direct administration of the Catholic Church as a government, with the Pope as head of state, from 751 to 1870, with the Italian conquest within the framework of the reunification.

We must look for the beginning of the Papal States in the Lombard conquest of Ravenna - a city that would be the capital of the Lombard kingdom, as it had previously been in the Roman empire-, which led the Pope to initially assume power in the Duchy of Rome, although his temporal dominions were would be expanded in the future, to include a strip of land that divided the Italian Peninsula into two.

Initially, the struggle with the kingdom of the Lombards marked the future of the Papal States, which for their protection needed to agree with the

Byzantine Empire, a power that then maintained all the vigor that the Roman Empire had bequeathed to it.

However, the agreement with the Byzantines was uncomfortable for the papacy, since then the East and the West already showed subtle differences in their respective forms of worship.

The help requested from Byzantium, and which hardly received a response, was the excuse for the papacy to approach the kingdom of the Franks, a relationship that would lead him to depend on this and his successor France in the following centuries.

Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne, was the first to help the Pope, support that he saw rewarded with the recognition of his dynasty. Pepin also endowed, after a brief military campaign, the church with a good part of what would be his future territories in Italy.

His son Charlemagne would be recognized as emperor, going one step further by ridding the Papal States of the threat Lombarda. In addition, the Papal States were under the authority imperial, with the Pope as feudal lord of said domains, owing vassalage to the emperor (Charlemagne and his successors).

After the Frankish Kingdom, the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire inherited the power of this entity in Europe, establishing itself at the same time as the protector of the papacy and its earthly dominions.

The Papal States always maintained a love-hate relationship with their protector, since the latter was always politically convenient for his position as protector of the Papacy, while the Pope always tried to minimize his power in order to exercise greater control over his dominions and over the rest of the kingdoms of the Christendom.

Likewise, the territories that at one time or another were part of this entity politics, were also always appetizing for those who tried to conquer Italy or maintain interests territorial / geostrategic in the peninsula, which, in a troubled time, led the papacy to maintain several conflicts, both diplomats and military.

At the same time, the papacy and the church also had to cope with internal tensions, both in the city itself of Rome, as in other parts of its territories, the result of the atomization in multiple kingdoms that gave rise to the middle Ages, and to pressure from local aristocracies.

A turning point in papal politics is marked by Alexander VI, Pope Borgia, who decides to create a strong state around his authority to bequeath it to one of his sons, thus creating a family dynasty that will reign in the name of power papal.

Although these intentions did not survive beyond the Borgia papacy, they profoundly marked history, and made this one of the most interesting periods in ecclesial history.

It was also necessary to resort to force of arms to return to the control of the Pope the territories of which the Borgias had taken over with French military aid.

It is precisely at this time that French and Spanish interventionism, both military and diplomatic, and with the clear objective of obtaining territories and influencing politically in the Italian Peninsula, it is felt more.

During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, France had no qualms about attacking the Papal States within the framework of Napoleon's Italian campaigns, in conjunction with the Italian revolutionaries, who came to proclaim a republic in Rome.

However, in this troubled time, the papacy knew how to survive politically, and Pope Pius VII himself crowned Napoleon emperor in Paris in 1804.

This, however, did not deprive Napoleon of wresting the pope's earthly dominions from him in 1809, which were returned to him after the defeat of the Corsican in 1814. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the papal possessions were recognized by the victorious states of the Napoleonic Wars.

Despite the survival of the Papal States in the framework of the victory of the old order, the achievements obtained by the French Revolution for the civilian population, and subsequent revolutionary outbreaks, did not pass by the territory papal.

Thus, and apart from some local attempts in cities of the Papal States that could be controlled through the help of Austria and France -with the approval of the other powers-, the movement Italian unification would be the one that would add the finishing touch to the earthly power of the Pope.

Can you imagine the Italian army bombing Rome? Well, that happened in 1870.

The Papal States had seen their territory progressively reduced to the city of Rome, which was taken in that year by Italian troops, after the Withdrawal of the French forces that protected the Pope due to the Gallic defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.

However, and although the conquest of Rome left the Pope without his own territorial space, and this meant the end of the Papal States, the Pope declared himself prisoner in his own city and refused to recognize the Kingdom of Italy, even going so far as to recommend to the Catholic faithful not to vote in the elections of that country.

The conflict situation between Italy and the papacy was resolved by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1929 through the so-called Lateran Pacts.

Through these, the papacy recognized Italy as a country, and this allowed it to enjoy its own territory, which is what we know today as Vatican City.

This is an enclave in the middle of Rome, of about 44 hectares, which Italy recognizes as a state -as well as most of the rest of the world's states - which is the smallest independent country in the world. world.

Photos: Fotolia - Railwayfx / Speedfighter

Issues in Papal States