ed to the Exarchate.
But, in the cooler moments of absence and reflection, he viewed, with
an eye of jealousy and envy, the recent greatness of his ecclesiastical
ally. The execution of his own and his father's promises was
respectfully eluded: the king of the Franks and Lombards asserted the
inalienable rights of the empire; and, in his life and death, Ravenna,
[66] as well as Rome, was numbered in the list of his metropolitan
cities. The sovereignty of the Exarchate melted away in the hands of the
popes; they found in the archbishops of Ravenna a dangerous and domestic
rival: [67] the nobles and people disdained the yoke of a priest; and
in the disorders of the times, they could only retain the memory of an
ancient claim, which, in a more prosperous age, they have revived and
realized.

[Footnote 62: Mosheim (Institution, Hist. Eccles. p. 263) weighs this
donation with fair and deliberate prudence. The original act has never
been produced; but the Liber Pontificalis represents, (p. 171,) and the
Codex Carolinus supposes, this ample gift. Both are contemporary records
and the latter is the more authentic, since it has been preserved, not
in the Papal, but the Imperial, library.]

[Footnote 63: Between the exorbitant claims, and narrow concessions, of
interest and prejudice, from which even Muratori (Antiquitat. tom. i. p.
63-68) is not exempt, I have been guided, in the limits of the Exarchate
and Pentapolis, by the Dissertatio Chorographica Italiae Medii Aevi,
tom. x. p. 160-180.]

[Footnote 64: Spoletini deprecati sunt, ut eos in servitio B. Petri
receperet et more Romanorum tonsurari faceret, (Anastasius, p. 185.)
Yet it may be a question whether they gave their own persons or their
country.]

[Footnote 65: The policy and donations of Charlemagne are carefully
examined by St. Marc, (Abrege, tom. i. p. 390-408,) who has well studied
the Codex Carolinus. I believe, with him, that they were only verbal.
The most ancient act of donation that pretends to be extant, is that of
the emperor Lewis the Pious, (Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iv. Opera,
tom. ii. p. 267-270.) Its authenticity, or at least its integrity, are
much questioned, (Pagi, A.D. 817, No. 7, &c. Muratori, Annali, tom.
vi. p. 432, &c. Dissertat. Chorographica, p. 33, 34;) but I see no
reasonable objection to these princes so freely disposing of what was
not their own.]

[Footnote 66: Charlemagne solicited and obtained from the proprietor,
Hadrian I.,